"DVD" (Dan Van De Riet) Active Behind the Scenes

[Mavric]

He isn't from here, but "DVD" remembers Husker football games back in the days when everyone was still using VHS.

“Nebraska was on all the time,” says Dan Van De Riet. “I remember watching Tommie Frazier as a kid growing up.”

It’s something how that distant location seen on TV can suddenly become the center of your daily work, with your office connected to the very stadium where Frazier and friends used to rule fall Saturdays.

As recently as the start of December, Van De Riet was plugging away at his job at Oregon State, happy. Since accepting a job as an assistant football operations guy in the Beaver program 14 years ago, he’d been promoted, gotten married and had three kids.

Then, all of sudden, Mike Riley was going to Lincoln. And would "DVD," as he introduces himself in friendly fashion, like to come along and be Nebraska’s associate athletic director for football operations?

“I think it was an easy decision," Van De Riet said. “Obviously, the most important thing to me in life is quality of life, and I think Coach Riley has always provided that for me and my family in terms of work environment."

So he’s here, having just completed his part in a 60-day sprint to Signing Day, ready to close on a house in Lincoln the first week of March.

In a place where football is deemed very important, Van De Riet has a very important job.

Coaching clinics, summer camps, community service, academics, weightlifting, nutrition, study hall — Van De Riet serves as the point person on all that stuff, making it flow together, trying to achieve efficiency as best it can be achieved.

 

LJS

[Red Five]

Did this guy replace Jamrog? If so, does he get to wear a headset on the sidelines during the game?