Perspectives on Trev

Gary and Jim talk with NU Regent Jack Stark about yesterday's surprise announcement, and former UNO football player Van Deeb about Trev's impact on Mav athletics.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
News yesterday mid morning at University ofNebraska Athletics director Lincoln trev Alberts resigned,
leaving for Texas, A and M. It wasn't confirmed though till later in
the day, but it is indeedtrue, and Jack Stark is a member
the NU Board of Regents and joinsus for a few minutes this morning.
Jack, how are you doing.I'm doing good, Gary. I listened

(00:23):
to you guys every day. Thankyou intelligence well, I appreciate you coming
on. And we chatted briefly lastevening and you said you'd been hearing it
all day from unhappy constituents. Nebraska'sright. Yes. Yes. The first
thing I knew was that TV TIMwas outside my house. I had no
clue what it was about. Itwasn't until we got a phone call that

(00:46):
we were going to have a conferencecall at four o'clock. So I was
totally shocked by the whole thing.We knew nothing about it, None of
us as border regions. Maybe oneof them knew there was something going on
that we didn't know. He wasgoing to leave. Well, as we've
discussed here early this morning, Idon't know. Maybe you heard Jack.
It seems to me to speak toa larger issue, and that's, for
one thing, the difficulty in findinga new president. We have an interim

(01:10):
who doesn't apparently appear to be thepermanent guy. What's going on. Well,
I'll tell you it's a really hardjob to fill. We cast a
wide net. We looked at weformed a committee of twenty two people,
or we looked at sixty candidates,and I will tell you they're not out
there. Nobody wants these jobs today. It's hard to find good people.

(01:33):
I thought I had the perfect candidate. Everybody in the state would have loved
by far impressive person. Well,the most impressive prison is the state.
And for a month this person wasexcited and then it's like I'm out,
I'm not going to do this,and that kind of all blew up.
With the Harvard thing and everything.You're working seven days a week. We
have some searches going on with theother big ten schools, and those candidates

(01:55):
at the other Big ten schools weren'teven in our finals. So we're the
candidates aren't there. People don't seemto be applying for these jobs. It's
hard to find people that can.You have twenty five constituencies at any one
time and tenable or for you,ten or against you. So no matter
what you're doing, you're going toget you're going to get a lot of
criticisms. So that's the state ofthe state of the business in academics today.

(02:19):
It's just very hard business to run. Well, how wide a net
have you guys thrown? Jack?You and I had a conversation about this
right after Ted Carter left. HeedCarter is an insincere person. He promised
you and the governor of Nebraska thatif you met his financial demands he would
not leave. And of course whereis he Ohio State? But how wide
and net are you throwing? Haveyou guys interviewed a retired military Have you

(02:44):
interviewed you know, fortune one thousandCEOs? I mean this to me seems
to be a wide pool of applicantsthat would bring a different approach to leadership
at the university? Or have youguys followed the similar pathway consulting firms academics
basically mine the same minds that you'vebeen mining. Well, we have to

(03:07):
really wide met The search firm wentafter people to ask them that they would
apply, and I will tell youthat there was a number of really talented
people in the business community, politicalpeople. None of them wanted this job.
We've looked at everybody we could lookat, and I'm telling you that
we didn't have that many finalists thatcould even come close to filling this position.

(03:32):
I was close to Ted Carter,I thought he was one of the
best. We had Ron Roskins andRudy Varner I thought was by far the
best. Baby. But these jobshave gotten really, really difficult, and
it's changed the political nature of runningthe university is has become very difficult.
And the finances. You have tounderstand, we're losing We're losing two thousand

(03:54):
students a year. It's just abirth rate. It's not anybody's fault.
So we're going to have a thirtyforty fifty million dollar deficit with inflation.
That's part. That's a big partof what makes it just so difficult.
Yeah, And as you as yousuggest too people, it's like a twenty
four hour headache being the president ofthe university. Now, I mean,

(04:15):
you got everybody. Everybody's mad atyou, yep, yep, well,
and they attack you. I meanwe've had people, we've had. One
of our deeds is physically attacked.I mean, so you've got that going
on, and it's it's and peoplelook at me, Saint Jack. I
want to enjoy my life or whateverthat you get in. If you're talented
enough, you can go get alot of jobs in industry today that are

(04:38):
much more calmer, et cetera.So, but we we're gonna we're gonna
find a good president. We're gonnafind it. We'll find a good There'll
be some lot of good candidates.The big problem guys, more than anything,
is these two guys, Ted Carterand Trev Elbers. I've been since
the first thing you walk in campsthirty five years of mill. I follow
in through is. I was inevery game he played because I was on

(05:00):
the sidelines. I followed through thecalls, the espn UNO. These two
are competitive guys because these other schoolshave more money, they have more resources,
and they're more of a challenge.I think that's a big part of
it. The second part that's goingon that really changed things for me at
least and maybe Trev. We hadthe big ten commissioner coming here two weeks
ago twenty four TV. They talkedabout what's going on. I mean,

(05:24):
it is an absolute mess. NCAAis not functional anymore. It's a wide
open kind of process of transfer portals. No one's doing leadership, and it's
really and what's happening is what's goingto happen is these big TV stations or
companies are taking over the business.But Golden Facts thought about buying out all

(05:45):
of the powified schools for a billiondollars. So it's totally changing. I
think I think that's being missed here. TREEV was not forced out, he
wasn't angry. I think he justgot a great opportunity because a lot of
these individuals meant don't necessarily want tobe ads in the future. Things are
changing so fast that you may beahead of a corporation that runs athletics.

(06:08):
So Pony Fatiti made it clear said, guys, you're not a big media
market number one. Academically, you'renot up there with the rest of them,
and you've got to win more games. When we won all these things
with Osborne, and we were sixtyand three at the time, so that
made a huge difference. So alot of that's going on. There's a
lot of things that I think behindthe people, we know we're going through

(06:29):
shock. We're going through anger blame. That's some of the background going on.
Yeah, but he was so upfront, just as recently as late
fall this past fall. He lovesthat. He doesn't want to be anywhere
else. You know, Yes,something happened between then and now, or
he's a bald faced liar those oneof those two things is true. Yes,
and what happened is the myth thathe was forced to No. We

(06:53):
gave him probably every he had it, eight year contract, eight years,
fussy, huge salary to bidding inthe top five or ten. Very few
people in the country have that.You know, has a great head coach,
football, basketball role, and everything'sgoing well. I think more than
anything, these travel is competitive.He's won the Bukus Award and Carter he

(07:14):
won at See in his jersey.He's a hockey player. These guys like
to win. And you go lookat Texas in if they have fourteen billion
in it in their endownmook, wehave like three to six. I mean
it just it's hard to compete withthese other groups and there's there's very few
people that pick from. So we'regonna get this is work. It's a
compliment to us they're coaching our bestpeople, and we're just gonna have to

(07:34):
reload every every time this happens andmaybe make a bigger pile of money for
him too. That's always that allthat can be a factor. And the
region stability. Jack, I knowyou got to go, but it's pretty
clear that trev didn't have a lotof confidence in your guys' ability to find
another president. He goes to workfor a guy who's a four star general
at Texas A and M, andhe built The average tenure of presidency down

(07:58):
there is two years. Yeah,well it's it's the average of fortune five
hundred coaches presidents is four years,and it's getting worse. They ten took
took over isio of state with theprison there two years. So the turnover
rate is really out of sight becauseit's just so difficult. Hard Jack always
great at talking to you. Thankyou for commedy earlier with us this morning.

(08:20):
Appreciate Jack Stark, University of NebraskaBorder Regions member here at six forty
four, or as Danny Nee usedto call him, Jack Stotss Radio eleven,
Tames Bill, Bill Burns, VoydEperley. See that was Jack's Yeah,

(08:41):
Doctor Jas we didn't turn over athleticdirectors very often, and Vanny was
there for about With the Trev Albertstory dominating the news in Nebraska, and
UH a segment, an important segmentof the sporting community here in Omaha.
UH is the group that has it, was and many still are extraordinarily upset

(09:05):
about the defenestration of the football andwrestling programs at U n o U when
Trev Alberts was the AD and aspokesman for that group for a while was
our good friend Van Deeve, who'san occasional Kfab contributor and and joins us
for a few minutes here this morning. And Trevor you you Uh, You're

(09:26):
not Trev You're You're Van. Thenyou you came you you made peace right
after after that UH with Trev Alberts. But how do you feel now about
this? Well, first of all, good morning, morning morning. I
think that the Maverick nation, Maverickfootball and wrestling Nation, is going to

(09:48):
be relieved because I think when theyhear those two words constantly on the athletic
program with I mean on the newsand media, I think it brings back
a lot of bad memories. SoI think it's going to help the healing
process not having to hear that nameanymore. It's still a deep wound.

(10:09):
I mean, you know, Iwish Trev and his family the best,
I really do, but but youknow, it's still a deep wound.
Trying to comprehend firing one of themost respected collegiate wrestling coaches in the nation
over voicemail, firing and just winninghis third national championship and he gets fired

(10:35):
an hour later over voicemail. Soyou know, it's going to be a
hard pill to swallow. I stayin touch with coach Mike Denny literally every
morning. Every morning he sends mea text it's it's gonna be I think
it's going to be relief. Ithink that, you know, the less

(10:56):
Maverick Nation has to hear about it, I think it's going to be more.
Healing process is going to be alittle faster, there's no question,
man. And we and we've we'veseen the input from that day to this.
If his name is mentioned, thereare people who are still extraordinarily angry

(11:16):
and some hateful, uh toward TrevAlberts. And I know you got past
the hateful part of it, butthere's still there's still some betterness there,
I can tell. But but buthere here's the thing. We mistake the
word bold and decision maker, andthis guy is he's not afraid to make
tough decisions to being downright dis respectful. I think we make that big mistake

(11:39):
in life that we that we complementpeople that are making these bold decisions,
even though they're the worst decisions onthe planet. We still celebrate these people.
I don't understand that because a lotof times when these people are making
these bold decisions, it's really aform of disrespect. Me ask you this

(12:00):
van Uh, Trevor wasn't the onlyone who made those decisions at the time.
JB. Milligan was president of theuniversity. He had to sign off
on it. John Christiansen was chancellorof you and O he had to sign
off on it. How come youdon't blame those guys too. I think
that they were blamed. I thinkit was proven with the separation of the

(12:22):
athletic world and those guys. Youknow, but trev was the fall guy.
If that's the truth, that therewere other people that were prepared it
is to drop those to drop thoseprograms, then you know, I mean
he's the fall guy. He's theguy that made the phone call, He's

(12:43):
the guy that made the decisions.And you know, post that event,
he said that often I had tomake a tough decision. Now, a
couple of years later, when Ihad lunch with him, he came right
out and said, if I coulddo it all over again, I would
do it differently. Well, that'sthe thing. I think that's the biggest
wound of all. And I thinkeverybody agreed that that was I mean to

(13:07):
do it the way it was done. I think back to when Steve Peterson
decided he needed to fire Frank Soldich. It was a horrible way. You
don't you don't. You don't treatFrank Solich that way. You don't treat
any If you decide as athletic directorthat this is a decision I need to
make, you do it. Youdo it respectfully and the same. I
think there's a corollary there. Soyou so you're are you still ahead a

(13:31):
head ban of the of this group? Uh formalized at all? Still no?
That that pretty much dismantled. Therewas just a small group that we're
trying to get answers. We weren'tdoing anything but just trying to get answers
and find out what happened why allof a sudden bam, we wake up

(13:54):
on a Sunday morning and we haveno football and we have no wrestling.
But that that group there's still Imean, there's still a group even when
we had all the Marlin Bristow celebrations. There's a large group that still feels
that way. But I want totell you, Adrian McDowell, the ad
at U and O, they didsomething really really special. They've had the

(14:20):
former Maverick athletes back to recognize usat halftime. The last couple of years,
they've thrown us big, big partiesat Bached Arena during basketball games.
So I mean they're doing some prettyclassy stuff. The administration that they have
there now, which I think isit's brought back. I mean, you

(14:43):
know, I brought Sandy Buddha tothe very first Maverick event since they dropped
football. He said he'd never stayedstep foot again. And I took him
as a guest to me with meto a Maverick basketball game because I'm a
big fan of a season ticket hoolderand I have them since day one.
But they started and then Sandy buddhasstarted letting people know it's time to come

(15:05):
back. It's time to come backand support U and O athletics. And
I mean they've come in drugs,they've come in droves, but a lot
of it is the ad at Uand O has welcomed everybody back, and
I think that's pretty cool. Well, I appreciate your perspective then, because
this is a significant part of thesporting community in our metro a relative to

(15:26):
this Trev Albert story, and appreciateyou speaking up for it.