1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - High School Football changes, Standing Bear-Lincoln Northwest: August 22nd, 12:00pm

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

High School Football changes, Standing Bear-Lincoln Northwest: August 22nd, 12:00pmAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

One with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. Wordstock, 26, Antelope Park. Link to literacy in a full day. But it's time for a Saturday. Question on time. DP, live. Worstock 26 is on habitant.

An exceptional event. Great cause, great mission for the folks from Link Delivercy. And again, it is a squad. Any great event like this requires full support from a gang of folks, good people along the way. The Ackley Charitable Foundation, Doug and Mary Carper, the ABLE Foundation, First State Bank, Integrated Behavioral Service Health Services, Lincoln Community Foundation, the Lincoln Shields, Vanderberg Family Foundation, Kent and Amy Johnson, Pinnacle Bank, the JEO Consulting Group, hundreds of women who care advised funds, shout out to Ava Thomas in that group.

The community partners, Bison J.A.O. Foundation, Jim and Penny Krieger Foundation, Lincoln Pediatric Dentistry, Release Incorporated, checker orthodontic, swab charitable grant, Union Bank and Trust Company, Dominic and Amy Rio, American Life, Neely Glasgow, Kerry Stewart, Victoria Nance, a Casal Family Charitable Fund, Olson Financial Group Advice Fund, Kimberly and Roger Swanson, and a host.

An absolute gang of exceptional, positive, nonprofits who are in the room. The MLK Junior Youth Rally, teammates is in the building. It is a spectacular accumulation. Food trucks are everywhere. You have time to get down here. If you're in the area, looking for something to do it is a fantastic book share. And an opportunity to just get books into the hands of people, put them into your home, read to your kids, read to your grandkids,

read to your grandkids, read to your nieces and nephews, and have them read to one another. Greatly appreciate that along the way. And again, as I said in hour one, we choose to be at this event, and we choose to support this event for a variety of reasons, but one, it is a wonderful indicator of Lincoln, Nebraska, and who you are. And I say, you can ask people who they are,

but as the phrase goes, much easy to show you than tell you. And anybody that wants to know who Lincoln, Nebraska is, and the best of Lincoln, Nebraska, is in this park today. Exceptional. Lincoln High's cheerleaders in the back. I can hear them in the background putting on a show. Celebrary readers and a full list of folks who have just made time.

And here's nobody's getting paid here. Everybody's volunteer. And there's a team. When I say a gang, a team of volunteers. Everything from parking, getting folks in, getting water to anybody that's working, making sure the food trucks get organized, get attached, making sure that the internet works and power cords are working. These are folks that have been involved in this thing for weeks on end. And then this morning they got here early, crack a dawn, to open the park up to make sure everything was working, that everything was working, that everything. Everybody had everything that they needed and wanted to make sure this event went off without a hitch. And I can tell you, as it grows, it expands. Yeah, more things are going to be in play. But that's what we're doing. That's how you know it's a quality event.

I'm just proud of Lincoln today. I'm always proud of Lincoln. I'm proud plus because when people have the opportunity to, show up for a thing like this. There are other things going on. But to tell me that this number of people, there are thousands of books

that are going to have new homes today. And there's no limit to the number of books that anybody could take. I mean, there are folks with wagons who brought wagons. Bags are handed out in advance where folks can collect as many books as they want. There are strollers

that are being used as book book carrying, yeah, Austin raised his hand. Absolutely, it's a thing to know what it is. And the aroma, and it is, aroma is the right word from the food trucks, wafting through. Again, shout out to Mother Nature for hanging out and giving us a really quality day. And then to the fine folks who donated, I mean, they provided us with a tent, so we sit in shade.

We can speak from past experience. This sun is normally undefeated. Not a lot of you could do. We've been at these wordstocks where the sun won. This is spectacular. This is a beautiful day. And it's good to see. Again, there's the amount of diversity here.

Everybody's here. This is a event. When you say that everybody's welcome, everybody's invited and everybody's welcome. That there are folks who don't have kids. They're just here to get books and they're here to be a part of the community. And the folks, again, the long list of nonprofits that are here recruiting, letting people know that services exist for them. There are colleges here that are putting out the good word and inviting the people to be a part of what they do.

But then reinforcing the power of literacy, the importance of literacy, but the power of it. every great educator can pen back to the first book. They know when it became important to them. They know what story piqued their intrigue and curiosity. And you're never quite sure where that book's going to come from or what the title is going to be. But I would say, listen, when you're putting a book into the hand of somebody for them to own the book or for you to read to them. That is an act of love.

That is an act of love. And if you, again, nobody's ever put a book in my hand and I not accepted it as love. That's all there was. It was better for me to have that book. And listen, the volume of it, nobody here had to be here. This is the thing where people chose to be here. And that's pretty cool. it's pretty cool um along the way so again wordstock 2026 uh in the 1230 time slot uh our own

cala star from Nebraska bowling she's going to be the celebrity reader she will read to the kids and then she'll stop by here at the table 1245 a railie co from Nebraska women's tennis she will read to the to the crowd um I don't know what they're reading um is that I see a tiara. Is that Miss Nebraska? Is that Miss Lincoln? What do we? Well, I don't know what that is.

We need to get Rudy a picture with the tiara. Greek Plains? Great Plains. So Miss Great Plains is here. Wonderful. This is, I mean, and here's the thing to understand how important it is to know. I've lost track of how many tents there are. I asked Rudy, I tasked Rudy with the, with the, with the, with the, with the, with the,

with the responsibility of going through and getting a picture of every tent. Rudy, how many tents would you say there are? He said well over 35. Yep, that's his guest. Now, he'll have to go into his camera and prove it later in the day. All right, because he's going to put together a video for us. That, again, where we get to shout out all of the nonprofits. So that's right there, the young lady in the back of the wagon with a book open.

How do you think she is? Three, two? Two years old. And she's got the book open. She's being carted through the crowd, but this is exceptional. We did have a thing. Austin, there's a mom that had the attachment to the young person. And Austin goes, yeah, that's the thing.

Again, the connection, again, staying connecting to kids is important. And how you do it, I don't care. I appreciate the fact that they were connected to it. So we saw the kid on the leash, the backpack with the leash. We are not going to lease shame today, Austin. I'm just telling you what we saw. We are not going to parent shame today. We saw the trike with the broom handle, which was great.

And we saw the community come together where all the books are. There's a mom that had to climb up on stage. And she's just yelling to the top of her lungs, hey, I need everyone's attention. Okay. Not wearing a volunteer shirt. What's going on? I've lost my four-year-old. I lost my four-year-old,

brown hair, white shirt, black shorts. How long did it take? He's in here somewhere, like two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes. So I, again, I love. That's why we're not least shaming today.

The number of dads holding daughters, the number of moms holding hands with the sons, again, walking through. Listen, I didn't know, I needed the reminder that Lincoln, Whoever sells strollers in Lincoln is making bank. They need to sponsor this event. If you, if you, whoever sells strollers and whoever sells wagons.

Austin, I, you're, you're the local. Who would you go? Who are the go-to places? As a parent of two, where do you go to to get your wagon and or stroller? The wrong answer is Facebook Marketplace, so that's what we did anyways. Oh, Austin Ormond. Austin. Is that, okay.

But there's all sorts of great places will pop up. What was it like once upon a child, I think, is the place that's come through pretty clutch for us a few times. Are you, is this marketplace as a community? So just support the community. Or is it casual convenience? Its strollers are very expensive. And if you take one that is previously loved but in good enough conditions, it will work for you as well. He said previously.

Obviously love. In fact, just this last, you know, last week, two weeks ago, we were on a family walk after supper. And we were going to, not the park we usually go to. There's one at a school not far from us. We were going to go to the big park, as Beckett, the oldest would call it. We walked by. Darned if we don't see a stroller with a sign on it that says free. So we walk by, we go to the park and we're like, let's just walk back, see if it's still there.

And so we picked up a spare stroller for grandma to keep at her house. So we're those people. See, he took the extra. stroller. Grandma needed one. She was in the market. He took the extra. There's a family that doesn't have a and you got the extra.

Austin. Hey, but that's the, those are the rules of the game. Those are the rules. Did you name the stroller? We are not a stroller naming or a car naming family to this point. Are you serious? I'm not getting you. You have not named the car or the stroller.

No, we are 0 for 2 on naming the cars and 0 for 1 on the stroller. I, listen, I find great intrigue. all of it because I thought that I might be the only person who's never gone to Facebook marketplace and never Rudy

I love Facebook marketplace look at you look at you he says he loves Facebook marketplace you never know what you're going to find or who you're going to meet is that's the part for me is that's the part for me is where I just go listen

you know the days of being able to trust everyone our long sense over. Well intentioned, right? Well intentioned or otherwise. But no, Austin, I do that. I do want to give a shout at you and Todd Euler being a part of what we were doing last night.

Coverage for Lincoln Standing Bear and Lincoln Northwest. Shout out to you and Todd for doing that. What's the takeaway? What's the takeaway for me is that I forgot how much fun Lincoln Prep football was. It's one of those things I've been in and out of the scene for over the last handful of years. And getting back into it was a blast. I was not a football player in high school, a football follower, but that is the closest I have come to being involved in the football game itself.

So to be there to see the energy from two programs that made the leap up to class A, class B in Nebraska, no push-hruvers, no slouches, right? I love me some class B action. But for those two schools that have been around for four years and for three years, in terms of full seasons now, to start off their fifth and fourth full seasons now in class A. They put on a show. The score was what it was,

but you see the depth of talent standing there. You see Lincoln Northwest attempting to build that program through the lean times early. It's not as easy as it looks, starting a program from scratch, making the jump up in classification. Really proud of both of those two schools, a fun way to get really the season started for LPS football. Why the jump up? Why is that so much a part of the conversation?

there need to be in that classification? Well, is it numbers? It's purely numbers is part of the deal. And so the other situation developing in Class A is that Bennington, who's won two out of the last three, I believe it is in Class B, has to jump up to Class A this year because they grew so big. And they've spent the last five, ten, fifteen years dominating Class B in a lot of ways.

But they have to be in Class A for two years until the second high school gets built. So you see a program like Bennington. I know Aurora made that jump from C, one to be a couple times. Wahoo's made that jump C1 to be. And those are schools, those are programs that aren't going to be scared of anybody, right? Bennington's going to say, come one, come all. Omaha Scott has competed at a class A level in class B for a long time.

So I think more than anything, the top end talent in class A and class B is actually pretty comparable in a lot of ways. It's the depth of it. You know, you go one and a half deep, two deep, two and a half deep. So for Bennington, you know, in this case, they're going from winning state championships do I think they're going to hope to make a playoff push this year. And their year in Class A, Standing Bear was a Class B state participant last year, ended up falling to the eventual runner up, Greta in the East in the first round.

It is a jump up in competition in some ways, but football is football. And so I think it's going to be eye-opening for Standing Bear and for Northwest, as they continue to grow, right? As Lincoln continues to grow, it was only a matter of time until they joined the rest of the LPS schools up there in Class A to see what it takes to compete at that level. This is going to be an eye-opening year. Is the other side of that schools and programs that decide to stay where they are? There are programs with folks that pushed.

Hey, you belong at the higher level. What is the reason behind that? The programs that are able to stay and dominate at a level, find ways to carve out a niche, right? It's building space. It's, hey, we're comfortable here. And you can, in some cases, cap your enrollment, specifically if you're private schools. And so I think that there are some schools in Class A that were pushing for this new kind of tiered scheduling model that they got because there was such a growing divide between the top of Class A and the bottom. These schools, some of them up in Omaha, I think Benson and Brian come to mind for me, we're just running out of players.

The kids and the, I don't say the coaches, but the kids weren't coming out in numbers just because there was a bit of a hegemony. They're at the top of Class A. And so those schools aren't getting any smaller. They still serve, you know, the 1,000 and a half, 2,000, whatever it is, kids, they can't go down in classification. So schools like that that were stuck because of numbers that, you know, still have the academic educational mission to fulfill and can't say, hey, we have to turn kids away because we're not competing in football.

They were really pushing for this new kind of tiered scheduling model that's being phased in to LPS. So the numbers tend to move the needle. But I think priority in mission certainly matter when it comes to the academic side of it. And then all of the taxation, all of the donations, all of the money grants exposure. But here's the thing. Is there enough room and enough exposure for Lincoln to produce top-tier football talent? Of course there is. What would the numbers, what would be ideal to say that the likelihood that every year,

Nebraska takes the best football players in the state and make them a part of their program? I think it would just take a more concerted effort than it's been shown in some ways, right? I mean, I think you see kids from OPS, from those districts up there. You see kids from LPS go everywhere, including Nebraska in a lot of ways. College football recruiting has been so nationalized kids. There are some that want to get out of the state and go expand their horizons, go somewhere new. There are some that all they want to do is play for Nebraska. And so figuring out which kid is which, if there is a, you know, quote unquote, national level prospect, which that's always kind of,

cracked me up when I've heard it. Because isn't that what Nebraska should be attracting? Nebraska University of Nebraska football program? You shouldn't just need Nebraska level talent, right? You should be a national level program and saying that, you know, a kid from Omaha or kid from LPS is a quote unquote national level recruit in your own backyard. That should be the center of the University of Nebraska.

But shouldn't that be the standard for Lincoln High School? It needs to be. Like Lincoln High School's plural, all of them. Yeah. Is producing talent that could represent those. those programs and that level program at the state institution. I don't know why that seems complicated. I don't know why that's so deep,

but I would ask that question, why wouldn't that be the norm? Why wouldn't that be the standard? Why wouldn't that be the thing that makes it move along the way? There should be more Lincoln High School athletes, and specifically because we're talking about it football, who not only have competed and earned the level to, to be considered at this level,

but then become a part of the conversation and the recruitment and the signing, the enrollment of said athletes into Nebraska's program. Yeah, I mean, it should absolutely be there. I mean, trying to figure out how far, I mean, let's say within a 10-mile radius, at the very least of Memorial Stadium within, you know, Lincoln's boundaries, essentially.

There's no reason you shouldn't want to or be able to keep those young men home. If they tell you they want to look elsewhere, okay, maybe you lose some of them, but it's on you, Nebraska, to make yourself a program that is attractive that makes staying home the best option, right? There's no reason that it can't become the norm. It'll take, you know, investment from the University of Nebraska trickling down. It'll take investment from the high school programs, making it, you know, a concerted effort to want to send their kids. They're like, hey, it's right here. We want to be able to walk you. We want to be able to have that relationship. It benefits you. It benefits us. I'm not sure how

concerted that effort is on a consistent basis. How deep is this pool we're talking about it? We're talking about how many schools are there public and private in Lincoln? There are. So you'll have. So let's say we did the priority of that. High North Star, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, East, Standing Bear. Okay.

I think I hit them all in public schools. So even if you're just using that as your court, that how many players are Nebraska talent. You'd like to think there's at least one or two at every school every year. You'd like to think. If you said to me that, okay, so let's just say for grins and giggles,

it's 15, right? Let's say two, two from each school and one, one, maybe. Being able to do that, would that be enough talent to push the 105 that currently exists at Nebraska Lincoln? Whether it is or not, it needs to be.

Is there a reason it can't be? hasn't been not consistently do we know why j form and i have our thoughts we've shared on old school from time to time i think again it's it's top down it's bottom up i think that you know both sides have some some culpability in that right it's on again the university to invest in those high school programs to want to make them the feeders to give them the blueprint for what it looks like to be a college football player and it's on the high schools to want to invest to not get so caught up in their own bubble to take what had been and can be again a successful model and want to apply it to what they do on the day to day. As coaches here, first of all, the challenge of it, there's a

responsibility. So if I'm coaching at a Lincoln high school, area high school, it's my responsibility to produce and develop talent for the next level. Well, for the kids' sake, for the school's sake, for the next level. At every box check for the parents, the commitment, if you're going to give me a young people, then I should. I'm going to make them better. Right. I should make them better. If the school trust me to develop their young people, then I'm going to make you better. For the school system, if you're going to trust me to be in the space, I'm going to produce better. And if you're going to support, if the university support comes down, right, which is a natural thing that should happen, then I have a responsibility to produce something worthy of you reaching out to

and accept it. I do not understand. I just don't understand the idea that we that this town cannot produce Division I football talent on a regular basis, on an annual basis, and to make

it the priority and focus that Lincoln High School athletics and Lincoln high school football players not only can play for the University of Nebraska, want to play for the university. Not being in that bubble. I don't want to speak for everyone. And all I can talk about is what I've seen and heard from, you know, a little bit removed of the distance.

I wonder how much of it is this, the sense of individualism. I don't want to say no-it-allism, but thinking they can do it themselves. Collaboration would make them better. Top-down and bottom-up collaboration would help everybody. I just don't. I've never been a program where we didn't develop Division I, no matter where I was in the country. So you can make an excuse or you make a way. And the ultimate responsibility would be, we need to be better.

We need to be better. And it has to be done. And here's the clock. And without a clock, it's just talk. It's just talk. All right, we'll take another break. Again, Worsok 2026. It's going to be a full day.

We're going to be until 2 o'clock. Don't go anywhere at DP live. We're stock 2026. And a little part. You're on the ticket. Download our app by searching 93.7, a ticket in your app store. You're listening to One-on-One with DP. on 93-7 the ticket and the ticketfm.com.