By DYLAN GUENTHER
J Alumni News staff
Steven Sipple
Steven Sipple has a job most Nebraskans covet.
The Lincoln Journal Star columnist, a J school graduate, covers Husker football.
It’s a dream job, but for Sipple it’s the payoff for years of hard work and dedication to a career he always knew he wanted.
He grew up in Columbus, Neb., fascinated by the newspaper his family had delivered to its door. He knew as a youngster he wanted to be a sports writer.
“It is all I can really remember wanting to be,” he said.
After enrolling at UNL, Sipple worked at the Daily Nebraskan briefly before taking a part-time job at the Journal Star. He learned much from those experiences while he was in college.
He learned how to deal with coaches and how to get access to practices. He started by covering the freshman football team, which played against smaller colleges.
After graduating in December of 1989, he was hired at The Grand Island Independent as a sports writer and editor. About seven months later, a job opened up at the Journal Star. Sipple has been there since. He climbed the ladder, starting as a clerk entering box scores long before he became the newspaper’s face for Husker sports.
Todd Henrichs, the sports editor at the Journal Star, likes what he has in Sipple.
“There is nobody with better insight to Husker football or better connected with influential Husker figures,” Henrichs said.
Sipple has put in extra work to set himself apart from other sports writers.
“One of the things I respect the most about Sipple is that as the Husker columnist, he gets hit with such volumes of e-mails after every column, but he takes the time to respond to them in an insightful way,” Henrichs said. “It helps the readers view him as someone they are sitting around talking football with. The readers really do look forward to what he has to say.”
Remembering the highlights
In his 18 years at the paper, Sipple has seen some of the most exciting moments in Husker history.
Asked about his most memorable moment covering Huskers football, Sipple said it came in his first year on the football beat full time: “I would have to say the 1996 Fiesta Bowl. The atmosphere was amazing, and it was an incredible game,” he said.
That was a season like no other. There were good times: The team won the Fiesta Bowl and was widely considered one of the best teams in college football. There were plenty of bad times too: Star running back Lawrence Phillips was suspended after being accused of assaulting his girlfriend.
For Sipple, it was an interesting introduction to the football beat.
One thing that makes covering Nebraska football challenging is the strong fan base. It has always had a fan following that is almost unrivaled by any other team. That puts extra pressure on the media for the best coverage.
“It is very unique here,” Sipple said. “We always have at least 20 media members at practices. Nowhere in the country will you find this. Not Texas, not Oklahoma, nowhere.”
Pondering history
The fan mania was never more evident than on Sept 26, when the Huskers celebrated the 300th consecutive sellout at Memorial Stadium. A stadium-record crowd of 86,304 showed up to see their Huskers sport the uniforms the team wore in 1962, the year Bob Devaney started coaching.
“The importance of the 300th sellout is getting you to think about the program’s history,“ Sipple said. “It shows the importance of Bob Devaney and what he accomplished, which some people seem to forget about sometimes.”
And what is Sipple’s take on this year’s team, the second year under coach Bo Pelini?
“I don’t think we will ever see Nebraska football return to the dominance of the mid-’90s, but I do see them becoming a very good football team,” Sipple said. “I can see them being consistent Big 12 North Division champions most years and actually compete with the winner of the South Division in the championship game.
“The biggest difference with the team since Pelini has arrived has been that there is such great effort given by these players consistently,” Sipple said. “Bo’s defensive expertise is obviously why (athletic director Tom) Osborne hired him. It makes sense. Just look at the landscape of college football. Nebraska already had a good offense … now all Pelini did was add a good defense.”
The recipe for future success is in place. All Pelini needs to do now is raise the talent level a bit with new recruits.
“I trust Pelini and his staff’s judgment more than the recruiting services’ judgment on recruits,” Sipple said. “We have already seen that this staff can bring in young quality guys like Cody Green, Rex Burkhead — and you see a lot of young quality offensive linemen.”
Learning new tricks, using old tactics
Nebraska fans clamor for as much information as they can get about the Huskers. And Sipple provides it in many different ways. He writes columns and a blog and even makes vidcasts with Brian Christopherson, the football beat reporter for the Journal Star and another J school alum.
Christopherson likes working with Sipple.
“He has been on the beat for a long time, “Christopherson said. “He makes his contacts comfortable. They trust him so they will tell him more than they might someone else.”
Sipple has a way of developing relationships with sources, including coaches. It’s built on mutual trust and respect.
“You have to develop a trust with the coaches,” he said. “If I ask a question off the record, they know it’s off the record and I won’t use it. This requires a trust.”
And that’s part of how Sipple’s dream came true. He went from being a young boy reading about the Huskers in his daily newspaper to being a star columnist, writing about Nebraska’s favorite team.
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