Dan Beebe Fears for his Life

By BLAIR KERKHOFF
The Kansas City Star

After a week of receiving threatening messages, including death threats, Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe didn’t want a member of his staff attending the game.

“The decision was to be safe,” Beebe said. “It probably wasn’t a good idea to be there.”

Beebe said he has received more than 2,000 “vulgar and nasty” e-mails and voice-mail messages from Nebraska fans who have been upset at what they’ve perceived as unfair decisions by the conference office with a suspension and officiating decisions against the Cornhuskers.

Some of the messages have included threats to Beebe, his family and Big 12 staff members.

“I’m a big boy, I can take this, but our staff doesn’t deserve the vulgarity and the nastiness aimed at them,” Beebe said.

Beebe said he received a message from a person impersonating a police officer who said “they had my daughter, who is in college, and she was unresponsive.”

There also was a death threat.

“We had a threat talking about you’re going to die and your family is going to die in your house,” Beebe said. “You have to start taking it seriously. All it takes is one crackpot.”

Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne said he had communicated with Beebe earlier in the week and knew there wouldn’t be a conference representative at the game.

“They said they didn’t think it was safe to send somebody up,” Osborne said Friday.

Beebe said the angry messages started after the league imposed a one-game suspension on linebacker Eric Martin for targeting a player with the crown of his helmet during a kickoff return Oct. 23 against Oklahoma State. No penalty was called on the play.

Beebe said he made the decision after consulting with a security official who works as an independent contractor for the NFL.

“We were told it’s not worth the risk until there was more time to sort it out,” Beebe said. “There hasn’t been enough time to chase down the people who left some of the most threatening messages.”

At some point a trophy will be presented to Nebraska, and if the Cornhuskers win the Big 12 title game Dec. 4 in Arlington, Texas, a ceremony will take place on the field with a Big 12 official.

Beebe presented the division championship trophy to Nebraska in 2006 and 2009.