Ex-Husker set for triple option

While in the early stages of planning a trip to Missouri for tonight's Husker game with the Tigers, Todd Fisher had a sudden realization.

There was not one game on which to focus his attention. Nor even two.

Fisher, you see, has three football-playing sons. And all three have a game tonight. What's more, Fisher helps coach one of them.

“I don't know what the statistical odds of that happening are, but it's got to be pretty high,'' he said.

Fisher, a former Husker cornerback himself, is the father of Sean, a redshirt freshman linebacker scheduled to start tonight for Nebraska. While much of the state is focused on the Huskers vs. the Tigers, Todd will be focused on sons Clay, a middle-schooler, and Cole, a junior at Millard North. Sean and the Huskers will be recorded for viewing later.

There was no agonizing over what to do for Fisher, who played for NU from 1981 to 1984. He has a job to do as defensive coordinator of 14-year-old Clay's Junior Mustangs squad. That's not a position you can just hand over to someone else. “We'll make it work,” he said.

Here's the plan:

--Start at Clay's 6 p.m. game at Jerry Parks Youth Football Complex at 16th Street and Ames Avenue in Carter Lake.

--When Clay's game ends, Todd and Clay will hustle to Buell Stadium at 149th and Q Streets where they'll meet up with Todd's wife, Cathy, for the remainder of Millard North's 7 p.m. game with Omaha North.

--Then, they'll make a beeline for home in hopes of seeing the end of the 8 p.m. Big 12 North showdown on TV.

Todd thinks they might just make it by halftime if they skip the Mustang Booster Club's postgame dinner.

“The jury is still out on that one,'' he said.

So how did this fix come about, on a Thursday of all days?

Cole and Millard North are playing tonight because Omaha Central and Millard West are using Buell on Friday. Clay is playing this evening because the Heartland Youth Football League needed another night to get in all of its games before Oct. 31. Sean and the Huskers are playing because the NU-Missouri game was switched to fill ESPN's Thursday night college football slot.

“That's the way it goes,'' Todd said. “You just make the best of it.''

Todd and Cathy, the parents of four sons, have avoided mega-football schedule conflicts in the past, partly because their oldest son, Ryan, a fifth-year architecture student at Iowa State, preferred baseball.

Cathy said football season is easy to keep track of, with each boy playing only one game a week, usually on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

She keeps a master schedule for baseball. One summer, when all four boys played, Todd and Cathy estimated they watched 240-some games.

“Heaven help you if you made one mistake,'' she said. “Then everybody is going in the wrong direction.''

In the future, there's no telling how many directions they'll be pulled in. The younger two appear to have lots of football ahead of them.

Cole, a starting safety for the Mustangs, has drawn some early recruiting interest from such schools as NU, Kansas and Notre Dame.

Clay, who plays safety and quarterback, might be the most physically gifted of the four brothers at the junior high age, after years of trying to keep up with his older brothers.

“I don't know what we'll do when they are all done with it,'' Cathy said. “Hopefully, that will be years from now.''

Now, they just want to make it through tonight.

“This just happens to be the one single night they are all going to do their thing,'' Todd said. “It will be a pretty crazy night.''

Contact the writer:

444-1034, marjie.ducey@owh.com

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