Troy Dannen shows he knows more than Nebraska football

A large white gift bag sat on the makeshift stage on the third floor of West Memorial Stadium.

In the immediate moments after interim president Chris Kabourek introduced Troy Dannen as Nebraska’s 17th athletic director, Kabourek pulled out a custom No. 17 Nebraska football jersey for Troy. The two posed with it for photos. But they weren’t done.

Kabourek then grabbed another football jersey, a smaller one designated for William, the Dannens’ youngest son, with the No. 24. And then, a red long-sleeved Nebraska volleyball jersey made specifically for Elle, the Dannens’ youngest daughter. For Amy, Troy’s wife, a small Nebraska-themed clear bag.

William immediately put the jersey on over his red Adidas jacket. At first sight of her jersey, Elle’s eyes lit up. She smiled at her dad and draped the soon-to-be well-loved jersey over her right arm.

“The highlight of the day was my daughter getting that volleyball jersey standing up at the front today,” Troy Dannen said near the end of his media Q&A session in the Hawks Championship Center. “She will wear that thing for days and days and days at school. She’s a volleyball fan, but she knows what Nebraska volleyball is as well.”

A small gesture. A meaningful gesture. One that showed that girls and women don’t just belong in Nebraska Athletics, but that they’re a priority.

At Nebraska, yes, football is king. There was plenty of that in Dannen’s opening remarks and follow-up Q&A.

Dannen didn’t shy away from how football coach Matt Rhule was a reason why he jumped at the opportunity to be Nebraska’s next athletic director. Dannen and Governor Jim Pillen both invoked Tom Osborne in their remarks. Dannen spoke of Nebraska’s past football championships. Regent Rob Schafer likened Dannen to Bob Devaney.

While football is a massive piece to the puzzle at Nebraska, there’s so much more to Nebraska Athletics than what solely happens on and around the gridiron.

Hundreds and hundreds of student-athletes at Nebraska don’t play football. They’re soccer players, volleyball players, runners, hurdlers, jumpers and throwers. They’re baseball players, softball players, basketball players and rifle athletes. They’re swimmers, gymnasts and bowlers. They’re tennis players and golfers and wrestlers and everything in between.

And, thankfully, Dannen seemed to understand that — giving plenty of deserved credit to Nebraska volleyball’s way.

“We have the John Wooden of volleyball right in our midst,” Dannen said of John Cook, invoking the likeness of the Hall of Fame basketball coach who led UCLA to 10 NCAA titles over a span of 12 years. “… There isn’t a sport here that can’t be Nebraska volleyball. And if we don’t get there, we have to be introspective and figure out why.

“And it’s not a criticism or a condemnation. It’s, what do we have to do to become Nebraska volleyball. I talked about standards to set: every decision we make, every action we take, we should set the standard that others aspire to achieve. It’s not just externally, it’s internally. So how we do all meet the standard that Nebraska volleyball has shown us inside the department?”

Well, Dannen answered that question in his answer to another question.

It’s retaining talent — coaching talent, athletic talent, administrator talent. It’s getting name, image and likeness fully funded. It’s working with and prioritizing the partnership with The 1890 Initiative. It’s embracing whatever comes next in this rapidly changing landscape of college athletics and not being caught off guard when the merry-go-round stops at unionization or revenue sharing or whatever else currently unforeseen quickly comes into the picture.

“It will be coming. It is not optional,” Dannen said of revenue sharing. “I talked a lot about NIL today and 1890. That is what NIL will transition to. And we better be supporting it to the max today because as we transition, we will be supporting it to the max tomorrow.

“We’ve always focused on coach recruitment and retention and how important that is. People, it’s time to focus on student athletic recruitment and retention. And it’s a different model. Some people don’t like it. And those who don’t want to embrace it, that’s fine. I know this, we will embrace it. Because when I say, that is the price of success. Coaches contracts: price of success. We will be able to pay the price for success.”

The time is now. Well, the time was yesterday, but the time is also now.

Part of this is cyclical. Even before the advent of NIL, the following was true: when programs are successful, they attract more talent. When you attract more talent, you have more success. With NIL, now it’s: when you have more to offer, you attract more talent.

Putting your head in the sand on the issues that college athletics is facing and will face in the next several years is not a solution. Pretending the problem doesn’t exist won’t magically make it go away.

And that’s for anything from NIL and revenue sharing and possible unionization to allowing the student-athletes to be themselves.

Wedged in the middle of his thoughts regarding the passion of the fanbase and his impressions of Nebraska Volleyball, Dannen offered a poignant thought about diversity, equity and inclusion, programs more commonly referred to as DEI.

Nebraska Athletics — under the direction of Dr. Lawrence Chatters, the executive associate athletic director for strategic initiatives — has done a lot of good work in those areas recently, like the National Girls and Women in Sports Day event in February, the HuskHers events surrounding the 50th anniversary of Title IX and the Black History Month programming.

While Dannen wasn’t at Nebraska for those, he says he believes they need to meet student-athletes where they are.

“We have to take care of our kids,” Dannen said in response to a question pertaining to what DEI programming will look like under his leadership within the athletic department. “We have a more diverse athletic department than anyplace else on campus. Those kids have demands, expectations, beliefs: we need to support them in every way that we possibly can. That is the fundamental.

“I learned a lot because I didn’t know what I didn’t know prior to George Floyd when I was at Tulane. And so, I learned a lot from them. And so, it’s a two-way street. The athletes we have, that we are recruiting, are going to come from all over the country and some from all over the world. And they come in here with their own beliefs, expectations. And it’s up to us to support and empower those inside the department. I want this to be a place everybody wants to come and everybody knows they can have a chance to succeed.”

A place … where everybody knows they can have a chance to succeed.

That sums up the hour-plus of Dannen’s remarks well. 

That’s what he wants Nebraska to be, a place where everybody has the chance and the opportunity to succeed. 

If Nebraska, under Dannen’s leadership, holds everyone to the Nebraska Volleyball standard and pours its resources into what it takes to retain people, there’s no reason why the Huskers can’t continue to climb.