Will Bolt Gets his Husker Homecoming

Bill Moos stood at the podium on the sixth floor of Memorial Stadium, getting ready to introduce the 24th head coach of the Nebraska baseball program. “I’m starting to get used to this,” the NU Athletic Director told reporters.

Now with the hiring of Will Bolt, Moos has replaced all three head coaches of the major programs since he was hired in the fall of 2017. Like the other two major coaches Moos has hired, Bolt fits the mold Moos was looking for perfectly; winners with Nebraska ties.

Bolt, like Scott Frost was and to a certain extent, Fred Hoiberg was, is already intimately familiar with the Huskers. Bolt helped to build NU into the powerhouse program that it was in the early 2000s.

The two time captain of the Nebraska baseball team was a part of all four of NU’s Super Regional appearances and all three of their College World Series runs.

“It’s the honor of a lifetime for my family and me to return to Lincoln and have the chance to be a head coach,” Bolt told reporters, who were gathered on the sixth floor of Memorial Stadium. “It’s something I can hardly describe. It’s something that dreams are made of.”

Bolt has climbed the rungs of the coaching profession the past 16 years. He got his start as a grad assistant at Nebraska back in 2005, the last time the Huskers made it to the College World Series. From there, he made a brief stop at Texas A&M as a volunteer assistant coach before becoming a head coach at Texarkana, where he spent three seasons.

There, Bolt learned to do more with less. He didn’t have his own secretary, he had to make his own coffee and he even had to drive the team bus. That’s one of the reasons why Moos was sold on Bolt; he’s willing to do it all. “We got the full package here – a scrapper, a winner,” Moos said.

Bolt left Texarkana in 2011 to return to NU to join former head coach Darin Erstad’s staff. Th

en in 2014, Bolt left to take an assistant coaching job at Texas A&M, where he’s spent the past five seasons.

A native of Conroe, Texas, Bolt’s return to Nebraska is like leaving one home for another. But the decision, as Bolt describes it, “was really a no brainer… my love, affection and affinity for Nebraska is pretty well documented,” Bolt said.

Like Bolt, Erstad was a Husker legend who returned to his alma mater to coach. However, Erstad’s eight seasons ended unceremoniously, as he elected to step down after eight seasons, with just one Big 10 title to show for it.

It’s Bolt’s turn to take the reins now, ready to usher in a new decade of Husker baseball. On Thursday, he stood poised at the podium, projecting a confidence only coach’s with decades more experience than the 39 year old Bolt possess. When a reporter asked Bolt what style of play he wanted his teams to play with, Bolt responded right away with an answer that embodies his whole persona.

“Winning,” Bolt said, to laughter. “Whatever that’s got to look like, honestly just whatever it takes.”