The Ever-Expanding John Cook Coaching Tree

knapplc

knapplc

Well-known member
John Cook's coaching incubator has been in high gear for a long time. The branches of his coaching tree are becoming quite extensive.

After learning from John Cook, many former Nebraska assistants have gone on to lead their own programs

With Dani Busboom Kelly (Louisville) and Chris Tamas (Illinois) both taking over their own programs since the 2016 season ended, seven of Cook’s former assistants have gone on to become head coaches. Several of them told The World-Herald that the popularity — and resulting scrutiny — of NU volleyball provides a unique training ground for assistants with head coaching aspirations. And that learning from Cook’s detailed focus on the top-to-bottom aspects of running a program is a big plus, too.

“John puts a lot of pride into the program, and you see that every day,” Tamas said. “He’s constantly thinking of how to get better, how to improve the program and how to dream big about everything.”

Said Busboom Kelly: “It’s a great place to learn because John does a great job of running a program and managing people. It’s a program with a ton of success.”

The success is something other athletic directors believe is portable. Before Busboom Kelly and Tamas were wooed with head coaching jobs, five other NU assistants were hired to run programs — Craig Skinner (Kentucky, 2004-present), Lee Maes (Virginia, 2008-11), Lizzy Stemke (Georgia, 2011-16), Dan Conners (UC Davis, 2014-present) and Dan Meske (Augustana, 2015-16). Meske recently left Augustana to join Busboom Kelly’s staff at Louisville.

The Cook coaching tree extends further to recent graduate and volunteer assistants who have gone on to full-time jobs. NU’s past two video coordinators, Nate Ngo and Natalie Morgan, have been hired by the U.S. men’s national team and Loyola Marymount, respectively. Former graduate assistants Peter Netisingha (Illinois State) and Ryan Walthall (Penn State men’s program) also are now full-time assistants.
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IA State Husker said:
Nice find! I wonder how big Terry Pettit's tree is (including Cook's branch)? It would have to include Iowa State's coach.
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CJ (Christy Johnson) is a scion of the Pettit tree, and so is Russ Rose, seven-time national champion head coach of Penn State (Rose was an assistant under Pettit in the 1970s).

This article from CornNation lists his coaching tree as of 2009, although it isn't clear that some folks (like Cathy Noth who retired in 1998) were no longer coaching when this was put together.

John Cook - Head Coach Nebraska (former assistant coach)

Russ Rose - Head Coach Penn State (former assistant coach)

Christy Johnson - Head Coach Iowa State (former player)

Jay Potter - Head Coach Indiana State (former assistant coach)

Karen Dahlgren - Head Coach Kansas (former player)

Mary Buysse - Head Coach North Carolina State (former player)

Nikki Stricker Best - Head Coach Montana (former player)

Dave Best - Assistant Coach Montana (former volunteer coach)

Allison Weston - Assistant Coach Montana (former player)

Corey Helle - Head Coach Wofford College (former manager)

Nancy Grant Colson - Assistant Coach Lincoln High (former player)

Gwen Pell Egbert - Head Coach Papillion High School (former player)

Kathy Deboer - Head Coach Lincoln Southeast High School (former player)

Fiona Nepo - Head Coach McKinley (Hawaii) High School (former player)

Angie Oxley - Assistant Coach Creighton University (former player)

Todd Raasch - Assistant Coach Florida Athlantic - Head Coach Kenyon College (former assistant coach)

Kim Behrends - Assistant Coach Sanfranciso University - (former player)

Jill McWilliams - Assistant Coach the University of Minnesota (former player)

Lindsay Wischmeier - Assistant Coach Northern Colorado (former player)

Pam Krejeci - Assistant Coach Omaha Gross High School (former player)

Renee Saunders - Head Coach Omaha South High School

Julie Hermann - Head Coach University Tennessee - Assistant AD, U. of Louisville (former player)

Cathy Noth - Assistant Coach University of Nebraska (former player)

Val Novak - Assistant Coach Univeristy of Nebraska (former player)

Mindy Martens - Assistant Coach University of Pennsylvania (former player)

Jeff Nelson - Head Coach University of New Mexico (former assistant coach)

Kim Crandall - Assistant Coach the University of Mississippi (former player)

Obviously Wisch is still with the Huskers wearing about two dozen hats. Off the top of my head I'm not positive that anyone else on that list is still coaching aside from Cook, Rose & Johnson.

 
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Would assume Kelli Hunter won’t be volunteering much longer.  Cook has really pushed her to look into coaching

 
PaulCrewe said:
Would assume Kelli Hunter won’t be volunteering much longer.  Cook has really pushed her to look into coaching
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If you're looking for a recent player to fill the gap, I would look at Wong-Orantes. When she was a player, Cook would sometimes just have a conversation with her in "coach speak" with the rest of the team in the background, her knowledge of the game was that advanced. She was a grad assistant on a couple of men's teams (Long Beach State?), but this fall she is overseas playing pro. Brings alot to the coaching side, no idea if she brings anything to the recruiting side.

Having no specific insight to the program, and literally being thousands of miles away, I don't think it will be either Hunter or Wong-Orantes. Maybe in the next iteration of coaching changes.

Of course my dream pick would be Jordan Larson. But she is not ready to retire yet. She is still playing at a high level and still commanding good money. And she really wants the gold in the 2020 Olympics to cap off one of the more incredible careers in indoor American Women's Volleyball history.

Congrats to Kayla. The SEC is reading the tea leaves and realizing that women's volleyball will overtake women's basketball within the decade. Their conference is gearing up for it and is trying to play catch up with the B1G. The SEC has the money to do it. The PAC-12 should be on notice. Their TV contract sucks by comparison, and I can't tell you how many times I tuned into a PAC-12 match being played on a basketball court. Let's see, I could go to a school that has volleyball only facilities and thousands of rabid fans for home matches, or I could play on a marked up basketball court in front of hundreds. Not a difficult decision.

 
Kayla was our lead recruiter during her stint here. Replacing her is going to be doubly tough.

 
I was curious to what an assistant VB coach makes.  The 2 full time assistants and the director of ops make $80k.  A "student worker" (grad assistant?) makes $50k. Cook makes $675k btw.

But when comparing VB assistants to other sports is just seems out of whack (or the market is out of whack).  There is no reason that VB assistants should be making less than Track, Wrestling, Softball, etc. assistants IMO.

Track/XC assistants - $72k to $82k

Baseball assistants - $175k

Wrestling assistants - $86k, $110k

Women's B-ball assistants - $155k

Softball assistants - $100k, $120k

Women's gymnastics - $85k, $90k

https://nebraska.edu/-/media/projects/unca/offices-policies/business-and-finance-office/docs/budget-salary-information/personnel-roster-2019-20.pdf?la=en

 
knapplc said:
Especially not at Nebraska, where we fill an 8,000-seat stadium every match.
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And where the volleyball program makes a profit for the athletic department. As opposed to the women's basketball program which is in the red in the amount of 1 - 2 million dollars annually. Yes, you have to look at other schools, conferences, and sports to determine the appropriate market rate for a specific coaching position. But Nebraska Volleyball is an outlier. At this point, I believe Nebraska Volleyball still is the only Olympic sports team that is profitable to the their Athletic Department in NCAA college athletics. Not even the Connecticut Women's Basketball can make that claim. And this has been the case since volleyball has moved into Devaney. 

I've made the argument that Cook's salary should be closer to 1 million a year, based on the profitability of the volleyball program. I hope with this next round of facilities upgrade that Moos looks at expanding Devaney for volleyball, and starts to  look at revenue streams for beach volleyball. I think Nebraska fan will support it.

 
That's pretty cool for Kayla, but I'd prefer if the SEC remained trash at volleyball.  May she find success quickly and be out of that conference before she has any lasting impact.

 
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