After retirement, John Cook leaves the impact as a “instrumental” piece of athletics in Nebraska – Fremont Tribune

For example, there is a weight room. The Nebraska Men’s Basketball coach Fred Hoiberg may appear. Also, there may be a volleyball trainer John Cook.

“We do an old man training,” Hoiber said after Cook announced his retirement. They are busy, driven people locked in combinations, but over the years, they may have a chat, short or long.

Hoiberg knew only one Husher volleyball coach. Cook knows after taking work in January 2000, five basketball coaches for men, six football coaches and even more athletic directors of the NU. He won four NCAA titles – two less than Husker Bowling, but more than others – and runs a program that has successfully moved to the big ten.

Cook has an institutional knowledge of the school and a department, which is a few now, and he has served as a mentor for other Hoker coaches. NU -Amy Williams women’s basketball coach called Cook a “successive resource” for his program. Hoiberg agreed.

“I accepted many things he did with the culture,” Hoiberg said. “I think he is one of the best he has had – certainly in his sport, in every sport – to create a culture. When you have so many Americans and five stars and this type of things to get them to connect-the play that it has been able to bring to these teams, the national championships, it is not easy to do. “

Cook retirement does not necessarily mean departure – the current AD Troy Dannen wants to create a role in the athletic department – but his decision to hand over the premiere athletic program to Danny Busbum Kelly is more a change for a department after joining BIG Ten, when legend Tom Osborne, one of the key mentors of Cook, runs the department.

For years, Cook was part of the continuity of the department. In 2017, he was in the Athletic Department Search Committee with 20 people who elected Bill Moos. He could talk freely about a number of sports, especially football, and spoke with the team not long after the arrival of coach Mat Rule.

Nebraska’s wrestling coach Mark Manning, who took NU coaching in May 2000, is a Cook contemporary.

“It’s a big family … You want to be part of it,” Manning said after the double victory of his team on Friday night. “This is the big one. And John plays an important role in maintaining things. Me and he, we saw many athletic directors. We can tell you many stories. “

Under the leadership of the NI, he moved to a larger arena, continued to insist on records of attendance in different conditions, and watched how sports, growing in the participation of the high school, attracted an increasing television audience.

“Talk about leaving the place better than you found it,” said football coach Matt Rul on Saturday. “Which is a fundamental element of what we believe in. It is the embodiment of this.”

Rule often talks about the impact of Cook on his family – Rule’s daughters especially love the team – and the athletic department as a whole. College coaches understand, said Rule, what others are experiencing during the season. He shook the names of the coaches – Cook, Hoiberg, Williams, Manning.

“After you lose the game, you think you will win, it is these people who usually send you text messages,” Rule said. “It is these people who usually take you because they understand how difficult coaching is and how difficult it is to build a program.”

Cook’s knowledge is one of the reasons Danan wants Cook to remain as a “special assistant” who helps with projects and can give his ear or thoughts to a situation.

“People trust his voice,” Danen said, calling Cook a “philosophical leader” in the country.

“I would enjoy John around,” Manning said.

He will probably live more in Wyoming – where he has a second home with his family – and will spend more time on his cowboys and ropes. He said on Thursday that he would miss the coaching experience, while becoming the biggest “cheerleader” possible.

Maybe Cook, you no longer have to win a volleyball match or host of recruits on Saturday, may be on a football side line, has fallen.

“Maybe he will be more accessible to us,” Rule said.

And if Cook decides to spend his retirement on his land in Wyoming?

“I’m not getting on a horse,” Rule said, “But I’ll go to visit him.”