Nebraska Volleyball Coach John Cook spoke Friday night in Beatrice to a crowd of Husker volleyball fans about the Husker volleyball program, the past volleyball season, his passion with horses, and the importance of dreaming like a champion.

Coach Cook has been head coach for the Nebraska volleyball program since 2000 and has guided the Huskers to four NCAA Championships. Speaking Friday evening at the Beatrice High School Coach Cook says he asks himself three questions everyday.

“Everyday I ask myself three questions. The first question is who needs me today? And if you put yourself in those shoes, somebody needs you everyday. The second question is would I be chosen again to be Nebraska’s volleyball coach? If Trev Alberts is hiring a coach am I doing a good enough job that he would hire me back? I have to answer that everyday. And the third question is would I want to be coached by me today? That is what I want from our players. I want them to want to be coached by me. I want them to want to come back to practice the next day.”

Cook says it is important that you believe in yourself saying “belief is free….you have to determine how much you believe in yourself”.

Cook says the Husker program focuses on helping players develop three bones…..the backbone, the wishbone and the funny bone.

“The first bone is the backbone because we want our players and the kids of the state of Nebraska to have a strong backbone so they can stand up to the challenges and they can be tough when they need to, they can say no when they need to, but they got to develop that backbone. As educators, teachers and coaches we have to help them to do that…build a strong backbone. The second bone is the wishbone…they need to dream big. And the third bone we need to develop is the funny bone. That is because whatever we are doing should be fun, it should have joy, we should be looking forward to it everyday. That is what we are trying to do with our Nebraska volleyball players.”

During his hour long presentation Friday night Coach Cook talked about learning to deal with mistakes. Cook says he works daily with his volleyball players about learning to deal with mistakes and how to recover from those mistakes.

In 2023, Cook coached a team with no seniors to the NCAA Final and a 33-2 final record. Last year Cook took on the challenge of having his Huskers play a volleyball match outdoors at Memorial Stadium. The event gained worldwide attention as 92,003 fans packed the stadium for Volleyball Day in Nebraska on August 30th.

Friday night’s event at the high school was a fund raising event for the capitol campaign for the new Beatrice elementary facility.