Nebraska VB coach John Cook announced his retirement today. He has been the VB coach for 25 seasons.
Dani Busboom Kelly has been named as the new VB coach.
I was not expecting that this year! Dani will be a great coach for the Huskers too.
Is Cook staying on in an advisory capacity? Or just completely walking away?
I assume Jordan Larson wasn’t happy with her new role, if any was offered.
I wondered if there was a connection between those two changes. I guess we’ll never know for sure.
At the rate all this was announced this just about had to be in the planning for a while.
I knew nothing about this, and I think that was true of anyone, then early afternoon yesterday I got a news flash Jordan Larson is leaving. Then at about 4:00 PM a friend of mine got a flash that Cook was retiring followed about 10-15 minutes later that Busboom Kelly was the new coach. When my friend told me about Cook retiring I called him out and said he had to be wrong.
That would apparently mean yesterday wasn’t when the decisions were made. Yesterday was just the day of announcements.
Since Busboom Kelly was involved and announced as the new head coach there had to be planning going into this. I mean she couldn’t just walk away from Louisville yesterday afternoon and immediately be named the Husker coach. She would have had to make some arrangements with Louisville.
I wish Dani the best. She had a pretty proven record at Louisville. We all knew the day would come when Cook would retire. When the great ones retire it always seems it is too soon.
John Papenhagen
Fellow Husker Fans,
If you haven’t already done so, watch today’s conference. Coach Cook does a good job of explaining it. Still leaves the Jordan Larson departure as a question mark.
JB
Apparently, Jordan Larson had already decided, before the final four, to leave coaching. She wanted to focus more on playing, while she is still at the top of her game.
Thanks Skip. I was wondering about Jordon Larson’s timing as well. I wish them all well. It was nice to hear that Cook would be around to support (hopefully not to meddle).
Jordon played for UNL after Dani graduated. Didn’t she? I’m not sure how well Dani and Jordon know each other other than as rival coaches and former player to player?
The LJS had an article today that said Larson had told Cook of her plan to focus on her pro team before any of this.
I’ve been saying for a couple of years that Busboom-Kelly was the obvious successor. I really thought, though, that Cook would retire after the '26 season with an Natty here in San Antonio.
I have zero doubt that the program will continue at the level it’s been.
It was obvious that Dani wanted the job when she got her new contract after the 2021 season at Louisville with Nebraska the only school not needing to pay a buy out fee. What she had accomplished at that point with building Louisville’s program was remarkable and she kept padding her resume the last few of years too, making it pretty easy for Dannen.
GBR,
Jay
She did a great job at Louisville and should be able to keep Nebraska at a high level, assuming there aren’t major roster departures from the coaching change.