Busboom Kelly-led Cardinals should get Husker fans’ support at Final Four

OMAHA — Welcome back to the epicenter of collegiate volleyball.

It’s set to be an electric week in downtown Omaha for this year’s Final Four.

But, unlike in years past, Nebraska fans won’t have their Huskers to cheer for, as NU lost in the regional semifinal round to Oregon in a five-set heartbreaker. So that means fans still making the trek to CHI Health Center Omaha — or watching on ESPN and ESPN2 — will need to find someone else to root for this year.

The candidates: Texas, San Diego, Pittsburgh and Louisville.

For those with an affinity for the Good Life, there are Nebraska ties on all four teams.

There’s two former Huskers playing for Texas: Kayla Caffey and Keonilei Akana. It’s a homecoming for San Diego reserve libero/defensive specialist Kate Galvin, as she grew up in Omaha and went to Millard North. Pittsburgh senior middle blocker Sabrina Starks cut her teeth at Platteview and hails from Springfield. Louisville is led by former Husker Dani Busboom Kelly.

If you’re just rooting for good volleyball, cheer for them all.

But if you’re looking for one specific team to cheer for, look no further than the color already in your closet.

We’re all a sucker for good stories — myself included — and there may be no better story than Busboom Kelly. (First-time Final Four team San Diego is also up there, for the record.)

If all goes according to Louisville’s plan, this week could be a three-peat of historic proportions for Busboom Kelly.

The Cortland native won a national title as a player with Nebraska in 2006. She won a national title as an assistant coach with Nebraska in 2015. Now, her squad is vying for a national title with her as head coach.

Her first two titles were in this building (though, it was technically the Qwest Center and CenturyLink Center back in those days). How fitting would it be for her to get her third title in the same place in her home state?

“It’s pretty surreal to be back in a different role for the third time,” Busboom Kelly said. “When you start a season, you always want to get to the Final Four; that’s your hope. But as it gets closer and close I think the pressure builds and when you have the hometown factor it’s even more pressure. So it means a lot.”

That’s not the only source of pressure.

If Louisville and Busboom Kelly (or San Diego and Jennifer Petrie) advance to the national championship match, she’ll have the opportunity to be the first female head coach to lead a team to the NCAA volleyball title.

With Busboom Kelly and Petrie coaching at this Final Four, it’s just the second time in NCAA Final Four history with two female head coaches present. The first time was in 1993 — 29 years ago — but both Florida’s Mary Wise and BYU’s Elaine Michaelis and their teams lost in the semifinals.

A quick history lesson: female coaches have won collegiate volleyball titles before, but not in the NCAA era. Those championships for Sul Ross State and Utah State’s Marilyn Nolen, Long Beach State’s Dixie Grimmett, Texas Lutheran’s Susan Duke, UC Riverside’s Sue Gozansky, UCF’s Lucy McDaniel, Hawaii Hilo’s Sharon Peterson, Azusa Pacific’s Alane LeGrand, and Sacramento State’s Debby Colberg came in the days of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.

The AIAW was led by almost entirely female administrators and was founded in 1971. The organization’s last volleyball tournament in 1981 overlapped with the first NCAA tournament. Texas won the final large-college AIAW title, while USC won the first NCAA title.

Since then, though, there have been 41 NCAA national champions with 16 different head coaches — all of them male.

Last year, when Busboom Kelly was the only female coach at the Final Four, she didn’t want to speak on the glass ceiling in NCAA volleyball, but she’s reversed course this week.

“I was like, ‘I don’t want to talk about that. I just want to be known as a coach,’” Busboom Kelly said Wednesday. “I do think having a child, and the more I’ve thought about it, I think it does need be to talked about, it’s like why are we talking about that in 2022, being the second time it’s happened? And it is amazing to be a mom and have a great career and be able to do what you love.

“So it means a lot to show our players that they can do that, whether it’s coaching or anything else, that if that’s what they want, they can do it. But I do think there’s a lot of lessons. Like how do you do it and how can you be successful and hopefully I’m showing them that every day.”

For Nebraska fans who want to cheer for a good story, there’s a tailor-made one with Busboom Kelly.

Small-town Nebraska kid. Husker athlete. Husker assistant coach. Now leading her own program in a quest for Louisville’s first volleyball title. And if that happens, she makes history herself, too.

How can you not root for that? She’s hoping you do.

“We need it,” Busboom Kelly said of crowd support. “Pitt is extremely tough to play. They always find ways to win. Obviously, they’re here. I don’t think anybody saw them beating Wisconsin at Wisconsin, except teams that play them every single year multiple times.

“So not only would it mean a lot to me, it means a lot to our team. And we’ll need some extra momentum and everyone knows that crowds can certainly help that. Hopefully, they’ll be cheering for us and they want to see a fellow Nebraskan in the finals.”