Gov. Jim Pillen’s call to Nebraska’s new A.D., how Troy Dannen plans to ‘fight’ for NU

“My heart is pounding,” he said during Troy Dannen’s introductory press conference Tuesday. Pillen, a former Husker football player and Nebraska Board of Regent, said he gets “fired up” discussing NU Athletics.

Pillen, along with NU interim president Chris Kabourek and Board of Regents chair Rob Schafer, combined to introduce Dannen on the third floor of Memorial Stadium on Tuesday.

NU officials and donors attended the event, as did many Husker head coaches, including football’s Matt Rhule — who sat next to Husker wrestling coach Mark Manning — women’s basketball coach Amy Williams and men’s basketball coach Fred Hoiberg, who sat next to Matt Davison, former Husker receiver and president of the 1890 Collective, NU’s primary name, image and likeness collective.

UNMC Chancellor Dr. Jeffrey Gold, priority candidate for the NU presidential role, arrived shortly after the start of the press conference and stood in the back. At the presser’s end, the potential boss of NU’s new AD spoke briefly to Dannen.

Kabourek, at least the interim president until the regents vote on Gold, conducted the search, thanking a small circle of confidants — Pillen, Schafer, Rhule, and associate A.D. for compliance Jamie Vaughn — for their assistance in the search. Kabourek thanked interim athletic director Dennis Leblanc, as well.

Dannen said he felt good about the job before a phone call with Pillen — who advocated for the state and its people.

“I got off the phone with the governor and thought, ‘Yeah, that’s it,’” Dannen said.

Dannen relied as well on a longtime mentor, Bob Bowlsby, for advice. Bowlsby served as AD of Northern Iowa, Iowa and Stanford before taking the Big 12 Commissioner job in 2012. He served in that role until 2022.

“I laid out everything out and he said ‘Are you crazy? Take that job,’” Dannen of Bowlsby’s response. “And that’s what I wanted to hear, my mentor affirming what my mind told me.”

For nearly the last decade, Dannen has volunteered to find out how the sausage is made in both NCAA and conference meeting rooms.

“They are frightfully provincial,” Dannen said. He’s a chair of the NCAA Football Competition Committee and an executive committee member of the Football Oversight Committee. “Those who fight successfully fight on the behalf of the whole, not on behalf of their own. It’s incumbent upon me, in those rooms, to understand where ‘our own’ fit in the whole.”

But Dannen noted, too, that he “can’t wait for the day to stand up, call the supervisor of officials and complain about a call.” He does it all the time.

“You have to advocate and defend when your students are put in a less-than-advantageous position,” Dannen said. He’s “not one who believes in doing it in the media,” but through phone calls. And he may call upon NU’s president — the priority candidate for that role is Dr. Jeffrey Gold — to call the Big Ten commissioner on occasion, as well.

“That’s how things get done in reality,” Dannen said.

* At his introduction, Dannen’s son received a Husker football jersey while his daughter received a volleyball jersey.

* Dannen described himself as a mediocre high school athlete was the backup kicker and backup holder in football, and would have been “javelin catcher” had that been an actual role.

* Washington replaced Dannen with Washington State AD Pat Chun, a hire Dannen applauded.