(bright music) (gentle music) -[John] Well, this is a dream come true for me.

(intense music) A great challenge that I have and a great opportunity.

(intense music) Means a lot to me to be a Husker.

(intense music) Nebraska volleyball can change your life.

(gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) -[Narrator] For 25 years, John Cook built a dynasty at Nebraska.

Now in retirement, he begins a new journey, trading the volleyball court for the open range.

(gentle music) But before he rides off into the sunset, he sits down with us for one last ride.

(gentle music) -[Gavin] The Last Ride with John Cook is brought to you in part by Phelps Memorial Health Center.

(bird singing) - [Larry] So let's start at the beginning then.

I haven't heard you talk much about your family life when you were young.

I mean, I know you grew up on a Lemon Ranch in Chula Vista.

Kind of take me back to what that was like, you know, when you were young.

-[John] Chula Vista was a small little town south of San Diego and we had plenty of places to roam.

My dad raced motorcycles and so we just kind of were all over.

We'd go down to Mexico fishing, we'd go to the desert camping.

But really one of the main influences of my life was my great grandmother and her name was Hazel Goes Cook.

During the Depression, her and another lady made soup and took it around to the schools to feed the kids.

And 50 years later she was honored by President Nixon and actually has an elementary school named after her.

So that's where my roots started, I think, in coaching and teaching was the influence from her.

When I got involved in sports in ninth grade, that's kind of when my life changed and I started seeing a purpose of school mattered and sports mattered.

And ironically, my dad who did all kinds of odd jobs, he got hired at a company called Stanley Andrews Sporting Goods.

And he was one of the first team reps to go around the schools in San Diego to sell uniforms, equipment, back then, salt tablets, things like that.

So I kind of went from this, you know, lemon ranch deal to be getting involved in sports and then my dad getting involved in sports and I think that's where this all really started.

- And then, you went to very prestigious private school, Francis Parker.

You were the high school quarterback.

-Yeah.

- Talk about that experience.

-[John] My senior year I wanted to go to college and I had coaches encouraging me to go.

In my junior year, I failed the SAT test and I failed the English version of it.

So my dad transferred me, in my senior year, to Francis Parker.

An English teacher tutored me so I could pass that test.

And of course, Francis Parker's a college prep school, so they prepared me to go to college and I ended up being able to go to college and play sports.

I credit those coaches and those teachers.

And it was this lady named Judy Corbin was the English teacher.

And I had an extra class in her prep period, she would tutor me.

And when I wrote my book, 'cause I wanted to write a book to prove I wasn't a dummy and Coach Osborne helped me with it, get it started.

But I sent her the first copy.

She retired in Michigan.

I sent her the first copy and you know, if it wasn't for her, who knows where I would've ended up.

But that's when I knew I wanted to be a coach and a teacher.

- So then you go on to play basketball at San Diego.

So tell me about that choice.

-[John] I really wanted to play football, but I got a better scholarship to play basketball.

And at the time, University of San Diego was Division II, so I was a forward and then my junior year they went Division I and Jim Brovelli was the coach my junior year.

He says, "Hey John, we're gonna bring in a lot of bigger guys now, we're Division I, we're gonna add six new guys.

So I don't know how much you're gonna play unless you can move the guard."

I was a forward, so that's when I decided to, I started coaching and I got a job at Coronado High School coaching football as an assistant coach while I was still in college.

- So you're on this path and in 1980, you take this hike up to Cascade Falls.

-Yeah.

-And the fall happens.

Just walk me through that entire event.

Wendy and I were dating at the time.

We went up to Lake Tahoe to play in a beach volleyball tournament, a mixed tournament.

And my brother and his girlfriend went.

We decided to go on this hike up around Cascade Lake and up in what's called Desolation Wilderness.

So we take off and hike and then we go way up in there.

It's called Desolation Wilderness for a reason.

I mean, there's nothing up there.

It's big mountains.

So we all hike up there, we're doing great.

And then we're coming back down, it's getting close to dusk and we're at the top of this waterfall.

And then my brother and I get the idea we're gonna roll some boulders off the top of this waterfall.

The next thing I know, I pushed this boulder off.

I stand up, I'm lightheaded and headed and fell over backwards and went off.

And then from there, the story just becomes unbelievable.

(upbeat music) I went down this cliff about a hundred feet.

And so I landed on a rock in some bushes.

So that's probably what saved me.

And I hit a ledge on the way down and I was wearing a Herman Joseph hat.

It was on the cliff, or the part I hit coming down this ledge.

It was actually, I hit it and my hat fell off and it stayed on the ledge, but I continued down.

My brother got down to me, I'm hanging upside down.

And I told him, I said, "Okay," I said, "I think I knocked some tooth loose," but my jaw was broken.

And I said, "I think I hurt my hip."

Well I had a compound fracture in my femur.

So he sees all this, he gets underneath me and he sits me on his legs and he plants into the side of the hill to prop me up 'cause I'm bleeding and I'm having a hard time breathing, but I was conscious enough to tell him what was going on.

So that was the first big break.

The next miracle that happened was Dr. Steadman was on call that night.

He's probably the most famous orthopedic surgeon in the history of the United States.

He goes, "Okay, here's what's going on here."

He says, "We're gonna clean this out, the compound fracture."

And he says, "It's gonna hurt."

We're gonna put it in traction.

So they drilled a hole through my shin bone to attach the weights to, and pulled my leg in traction.

I'm thinking I'm gonna be out in a few days, head home.

I mean, that's literally my mindset.

So we get all that done and then he comes in a few days later and he says, "Okay, traction's looking good.

Everything's looking good.

We think we got, you know, no infection or anything."

He goes, "We're gonna keep you here for about nine weeks."

And I'm like, "What?"

He goes, "Yeah, you're gonna be in traction for nine weeks for thing to heal up, then you're gonna go into a body cast for three months."

And I completely lost my mind.

They put me in a body cast, sent me home, and then the long road to recovery started.

And so one of the great things about that is as a coach, I was able to really appreciate what athletes go through and especially when they're injured, in recovery.

And so I've always had this, I think, a great connection and a way to instill a mindset in athletes when they're coming back from those types of things, 'cause I mean, when you go through it, you understand it.

- Why did you go back?

- So this is even more crazy.

So I'm in the hospital, this is like week three or four.

I get a roommate and he got his knee done by Dr. Steadman.

And so he's a rock climber.

So I'm telling him about all this.

So next thing I know, he gets out like a week or two later, he comes back with a Herman Joseph hat.

He crawled up there and got it.

And anyway, it was just, so at some point I knew, and it was about a year or two later, I had to go back up there and I got my brother, we went back up, I think Wendy went with us and I had to go back up there and stand up there and look down, just to, it was a mental thing I had to get through, you know, that I could do that.

- So you come out of that and you get an offer to go back to Francis Parker to be a head coach, but the only thing they have is three girls sports that you're going to coach, is that right?

- I wanted to go back and coach football and I actually had job offers at some really good schools, but no full-time teaching jobs.

And I had done part of my stint of student teaching 'cause I was at University of San Diego, Francis Parker's just mile away, so part of my student teaching was at Francis Parker.

So they called me and said, "Hey, we got a history opening, geography and we can give you an apartment."

And I'm like, in San Diego at that time and we had just gotten married, an apartment was a huge deal.

I said, "We'll take it."

And I said, "But what am I gonna coach in football?"

They go, "You're gonna coach girls sports," because it was Title IX in the eighties in San Diego and girls sports were just starting.

So the first sport was volleyball.

And I knew a little bit 'cause Wendy played, so I watched, but I really didn't pay attention and understand the rules.

And they said girls volleyball.

And so I got a book, read the rules, went to a couple of the other coaches practices and then I just coached him like football players.

- [Larry] But you had some level of comfort, right, because Wendy played.

-[John] Yeah.

- [Larry] And so you at least had a sounding board when you went home to say, to at least start to learn how to coach in the sport, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

Probably, at the time, she probably didn't think I knew what I was doing.

- So you knew nothing about coaching volleyball, but you go 162 and 18 in your career there, 90% winning percentage, win a couple of state titles.

Looking back, how do you explain that success so early?

- I set a standard for them to try to hit and we worked really hard and I think once they tasted some success, they wanted more.

The disadvantage we had, in San Diego at the time, there was no club programs.

LA and San Francisco had club programs.

So we knew we had to work hard.

(soft music) -çLarry] Let's fast forward to 1984.

'84, you're an assistant, right, at at UCSD.

Was it at that point or at what point did you begin to see yourself as a volleyball coach and not as a football coach coaching volleyball.

- I always in the back of my mind had I wanted to get back into football.

So when I took the assistant job at UCSD, I just wanted to, you know, how can I get better as a coach coaching volleyball.

And so they practiced at night, so I coached my Parker team and then I would go to that practice at night.

We ended up runner up and then won a national championship as Division III.

And coincidentally at the time, our Parker team, '85, we won our first state championship.

So it was just a way I was pushing myself to coach.

It was hard because the time commitment, but it was the only way I was gonna get better.

So I was doing that and then started this club program that just exploded.

And in 1988 is when we had, I had 10 Division I athletes, they all went to Stanford USC, UCLA.

And that's when I met Coach Pettit 'cause he was out with in spring break and we played golf and he saw these athletes we had and he tried to recruit 'em.

But those kids had no idea where Nebraska was.

And that's when he offered me an assistant job to come back.

(gentle music) I came back, worked camps in July and there was no air conditioning in the coliseum.

And our office was the equipment closet and they put up a mini air conditioner.

And then I remember I'd have to go in there and stand in front of that thing 'cause I thought I was going to pass out in the coliseum.

I was not used to the heat and humidity and it was brutal.

And I thought, these kids are so tough, California kids would never be able to do a camp all day long in this heat.

And I'm like, these kids are tough here.

-[Larry] So that starts the three year stint with Terry as his assistant.

-[John] Yeah.

-[Larry] What what was your biggest takeaway from just those three years as an assistant under Pettit?

-[John] Probably the biggest takeaway was training these great athletes who were not great volleyball players, but training them.

And he kind of turned me loose.

Like, "I want you to bring what you learned in California with their style of play, with the ball control and finesse and understanding the game, I want you to bring that to our program," to add to these athletes and the training that he was doing.

And all of a sudden, you know, we were competing with the best.

And I think the other thing I learned from him was just, how do you run a program and how do you promote and how do we sell tickets?

And you know, he was a genius at that.

And he was a very forward thinking coach.

Like, "I'm not here just to coach volleyball."

And many of the great coaches, they just cared about their volleyball team.

He cared about the sport and promoting the sport and promoting the Nebraska volleyball.

-[Larry] So then, you get the job at Wisconsin.

How did that happen?

-[John] I got a call from Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona to interview.

I was ready to interview with Michigan, but the women's assistant, he took that job.

Christmas Eve was, I can't remember who called first, if it was Wisconsin or Arizona.

They called me and offered me the job.

45 minutes later, the other school called and offered me the job.

So now Wendy and I are sitting there on Christmas Eve, "Okay, where do we want to go?"

Wendy said, she said, "Listen, I'm not raising my kids in the desert.

I want to two story house with a big lawn and a big tree, so we're going to Wisconsin."

And we took the Wisconsin job.

We got in the top 10 last year and couldn't stay there.

Are we a legit top 10 team?

And that's what we're gonna find out.

-[Larry] You hone your craft at Wisconsin and then you have another meeting at the AVCA with Terry Pettit.

Tell me about that meeting.

- In 1998, so this has been in December, we came back to Lincoln to play in the regionals.

So the first round we played Santa Barbara.

So we win that match.

Luckily, I think 15-13 and our best outside hitter blew out her ankle.

So I'm thinking, okay, we don't have a chance.

So we played the next night against Nebraska in the coliseum.

And I've confirmed this with several people and I'll confirm with myself, it's the loudest anybody ever heard the coliseum.

And anyway, we get to the fifth, we lose 15-13 in the fifth.

So I'm like, crushed, Pettit's relieved.

So they're gonna go to the final four.

And so that night he says, "Hey, meet Anne and I."

So we go there and we're just talking and having something to eat and he goes, "Hey, I'm gonna retire.

I want you to come back.

Here's my plan.

Come back, be the associate head for a year, and then it's yours.

We'll give you a contract, we'll pay a head coach salary.

We've already got all this worked out with our AD," Bill Byrne at the time, And I'm like, "Oh yeah, right.

I've heard this before, right, sure."

And then Anne, his wife says, "No, this is for real."

And she was like, super serious.

And I'm like, whoa.

So Wendy and I go back to Wisconsin and we talk about it and I'm thinking, okay, I just got this team to a regional final.

We're top five team in the country.

We're returning everybody and I've just built this program.

I don't know if I want to leave.

I think we went several weeks thinking about it.

And so finally Bill Byrne calls me and sends me the contract.

And I think this was in March.

And he says, "Okay, we're ready to go and here's your salary and we got it approved and let's do it."

And I said, "Well, I gotta think about it."

At the time at Wisconsin, several things happened, but I had an athletic director.

I met with him the day they hired me.

I never saw him again or talked to him for seven years.

So I went in, said, "Hey, here's what's happening."

He goes, "You already know, Bill Byrne already called me."

He goes, "We're not even gonna come close to that.

We're not gonna match it."

I said, "Are you serious?"

And he goes, "We can't come close."

I got up, walked out.

Went home, said, "Wendy, we're leaving."

So, I mean, it happened like that.

- Ladies and gentleman, the new head volleyball coach at the University of Nebraska.

- Let's give John a hand.

(audience applauding) - This is a great lesson for coaches 'cause I think one of the number one things when you're a coach is having an athletic director that believes in you and supports you.

And I never felt that at Wisconsin and Bill Byrne, the first time I met him when I got there, I met with him in his office.

It was kind of, we really didn't need to interview or anything, but it was just like, he said, "John, you can ask me for anything and I'll never say no.

Now we may not be able to do it, but we're gonna try."

He says, "You ask me for anything that you need."

And I thought, okay, this AD's got my back.

And that's when I knew it was the right decision and anyway, took off from there.

-[Larry] So it might've been easy because of the reaction from the AD, but I know it was really difficult because of the players you recruited and one player in particular that you had to shake hands with in 2000 after a national championship.

Tell me about that.

- Yeah, Sherisa Livingston.

She came to Wisconsin and I coached her for a couple years.

She ended up being an All American, great player.

And so when I met with the team, she said she wanted to meet with me after, and I can still remember the look in her eye of the abandonment, you're leaving me, I can't believe this is happening.

And it really stuck with me and I really wanted to bring her to Nebraska.

But for the record, coach Pettit said, no, we're not gonna go there because he didn't want to have bad blood and like we're stealing players.

And back then there was a kind of a code you live by, there's no code anymore.

So that was really tough and I tried to explain that to her.

But she went on, and of course we played in them in 2000 for the national championship and afterward she would not shake my hand and I tried to find her.

But I kept working at it and built a relation and followed her.

And she played pro for nine years, maybe even longer.

And finally, I heard she was getting ready to be done with pros and I got her to come back and be a volunteer assistant for a year.

That was the hardest thing ever.

And I can still remember the look on her face, just, it was like, you just let your child down.

And so yeah, that was really the hard part of it.

(somber music) -[Larry] So Terry hands you a pretty talented team in 2000.

What were your expectations of that team?

-[John] Well, it was a talented team, but we had people in different spots than what I envisioned.

And we also had the lowest preseason ranking at number 12 in the history of Nebraska volleyball.

So when that came out, -[Larry] How do you remember that?

-[John] Because that's something that you don't forget.

First of all, I got this team, I'm the new head coach.

You know, they have doubts and I move players.

We're the lowest preseason ranking ever, but I had to make a statement when that came out.

Of course I get asked that at a press conference and I said, "Well, if there's 11 teams better than us, it's gonna be a hell of a year in college volleyball."

And at the time, I didn't realize the impact that would have on our current players, but what the message I sent to them is, I think we're gonna be pretty dang good.

(annoucer talking) -[Announcer] Pilakowski... and she puts it away.

Nebraska has made history.

-[John] It went a long way.

And you know, that team went undefeated and won the national championship.

(gentle music) -[Announcer] Greichaly Cepero.

-[Larry] Greichaly, I mean, she's a player who sometimes gets forgotten, but she meant so much to that 2000 team.

Yeah, she was one of the, you know, she was a 6' 2", great athlete, wasn't the greatest setter, but she was so dominant at the net, with attack and taking ball, we could pass the ball high and up to the net just because she go up there and grab it and do something with it.

She's a great blocker.

She was able to like lead that team.

And that summer, before that season, we took the team to China and we were the first team to go to China.

And Greichaly, she's very quiet, we're in the South China Sea at the last day of our trip and she stands up at dinner and like, she goes, 'I got something to say."

And she goes, "We're gonna win the national championship."

(gentle music) So there's your setter, has that much confidence.

- Yeah, yeah.

That's pretty cool.

Did you give any thought to the expectations that you had set at that time after the 2000 year, after you win the national title?

-[John] I remember the next year, I think it was the next year we lost to Georgia Tech.

I remember, I couldn't handle it.

We lost to this, I don't know if they were ranked.

I don't think they were ranked.

They kicked our butt in the coliseum.

And I mean, I remember I was shaking.

Like, I couldn't handle it because how could we lose to this team?

And I think we lost to some other teams that year.

But that's when you started feeling pressure.

You know, I don't care what level you're at what sport you're playing, but when you have a lot of success or even go undefeated and win a national championship, everybody thinks you're gonna do that every year.

I thought we were gonna do it every year.

And then, you know, reality hits and it becomes, that's when pressure takes over, the pressure of expectation and then you push harder and you raise the expectations even higher.

We gotta work harder, we gotta do this, that, and it just, it suffocates you.

So I had to work through a couple years of how to be a better coach handling the expectations.

And that's the hardest thing at coaching Nebraska volleyball, and it was for football for a while, you know, and it chewed coaches up and that was the hardest thing was how do we manage these expectations every year and still keep it fun and not crush these players.

(players chatting) -[Announcer] Now, Paven, Sarah Paven with another kill.

(players chatting) -[Larry] Sarah Paven, Jordan Larson, national title game with Busboom as the setter, that was a tough loss and it was to Washington.

-[John] Yeah, first of all, Washington was a great team and they had the it and Courtney Thompson was their setter, who, you spend two minutes with Courtney, you know why they had the it.

We had this great team, great talent and a great system that we developed and we were crushing teams.

And we crushed everybody in the semi-finals.

And we lost 3-0, it wasn't even close.

-[Larry] Yeah, so knowing that the final four was in Omaha the next year, you make some big changes.

-Yeah.

-Right.

You changed setter, you move Busboom to DS.

We kind of heard that story, but walk me through your thought process after that disappointment, knowing the Final Four was gonna be in Omaha in '06.

- Yeah, so we get back from January and our libero left and transferred back closer to home.

(gentle music) I've got Dani, who's this great athlete, maybe we could make her the libero and we'll run a five one with Rachel.

So we get back in January, you know, 18th, whatever it is.

I called Dani in, I said, "Dani, we're gonna move you to libero.

We don't have a libero, we think you can do it."

Of course, she's not happy.

The story goes, she gets up, tells me something, flips me the bird basically, and leaves.

So I'm like, "Well that didn't go very well."

I call her mom because we haven't seen her.

She said, "Hey, she'll be in your office today, just be ready."

So I'm thinking she's coming in to quit.

She comes in with a letter and basically she reads me this letter and it's about she's gonna be a great teammate, she's gonna do whatever she wants and the team needs, and that's one of the reasons why they elected her captain.

(bright music) -[Larry] Did you realize what you had in Jordan at the time?

(cheering) -[John] Yeah, I mean, we knew Jordan was special in eighth grade.

I mean, I had news people covering, you know, go cover her high school when she played in high school and they would come up to me like, "It just sounds different when she hits the ball."

And then I remember, and I've run into so many people in small town Nebraska in that area that she played, all those schools, and they all tell me, these are moms now, you know, the kids coming to camp and stuff and "Yeah, we played against Jordan Larson, you know, and we, we did this when she spiked."

And seriously, that was, you know, the level she was at.

So yeah, you knew something was very special.

-[Larry] What's it like to have coached the player that many consider to be the best ever women's volleyball player in US history?

-[John] Yeah, her freshman year, she was a small town kid trying to adjust to Lincoln, the big city.

And she was still a great player, but she was hard to coach.

And that's typical.

They all go through that at some point.

And then she started, you know, really figuring it out and had a great year.

But it was her senior year where she became the leader.

And that 2018, was by far, the most highest performing team, based on the talent that they had, that I ever coached.

And it was an amazing team, they maxed out the most of any team I ever coached.

And Jordan was the leader and the captain.

And she took those guys under her wing.

And they should make a movie about that season.

- A lot changed from 2006 to 2017.

So rally scoring goes to 25 points.

You move to the Big 10, Penn State goes on the run where they win six of eight.

You move to the Devaney Center.

First of all, holistically, what was it about that period of time that was so difficult?

-[John] So after the 2008 season, I started questioning how much I wanted to coach anymore because I thought it is never gonna get any better than that 2008 season and that team.

I said, "Where do we go from here?

We just had this great run.

'05, '06, '07 '08, where's it gonna go from here?"

And we lost, you know, Jordan, we had all these, all Americans.

So, and then I kind of physically just hit the wall and mentally hit the wall.

And I woke up one day and I'm like, "I don't feel good.

Something's not right."

(gentle music) So I started going for all these tests and they couldn't figure anything out.

And they finally sent me to the Mayo Clinic, went through all their tests.

The end of it, they go, "You're burned out.

You're stressed and you've gotta learn how to manage stress."

And so the doctor there that kind of was my exit doctor, she said, "I want you to do check into cognitive behavior therapy."

And I said, "Well, where am I gonna do that?

What is it?"

And she says, "Well, the best person in the United States is actually a professor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln."

I said, "You're kidding me?"

She says, "Yeah, her name's Dr. Debra Hope."

And so I got back, went and saw her, and started doing cognitive behavior therapy with her.

And I fixed my, I had anxiety, I had stress, I just, you know, I had to make changes.

I gave up coffee, started meditating and doing these things that cognitive behavior therapy teaches you how to control all that.

And it worked.

It was awesome and amazing.

But I realized I had to make that change.

And then the other big change I made in '14 was, and again, was I had to continue to build the relationships with players.

They needed, again, this coincides with cell phones and all of a sudden we start seeing players that can't handle failure.

And I just realized I had to change as a coach.

I couldn't be the old school, hard nosed coach.

They just couldn't handle it anymore.

And so I had to make that change and I made that in '13 and '14.

And then that's when we started the run in '15, -[Larry] 2013, you make the move, you weren't in favor of it at first.

What nudge did you need to finally say, okay.

- When they made the announcement that basketball, where they were gonna build Pinnacle Bank Arena, which was a brilliant plan to build this new arena and basketballs were gonna go there.

I get a call from the reporter like, "Are you guys going to Devaney?"

I go, "It's not good enough for basketball.

Why would we want to go there?"

So Coach Osborne, he never said anything to me about this, but he was battling with the regents to get money to redo Devaney.

I didn't know any of this.

Probably 45 minutes after I talked to that reporter, I get a call from his secretary saying, "get over here right now, He wants to see you."

So I'm thinking, okay, I go over there and I'm walking, walking in, she sees me, she goes, "I've never seen him so mad.

His veins are popping out."

I'm like, "What did I do?"

And and then I started figuring out like, okay, he wants us to go to Devaney.

And so I get in there and he starts ranting and raving at me.

"I'm working with these, I've got these regents set up.

We're trying to get this money to update Devaney and you say this, it's not good enough for basketball.

You're gonna ruin everything."

And he said, "I'm not gonna make you go over there, but you should think about it if we do some work."

And I said, "Okay coach, I, I understand now."

I said, "Okay, there's seven things we gotta do for us to move over there."

So we sat down right there on a piece of paper.

I wrote out seven things 'cause I had been thinking about it over a couple years.

So we wrote 'em out, and he goes, "Okay, we're gonna do it."

I said, "Okay, then we'll move."

Boom.

That was it.

(people chatting) (whistle blowing) -[Larry] What stands out about the 2015 title?

Rolfzen twins, Justine Wong-Orantes, Hunter's leading the way.

They've been teammates since high school.

-[John] Well, we knew we had a great team and in '14 we did pretty well and we ended up knocking off Washington and the semis of the NCAA and then we ran into a hot BYU team.

So that provided the motivation for that group.

But that team was a great team and you know, we beat Texas 3-0 in the finals.

That didn't happen very often, but they just got it going and it was a really well balanced team.

They did everything really well.

-[Larry] It was also the year that we started seeing you bring cameras into the locker room post and everybody started seeing how much fun that team was having and all of a sudden, it begins to impact recruiting.

I mean talk about it, because that was a culture change for you, how much fun they were having.

-[John] Yeah, and part of that, you know, you gotta give credit to, Kelly was a leader of that group.

She has fun.

She likes to have a good time.

She keeps it fun, she keeps it loose, you know, she's the one that told me to stop standing up in matches.

She goes, "Coach, sit down.

We don't need you to stand up.

You're a distraction."

I think we won 34 straight matches after I sat down over two years, and most of it was over that '15 season.

-[Larry] 2017, Hunter's your setter, Foecke at outside.

Anni Albrecht, who you said would never play outside for you, ended up having an all conference kind of year.

Talk about that team.

-[Announcer] Hopkins again, and that time, a solo block from Annika Albrecht.

- We started off rough, we lost to Northern Iowa.

Tyler Hillebrand was my assistant his first year.

And I remember, I told him, "We're probably gonna get fired after we lost to Northern Iowa.

We're walking in the locker room, I go, "We're probably gonna get fired."

We just lost.

Again, Northern Iowa was a great program, but, you know, it's not Big 10.

And we lost some other.

We started off, I think, because Kelly didn't play the first couple matches.

So we're we're like three losses in the first couple weeks.

Anyway, we just started playing better and better and got better, but you gotta give Kelly a lot of credit for that.

And Mikaela Foecke and Kenzie Maloney, they're great competitors.

And so anyway, we get going and we get the tournament and we're playing in the Final Four in the semis and the trip, you know, we're playing Penn State, we're getting beat.

It's match point and two players trip over each other and the ball falls and we got it from there, and that's when it felt like this is our destiny is to win this.

And those kids really started to believing and beat a great Florida team in the final.

That was the most fun national, everybody asks me what's the best national championship?

The 2000 was miserable because it was a no win and I just felt miserable.

And '06, we were made a really good team, so you kind of have those expectations.

'15, we had a great team, but '17 was by far the most fun.

(soft music) -[Larry] We've heard about the offhanded comment you made, "Maybe we'll play it at Memorial Stadium."

What don't we know about that?

What is unique about that or story hasn't been told or challenge that you faced trying to put that on?

And also, why then, at the end, was it so emotional?

- I think the story, you know, the story is, you know, we lost again to Wisconsin of all teams.

We lose the attendance record, regular season, so how are we gonna get it back?

And it was just like offhand comment in a meeting with Trev and some other people like, "Well, you gotta go to Memorial Stadium."

And I'm like, "Yeah, right."

(gentle music) I never thought that would happen.

And next thing you know, originally they said, "Oh we'll just lay the Terra Flex over the field."

I go, "You guys realize there's a nine inch crown on the football field, so we're gonna have a nine inch, you know, slope going, there's no way."

That's what they thought.

And so they had to figure out a way, how are we gonna put a court out there?

And they had to build a stage to put it on.

(gentle music) But the reason it was so emotional, 'cause it was just an electric night and nobody had any idea that night was gonna turn out like that, nobody.

And everything leading up to it, but it was just, it was an incredible moment for women's sports.

It was an incredible moment for Nebraska volleyball.

(gentle music) I still get chills when I see video of it.

(gentle music) And it was a surreal night (gentle music) and it was a proud accomplishment and we did it in Lincoln, Nebraska and who in the world would everything Lincoln, Nebraska could pull off a world record for a women's event.

And you know, it was a game changer for women's sports.

(gentle music) -[John] I think there's two things that have impacted women's sports the most, the soccer game way back in the nineties and that volleyball night, and women's sports has been on fire ever since.

Just to know, to be a part of that makes your coaching career and all that work because, you know, I don't want to brag about this, but I've been in constant pain in the Big 10, the Big 12, the NCAA of trying to make women's volleyball better and know I've pissed off a lot of people, but I've been with the squeaky wheel.

Like, "Why can't we do this?

Don't tell us we can't."

And I saw a lot of coaches, great coaches, that really never tried to fight for that.

But I always felt, and again, I'll go back to Dr. Hibner was my first senior women's administrator.

She fought for Nebraska volleyball and women's sports.

And she would ask for uniforms, we're gonna upgrade the locker, we're gonna do this, we're gonna raise money so you guys can, you know, charter a trip.

And so I always felt like part of my responsibility as the coach at Nebraska was to fight for women's sports and the ultimate moment was that night.

- When I talk to people about you, the first thing they say is competitive and it's not a normal type of competitive.

One person said a lot of people are competitive, but not everybody going to bed at night thinking about if I shift the yoga workout two hours, will it give my players better chance to recover so that we can be better in other play?

Where does that come from, that it's just a constant turning in your mind?

- Well, I grew up with my brother was two years younger than me and so we were very competitive and it was embraced to be competitive in my house, you know, and at the dinner table and winning and losing was important.

And I don't know, I just, I had that in me and I can remember as a kid crying when I lost and, you know, can't wait till get another chance.

And I've just always been that way.

And then when I got into coaching, I was able to probably channel that and try to, you know, instill that in our players that, you know, we're playing a game, we keep score and it's a lot more fun to win than it is to lose.

And I always was taking losing really hard.

And if we lost, okay, what didn't we do right?

What can we do better?

(gentle music) -[Larry] In the middle of, you know, your internal turmoil, Nebraska plays its first ever game at the Devaney Center before you move there and you just happen to play against your daughter at Devaney.

And I'm sure here you are on the bench rooting for Lauren but rooting for her to lose.

What's that like?

-[John] Once that match started, we wanted to beat UCLA.

I couldn't care less about Lauren, to be honest with you.

That was a big match for us.

UCLA was a really good team and she was an unproven setter up to that point, but they played great and they beat us, but I was also really proud of her as well 'cause she played a heck of a match and she willed that team to play great.

(gentle music) - After you retired, on Kicking it with the Cooks, she said to you, "So can I call you dad now?"

- Yeah.

- And like visibly, you could see you like almost think, well you always do, but then I think you processed it a little bit.

Well, why did that hit you in that moment?

(gentle music) -[John] Well, when she transferred back to Nebraska, we made an agreement.

She said, "I'm not gonna call you dad, I'm gonna call you coach.

We're never gonna talk about volleyball.

And when I'm with the team, you're the coach and I'm with the team and don't ask me for anything.

Don't ask me about this player, that player."

And that was our agreement.

So she called me coach for three years and then after that around people, she would call me coach.

And you know, even on some of those podcasts she would call me coach.

And so she made it professional.

And so that's when, I think when she asked me that and I hadn't thought about it very much and I'm like, "Well yeah, you better call me dad now" (gentle music) - How did you feel like you did in balancing family life and coaching life?

-[John] I feel like I missed out on a lot of things but what I tried to do was whenever I was home, I would try to spend any of my free time with my kids.

But the tough thing was when they got in high school, like I missed a couple state championships that Lauren won and I missed some matches.

Although I did get to go to a couple, it just worked out.

But typically if they're playing in the state championship at the Devaney, were on the road.

But what one of the coolest things, and this is what makes Coach Osborne so special.

So Taylor played football at Pius and I think I saw one or two of his games.

Like, you know, they played on a Friday night, I could get to the first quarter before we were playing or something like that.

And anyway, his last game, his senior year, we're supposed to be at Iowa State.

And Coach Osborne hears about this, he calls me in and he says, "I want you to let the coaches take the team to Iowa State.

You need to go to your son's football game."

And I said, "I don't know if I can do that."

And he says, "Nope."

He goes, "One of my biggest regrets is I miss some of those games."

And he says, "You need to go."

So I did and got to see his final game.

-[Larry] I think by every measure you've a blessed life, right?

Even at the highest levels in coaching, you have a family that obviously, you care deeply for each other because you live so near each other now and you're great friends, you know, after they're adults.

I think part of that too, to help create the balance is you have to have a spouse who buys into it as well.

Talk about Wendy's role in, she's never been out front, right?

But she's always kind of been the support behind the scenes, but I would imagine was instrumental in some of the decisions you had to make.

- Yeah, she's one of the people that, I have a lot of respect for her because people do not understand how hard it is to be a coach's wife.

And it is tough.

And she pretty much has, the coach's wives has to raise the kids, a lot of the time, especially when we're on recruiting, we are on the road all the time.

And she's always been great at giving me advice and she's always right.

So I don't know how we could have done it without her and her support.

-[Larry] Talked to another former player of yours, former All-American, who said, "Wow, I've seen this John Cook over the last five to seven years and I wish I could have played for that John Cook."

-[John] I've definitely went through an evolution.

And that's one of the reasons, I talked to a couple people my age who retired and one of the themes I kept hearing was, I want to go out on top.

I wanted to go out on top.

I want to go out at the top of my game.

And I know, since about 2015, I feel like I've been at the top of my game as a coach.

Take out the wins and losses, it's just, I feel like I've done the best job coaching of my career, which, you know, goes 35, 40 years.

So that's another reason I thought it was the right time 'cause I felt really good about where I was at for my craft and how I was coaching.

And I didn't want to wait too long where, okay, he needs to get out, it's passing him by, all that stuff.

And again, there's lots of ways you can measure that.

You can measure on wins and losses, how your team plays.

But this last year's team, it was one of the highest level playing teams I've ever coached, maybe the highest.

And they were having fun and they loved volleyball and they were great representatives of Nebraska and they were doing all the little things that we asked them to do.

They worked really hard.

We had the highest GPA ever.

So those were all the things that kind of factor in.

This was at the top.

- Was there the moment where you had clarity?

- The moment where it all sunk in was in Ord, Nebraska.

I'd gone out there to rope and then I did a site eval to bring the spring match there.

I went to the old people's home.

And anyway, when the old man, as I was walking out, he just said, "Who's gonna be the next coach?

And I said, "Well, the AD has to decide that."

And he says, "It's gonna be the Louisville girl."

And I left and I had a three hour, two hour drive to Atkinson from there.

And I just started thinking about it.

I spoke up there and I drove to Grand Island and spent the night, got up that morning and I just felt like it's time.

I called Wendy and I told her, "I'm gonna do this."

I called Troy and said, "Troy, we're gonna do it."

There's a song that I've listened to for 30 years from him and he talks about it's better to burn out than fade out.

(soft music) -[Larry] The whole cowboy life, everyone wonders like, how did this begin?

Or I think many people at first thought, okay, this is like when he wanted to take flying lessons or this is like when he really was getting into golf, or this is like when he went through that biking phase.

Or like, you find something and you go all in, almost obsessive compulsive all in.

So when did this cowboy life thing start and how do you know like this is who you are and not just a phase?

- Yeah, you're right, when I do something, but one of the things I learned, you know, back in '09 and '10, and Wendy was the one that told me this.

She said, "You need to find a hobby," because I was so consumed with Nebraska volleyball and just, you know, are we winning, are we not winning?

And that's was my, it just consumed me.

She says, "You need to find a hobby."

And she was right.

So that's when I started flying and started playing golf and got into biking.

And so I got into yoga.

And so anyway, a few years ago we built this house up here where you're sitting right now and Taylor, I think we're sitting somewhere, we're at an Airbnb while this is being built and Taylor says, "Okay, I want to get a motorcycle."

And Wendy said, "No, you're not getting a motorcycle."

And he said, "Okay, then I want a horse.

He said, "We got room up here, I want a horse."

And he was working up here at the time.

And so I was told I needed to find a horse.

Once we had one horse, you just can't have one horse because they get lonely.

So we had to get another horse.

And then I started roping and became addicted to that.

-[Larry] The cowboy life, do you now become an evangelist?

And, you know, preaching to everybody, the cowboy life.

-[John] Larry, I've gained a lot of respect for the cowboys in Nebraska and their families, how hard they work, their kids.

I've just created this appreciation and respect for the western side of Nebraska and the lifestyle that they have.

And so I wouldn't know if evangelist is the right word, but it's an appreciation and respect for what they do.

And if I have a chance to share with people stories and their life, and I've learned a lot about the cattle industry and the horse industry and the people involved with it, and it's a very connected world.

And it's just been fascinating and I love it and I love talking about it.

(gravel crunching) (gentle music) -[John's Granddaughter] I love you so much, and I love all of the horses so much.

-[John] You do?

-[John's Granddaughter] All of the horses, every animal in the whole wide world.

(gentle music) -[Larry] How would you define your legacy?

- Where are you coming up with these questions?

I don't know.

In coaching sometimes you get lucky and we worked really hard, put everything I could into it and that's why it's easy to walk away, you know, it's easier to walk away 'cause I know I put everything I had into it and that's a great feeling.

That's why I use the Neil Young song, "It's Better to Burn Out Than Fade Out."

(gentle music) And I didn't want to fade out, I wanted to burn out.

Not that I'm burned out, but there's other things that now have become more important and I want to do and I don't want to miss out on, some things with my grandkids and my family.

So I guess, just know I gave it everything I had and we got lucky and we did some pretty cool stuff and we took the sport to another level.

And Nebraska volleyball is the pride and joy of Nebraska and its envy of everybody else in this country.

(gentle music) (gentle music)