Kelly Vyhnalek (19), is the oldest of three, and is from Seward, Nebraska. Kelly is a current sophomore at Concordia University Nebraska (CUNE), and a member of the basketball team. His journey to get to Concordia is a rather interesting one.

When asked about his choice to stay in Seward for college, he replied: “It just felt comfortable in Seward. I enjoy the town and enjoy the fact that I can see my family whenever I want to, they can come to all of my games which is also a huge plus.” “I also really liked Coach Limback, and it seemed like he recruited me the hardest out of every coach, which was nice.” Kelly chose Concordia over other schools such as Nebraska Wesleyan, Morningside, Midland, Nebraska-Kearney, and Rockhurst.

Basketball played a huge factor in where Kelly wanted to go to college, and one person who was right in the middle of that process was his high school coach, Mark Cidlik. “Recruiting really started to take off for him during the summer before his senior year,” says Cidlik. “He got offers from every GPAC school in about a two- week time period, and really blew up after that.”
When Cidlik was asked about whether or not Kelly made the right choice of school, he replied: “I think Concordia was the right fit for him basketball-wise. He is a 6’7” guard who is able to shoot it from the outside, any player like that will be able to thrive in the NAIA, especially in an offensive system like Concordia.”

Family was another huge impact on where Kelly chose to go to college, and one family member in particular was especially excited about it. Jack Vyhnalek, the brother of Kelly, is 12 years old and goes to school at Seward Middle School. When he was asked about what his thoughts on Kelly staying home for college, he was elated: “I was super excited when I found out Kelly was going to Concordia. I like going to all of his games, and they are all close to home which is nice.” If you attend a Concordia basketball game in Seward, you most likely will be able to spot the Vyhnalek family in the crowd somewhere.

The home crowd at Concordia games is “electric” in Kelly’s words. “It is so cool seeing a bunch of familiar faces in the stands that have been watching me play ever since high school.” says Vyhnalek. “I try my best to represent those people and the community of Seward every time I walk onto the court.”

Entering his sophomore season, Kelly is expected to make a leap for the Bulldogs this season. It will be exciting to see how both he, and Concordia fair in the GPAC this season.

Article 4

10.24.20

Bryson Janousek

            Kelly Vyhnalek (19), is the oldest of three, and is from Seward, Nebraska. Kelly is a current sophomore at Concordia University Nebraska (CUNE), and a member of the basketball team. When asked about his choice to stay in Seward for college, he replied: “It just felt comfortable in Seward. I enjoy the town and enjoy the fact that I can see my family whenever I want to, they can come to all of my games which is also a huge plus.”

Basketball played a huge factor in where Kelly wanted to go to college, and one person who was right in the middle of that process was his high school coach, Mark Cidlik. “Recruiting really started to take off for him during the summer before his senior year,” says Cidlik. “He got offers from every GPAC school in about a two-week time period, and really blew up after that.” When Cidlik was asked about whether or not Kelly made the right choice of school, he replied: “I think Concordia was the right fit for him basketball-wise. He is a 6’7” guard who is able to shoot it from the outside, any player like that will be able to thrive in the NAIA, especially in an offensive system like Concordia.”

Family was another huge impact on where Kelly chose to go to college, and one family member in particular was especially excited about it. Jack Vyhnalek, the brother of Kelly, is 12 years old and goes to school at Seward Middle School. When he was asked about what his thoughts on Kelly staying home for college, he was elated: “I was super excited when I found out Kelly was going to Concordia. I like going to all of his games, and they are all close to home which is nice.” If you attend a Concordia basketball game in Seward, you most likely will be able to spot the Vyhnalek family in the crowd somewhere.

Entering his sophomore season, Kelly is expected to make a leap for the Bulldogs this season. It will be exciting to see how both he, and Concordia fair in the GPAC this season.

https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/mavericks/2020/11/18/mavericks-select-tyrell-terry-with-no-31-overall-pick-in-nba-draft/#:~:text=With%20the%20No.%2031%20overall,2019%2D20%20college%20basketball%20season.

In the 2nd round of the 2020 NBA Draft, the first overall pick belonged to the Dallas Mavericks. With this pick, the Mavs selected Minneapolis, Minnesota native Tyrell Terry. At 6’2″, the point guard averaged 14 points per game in his freshmen season at Stanford. Compared to CJ McCollum of the Portland Trailblazers, Terry was labeled as a shooter with limitless range, showing that his potential is through the roof.

I like this article because it is very informative. As a fan of the Mavs, many people probably did not know a ton of info on this player, and this article does a very good job on background and info of Tyrell Terry. I chose this article and this draft pick because of my fandom of the Dallas Mavs, and having played Tyrell Terry in high school made me quite excited to read about him. It will be interesting to see how his career pans out in Dallas.

This article speaks about how regardless of who wins the election, the real loser here will be the American people due to numbers going up in COVID-19 cases. The writer compares approaches to the election, where Trump was going out campaigning during a global pandemic, when Biden was staying away from campaigns and not putting people at as much of risk. The main current worry however, is when college students go home for breaks. This will then put their families at risk, and especially college campuses at risk when they come back from breaks.

I think this is just an overall decent article. I think it could be written better in some places, but it gets a message across. I think saying that the real winner of the election is COVID-19 is a pretty fair statement, which is a sad reality. I think during everything going on in the election currently, people are forgetting that we are still in a global pandemic and we will continue to be for a while.

For this comparison, I thought it would be interesting to compare the game previews for Nebraska vs Ohio State this weekend from a website that favors each team and try to find differences throughout.

The article state article is a very confident one. Although they are weary of some Nebraska players that could make an impact, the writer believes that the Huskers will not be a problem, even saying that the season is “national championship or bust.” The article ends with a game prediction saying that the Buckeyes will face no challenges with Nebraska, and will cruise to a 54-17 win on Saturday.

The mood for the Nebraska perspective is a completely different one. The lead here talks about how the Ohio State defensive line embarrassed Nebraska last year in Lincoln, and includes a quote from offensive lineman Matt Farniok on what the difference could be this year. This article wants viewers to believe that the game will be won or lost at the line, and is not as confident as the Ohio State article at all. It is more of a hopeful feeling. I will be interested to go look at game recaps after the game is played Saturday, and compare those as well.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/30162027/nick-saban-sees-positives-false-coronavirus-test

This article talks about the aftermath of Alabama head coach Nick Saban testing false positively for COVID-19 before their football game against Georgia. He ended up being able to coach the game because he had three negative tests in the three days leading up to the game. He explains how testing positive was not all bad, and really puts things in perspective for him. He then says he was very fortunate to be a false positive, and that people need to stay safe so everything does not get taken away from them like what he thought happened to him.

I think this is a very good article that more people need to see. As an athlete myself, an article like this both puts things in perspective, and motivates me to practice social distancing and staying safe so I myself do not have to lose my sports due to testing positive. Saban says that once you test positive, there really isn’t much you can do about it, and this is true in my life as well.

            My article number two project actually turned out to be a fun project. My interviews were very insightful, and I enjoyed learning the opinion of other people regarding the Big Ten Conference resuming football in the fall season, it was quite interesting.

            I think that the most concerning part of this assignment by far was deciding who I should interview. Finding people with different sporting backgrounds and preferably different opinions was a tough task, but I was happy with who I was able to interview.  There really was not a huge effect in regard to my writing process due to this, and I don’t think I would have changed anything after I went out and had some pretty good interviews.

            Most of the revisions I made were just to clean up my paragraphs. As I have revised more and more writings, I have found it easier to tell what information does not necessarily need to be in the paragraphs and what I can take out without losing any info. With that said, the most major revision I made was in a quote from Collin Hill (last paragraph), where instead of using one giant quote from him, I spread out the entire quote throughout three sentences to make it seem like less of a run on. I think this gives the paragraph better flow and just seems smoother overall.

            The process I spent the most time with was interviewing people during this article. I interviewed five or six different people, but only used the three that I thought were the best in my article. Everything else was rather smooth.

            I think the best strategy I learned was going out and actually interview people and become more personable when interviewing. I think it is a lot easier now, especially when people know I am interviewing for a class. It will be a lot easier moving forward to interview people.

For this descriptive writing, I decided to try and think outside of the box. Instead of looking behind a door, or something basic, I decided to look underneath the soles of my dirtiest pair of shoes. Right off the bat, the most noticeable feature of the shoe is the smell. The light gray Vans branded shoes give off a stench as if they have been through a lot, and worn several times. As I look at the tan, worn down bottoms of the shoes, the first noticeable feature is the brown patches of dried up mud filling some of the holes on the waffle-like bottom of the shoe. Looking towards the big toe area of the shoe, there seems to be an unknown pink substance taking up a dime sized area on the bottom. I hope that the substance is gum, but I really have no idea what it truly is. Some of the dirt clumps are a lighter shade of brown, almost a beige color, while others are a darker brown color. As I glance on each white side of the shoe near the bottom, the originally white color has faded a little, but is mainly covered in brown from dried up mud as well. In conclusion, after an in depth look at my shoes, I suggest that these may need to be cleaned in the very near future.

Article #2

Big Ten Cancels Football Season, Now It’s Back!

On August 11^th, the Big Ten Conference issued a statement that postponed the 2020-21 fall sports season, due concerns of the health and safety of athletes within the conference over COVID-19. Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren made the announcement, saying that the decision was “a very tough one to make, but at the end of the day there was too much uncertainty regarding the virus” at that time.

Fast forward about a month later, on September 16^th, the presidents and chancellors of each of the 14 respective teams within the Big Ten held a vote to return to competition within the Big Ten. That vote was unanimous in favor of resuming the Big Ten football season, and it now seems like the conference is more certain with how to handle a season yet still manage keeping players safe.

The season will officially kick off on October 24^th, consisting of 8 league games in the same number of weeks, and will end with a conference championship game on December 19^th. The conference championship date is a huge on a national scale. The College Football Playoff selection day takes place on December 20^th, which gives the winner of the conference a very good chance to compete for a championship on the national level.

After conducting a few interviews, as well as looking at a national opinion mainly on social media, it seems as if most people have the same reaction to the announcement: They are just glad that the season is going to be played. As a diehard Nebraska fan myself, the general reaction on social media for Nebraska fans has been very positive towards the announcement. Even after the schedules for each team were announced, husker fans even claimed they “could care less” whether they went 0-8 or 8-0, they are just excited to watch their favorite team play on Saturdays in 2020.

Adam Holtorf, a former offensive lineman at Kansas State University (and actually was recruited by Nebraska) thought that all conferences resuming play again is progress. He said that he is “glad to see that people are starting to get back to normal life, and a fall football season is a step forward in that aspect.” Holtorf also found humor in the entire situation, saying: “If I am being honest, it was funny seeing the national reaction to the season getting postponed,” but he is glad that they went back on what they said and decided to resume the season.

Current University of Nebraska-Lincoln and diehard Nebraska football fan, Caleb Mohnike was elated that the conference is resuming play, saying: “I was extremely happy with the decision to resume the season in the Big Ten. It would have been very unfortunate if they did not at least give it a shot.” I then went on to ask Caleb about what his thoughts were on allowing fans into the stadiums, and he answered saying: “As a student at UNL (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and a season ticket holder, I would obviously like to go to every game.” He is willing to not go to any game this year if it means the Huskers and the rest of the Big Ten are able to have a full season.

One of the most interesting quotes from an athletic perspective regarding the Big Ten coming back was from Collin Hill. Collin is an avid Iowa State fan, and does not really have any connection to the Big Ten, which made his interview even more interesting. He thought it was “very good for the schools, fans, but most importantly the players.” “Seeing other conferences playing football and having it go relatively smoothly shows that the Big Ten can do it as well.” Hill went on with the athlete perspective, saying “The players train and practice year-round, and they deserve to play just like the other conferences do.” I think people seemed to overlook the players when it came to making the initial decision to cancel the Big Ten Season. As we wait for games to resume October 24^th, we will soon see if the decision made was the right one.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/dwight-howard-posts-heart-warming-inspirational-message-after-winning-first-championship/

This article is about NBA basketball player Dwight Howard winning his first NBA championship at the age of 34. The writer talks about how emotional the season was for him, citing the death of the mother of his 6 year old child, and Dwight being very outspoken about not continuing the NBA season after the shooting of Jacob Blake. The writer then talks about how little of chance Dwight had to be in his current situation after getting cut by the Brooklyn Nets and seeming like his career was over. Now, he has turned around his career and found a new home in Los Angeles.

The writer did a very good job with this. This is a heartwarming story that everyone will be happy about reading, and there is not a lot you can do to screw that up. The end of the article is motivating, because it talks about how if Dwight can turn his career around when it looked like all else failed, you can turn your life around too.