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Monday, August 07, 2006

Already Gone

Harrison Beck’s career as a Husker has now officially come to an end. This is a sad ending to a once happy tale. Beck was the kid who carried a Nebraska lunch box in high school and helped recruit several players who would later join that much revered 2005 class. During the recruiting process Beck was quoted as saying:
"I'm not going to let any of this get to my head," Beck said. "I'm the same guy. I still hang with the same friends, still do the same things. I know the attention won't last for long. But it is fun."
It sounds like in this case, the attention outlasted the fun.

Beck’s Husker career was anything but magical. His final stat line looks like this:

Games: 2
Attempts: 10
Completions: 1
Percentage: 10%
INT: 1
YDS: 21
YDS/ATT: 2.1
TD: 0
RATING: 7.6


Beck’s lone completion was a 21-yard strike to Nate Swift to set up last season’s game-winning field goal against Kansas State. His heroics in that game left him just 29 come-from-behind wins shy of his hero Brett Favre.

When his development seemed too slow, many people questioned Harrison’s focus for football. When he wasn’t holding clipboards, one of Harrison’s other passions was music. Thanks to the magic of google cache we can catch a glimpse of his band’s myspace page. Unfortunately the music player is not working denying us the sounds of what can only be described as…screaming. Horrible…awful…screaming from Harrison on vocals. You can also see this quote from his bandmates:

“HARRISON IS NOT THE BAND, HE IS IN THE BAND. EVERYBODY IN THIS BAND IS AS EQUALLY IMPORTANT, SO I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF YOU WOULD NOT ELEVATE HARRISON TO BEING THE ONLY PERSON IN THIS BAND”.
This is what he dealt with even when trying to enjoy his hobbies. He was bigger than his band and perhaps even bigger than his team. His mom thought so, maybe he thought so. But didn’t we think so too? Did any of us truly think he would sit for two years behind Zac Taylor?

Overall, Beck’s departure leaves me feeling as sad and empty as his official website. It clearly was designed to amass all of his honors and accomplishments. Many Nebraskans were guilty of filling that space with unrealistic expectations. Expectations that in the end, were easier to run from than to face head-on.