John Cook Retires as Nebraska's Volleyball Coach

John Cook Retires as Nebraska's Volleyball Coach

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
For forty five is the time. We got plenty of
other things going on and we will chat about this.
What's going on.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
We've got Sean Callahan on the hotline. Just called in.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
There's breaking news on John Cook. Okay, Sean Callahan, thank
you for calling in. My friend Joshawn. What's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Well, yeah, we've got some breaking news here out of
a link in Nebraska and John Cook have announced Shahn
Cook has announced his retirement here from the University of
Nebraska after a one of the best careers you'll ever
see for any coach at the university. But it was
just announced around four thirty four to forty five here
that John Cook will retire. No successor or anything at

(00:37):
this point named for John Cook, but tomorrow he will
speak at ten am more in depth about this news.
But definitely a huge story when you look at the
impact of John Cook and what he's done in terms
of filling arenas and even just a still over effect
his impact has had now with two professional volleyball teams

(00:58):
in Omaha filling arenas, with some of his old players
playing in the championships he's brought and everything he's done,
it will come to an end here is just announced
by Nebraska.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
When Sean, when we talk about John Cook, we know
that he's been at it for a long time, a
ton of success. You know, was this something that you
had an idea that this was probably coming sooner rather
than later. And I know that you mentioned there's no
successor or anything like that, but is it kind of
strange timing that this would happen, you know, a month
plus after the season actually finishes, when a lot of

(01:31):
coaching changes and stuff are announced very quickly, and he
doesn't want to have, you know, like a victory lap
or anything.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, it's it's really the timing is hard to put
your finger on right now as to why it is now.
But I can tell you this. The recruiting class of
twenty twenty one that featured Lexi Rodriguez, they're done this year.
And he told that group of women that I will
be with you for your entire careers. And so those
players are now done. And you know, I think the

(01:59):
recruiting process US for this next year just got going
in the transfer portal process, and it will be interesting
to know how much some of these players reclued in
onto what was happening. But as to where they might
go next. I mean, I think the logical next phone
call is probably the Danny Buss boom at Louisville, the
former Husker and Nebraska native married to former Husker football

(02:20):
player Lane Kelly. I think that's that's if I had
a guest today, that will be probably the first phone
call made. You know, and there's a lot of qualified
people out there, but I think she would be the
logical successor. She coached for John Cook here and Lincoln.
She turned Louisville into a national power when they're a
bottom program, and it makes all the sense to me
that she'd be probably the person they go to next.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Real quick before I let you go, Sean, I saw
yesterday was yesterday, maybe the day before that, Jordan Larson
is no longer on the coaching staff, and that kind
of felt like weird timing for a high assistant on
a program like this to be exiting the program. Do
you think this was a related move that way?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I mean, maybe maybe she knew or obviously she had
to have known, in my opinion, or found out that
this was happening, and you know, maybe a coaching change
and somebody new coming in and for her, I think
that this is probably time to move on, and she's
gotten really big into the love volleyball scene and playing
and with that league, and who knows what her next

(03:22):
move will be, but she's been on the staff the
last two years serving as the third assistant. I mean,
you remember Kelly Hunter and Jalen Reyes were the main
two assistants and she was the third assistant. I mean
Lindsay Peterson as well, you know, in her role plays
a huge position on that staff, and she played for
John Cook, so yeah, I mean he had an all
star staff of people. When you have someone like George

(03:44):
Larson really as kind of your third assistant on a
staff like that. But yeah, when you kind of play
the connected dot theory, it makes more sense now. And
I'm sure if you were John Cook, you probably would
have liked to had that news way until this news
came out, but we knows. We'll hear more from John
Cook about this tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Very interesting, Sean, thanks so much for calling in with
this breaking news that John Cook is retiring as the
volleyball coach in Nebraska. We really appreciate the info. Hey,
thank you, all right, obviously that is major, major news.
Sixty eight years old. As John Cook will turn sixty
nine in April. Certainly he's earned his retirement, but certainly
kind of leaves an interesting hole in the most high

(04:26):
profile volleyball position, I would say in the country by far,
at the collegiate level. We'll talk more about this when
we come back on news Radio eleven ten kfab. John Cook,
the legendary volleyball coach at Nebraska, has retired. He has
announced to his retirement. He is going to speak tomorrow
morning about this. This is huge news. His contract. He
just renewed his contract last spring and he got a

(04:49):
seventy five thousand dollars increase he's making and or twenty
five thousand dollars and that was supposed to run through
January thirty first of twenty twenty nine. Interesting, right, he
just had got that. This was last spring, like in May.
Now he mentioned Danny Busboom Kelly, who is the Louisville
coach former Nebraska player, is certainly a high level of

(05:10):
you know, people are seeing her as a rising star
in the coaching scene. She is only thirty nine years old.
By the way, she's almost thirty years younger than John
Cook is. And she seems like with Louisville being they
were a final four team to two this year. I mean,
we're talking about a really high level program. She's making
four hundred thousand dollars a year, and that is through
twenty twenty eight. She had a buyout of four hundred

(05:32):
thousand dollars if she left to coach Nebraska before January
first to twenty twenty five. Oh, that dropped to three
hundred thousand after January first. Now, again I'm not sure
this is a Nebraska native. I would imagine that's the
first phone call that's being made. Seohn Callahan said this,
But the buyout according to her Louisville contract, because I

(05:52):
think that they always thought that she'd be trying to
go back to Nebraska, is down to three hundred thousand
dollars if she goes and coaches there. So I wonder
or if there was any time like they were just
trying to buy some time a little bit to get
that buy out figured out. If Danny Busboom Kelly is
the person that's going to take the reins. Interesting stuff
more on the Way on news radio eleven ten kfab