Quick Hits from Troy Dannen: "Recruitment and retention" are priorities

New Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen wanted to set one thing straight after interim president Chris Kabourek had introduced him in front of a jam-packed room inside Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on Tuesday for a introductory press conference.

Kabourek had said he and Dannen, then Washington's AD, came to terms on Dannen becoming the Huskers' next AD at 4 a.m. last Wednesday. But Dannen remembers the moment. And it wasn't 4 a.m.

"It was 3:51 a.m. when we actually executed," Dannen said with a smile. "I knew I was going to come work for the right guy, because at 2 o'clock, he figured out how to execute a DocuSign agreement from some place in his house. And we got that thing done, signed at 3:51.

"So, 3:51 is like our time now."

That story gives one a quick glimpse into the hectic and fast nature of Nebraska's search for a new AD following Trev Alberts' abrupt departure to Texas A&M. Here are the Quick Hits of Dannen's introductory press conference:

Basically, too early to tell.

Dannen was asked his thoughts on Alberts' plans to renovate Memorial Stadium, but the AD hadn't got to that yet. He's been busy, traveling to Memphis to watch the men's basketball team and then to Corvallis, Oregon, to support the women.

"It will be something that I have to get myself up to speed on very, very quickly," Dannen said. "I think I have some meetings as early as Thursday, starting to try to learn a little bit about it."

But then Dannen continued:

"I will say this, and it's true with anything: If it helps us win, great. But if it doesn't help us win?" Dannen said as he shrugged. "I want to win. So the assessment of anything that we do — stadium, any facility, any infrastructure, any person we hire, every dollar we invest — does it help us win? Does it help us win academically? Does it help us win socially? Does it help us win on the field? Those are the criteria by which every dollar we spend should be measured."

When Dannen was a student at Northern Iowa, Bob Bowlsby was the Panthers' AD. Bowlsby, of course, went on to become a leading voice in college athletics as the commissioner of the Big 12.

Dannen called Bowlsby a "legend in athletics" and someone who became Dannen's mentor, and is still that to this day. So it was Bowlsby who Dannen called when the Nebraska search went to Seattle and the University of Washington.

"When I laid everything out and he said, 'Are you crazy?' Take that job,'" Dannen said. "And that's what I wanted to hear — just my mentor affirming what my own mind told me."

Dannen talked about the momentum Nebraska has right now.

The football program is trending up under Matt Rhule. The men's basketball program under Fred Hoiberg just made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade. The volleyball program, led by John Cook, is routinely a juggernaut. Amy Williams' women's basketball team made the Big Dance twice in the past three years.

Momentum, combined with "indescribable" facilities and a passionate fan base, is all part of what Dannen calls a give-a-darn factor.

And at Nebraska, there's a huge give-a-darn factor.

"Nothing beats a high give-a-darn factor, and that give-a-darn factor exists here," Dannen said. "Every place throughout the state, throughout the university, throughout the department. I love being part of a great give-a-darn factor. But if you want to have a culture of success, those are the ingredients that will allow you to have success."

Another part of Dannen's process he wanted to do his due diligence on is alignment within the leadership at Nebraska. The AD said he found what he was looking for.

To Dannen, alignment means common goals, interests, beliefs and motivation within an organization. The Iowa native went on to say he's never seen a university as aligned as Nebraska in his 17 years as an AD.

"Alignment is about the willingness of everybody to get stuff out of the way to allow the whole to succeed," he said. "Alignment is not about decisions, and it's not about necessarily the people all being this, that, in the order that they are. Alignment comes from the governor. It comes from the board. It comes from the president. It comes from the chancellor. It comes from our faculty. It comes from the student-athletes. It comes from a coach.

"Alignment is up and down — is everybody willing to move mountains to put people in a position to succeed?"

Dannen wants Nebraska to be among the leaders in college athletics, not the followers. That's a rapidly-changing landscape to navigate, but Dannen thinks he's ready for it.

"We will embrace whatever is there, even if we don't like it," Dannen said. "That's how you lead — you embrace what's there, and off we go."

And there will be much to embrace as more changes come to college athletics, whether it's conference realignment, NIL or whatever else will pop up.

"We speculate what it looks like, but know this: If you think the last five years in college athletics have been wild, the next five years are going to put it to shame," Dannen said.

Dannen went on to say Nebraska became one of the biggest and baddest brands in all of college athletics because of one reason: the Huskers won.

To Dannen, Nebraska won because in 1969, Bob Devaney hired a strength coach during a time when many didn't understand the importance of strength coaches in football programs.

Ways of supporting student-athletes and helping them succeed have changed from the past. Dannen says he's ready for it, and then mentioned the Huskers' top NIL collective, the 1890 Initiative.

"Success now is about innovation in NIL, it's innovation in how we embrace the role of the student-athlete inside of our athletic department," Dannen said. "Successes is about our collective — you're going to see me wear 1890 stuff as much as I wear Nebraska stuff because it's about this: recruitment and retention of our student athletes."

Five years ago, NIL wasn't high on any athletic department leader's priority list. That's changed in a drastic way. And finding — and keeping — talented people in the program will be one of Dannen's goals at Nebraska.

That goes for student-athletes and coaches. Dannen mentioned Nebraska attracting and landing Rhule, Hoiberg and Williams, and retaining them. Rhule is one of the highest-paid college football coaches in the country. Hoiberg and Williams just signed contract extensions.

"We just retained them because you don't let good people get away," Dannen said. "Same thing goes for student-athletes — recruitment and retention, that is our priority. And you will see that from me over and over and over again. When you invest in student-athletes, the investment pays off in ways that we'll never understand, both for the whole, for the collective, but certainly for the student-athletes, and you will hear me over and over again ask you to invest in student-athletes."

And that's this: Nebraska will be a leader that everyone else follows.

"Nebraska Cornhusker athletics will be the standard by which everyone else will measure themselves," Dannen said.

You want to sell tickets? Dannen wants to sell tickets in a way that makes other athletic departments sell tickets like Nebraska. If you teach strength and conditioning, Nebraska will teach it in a way that creates copycats across the country.

Set the standard in everything you do. That's Dannen's goal. And yeah, that means championships.

"We're gonna win and we're gonna win Big Ten championships and we're going to win national championships," Dannen said, "and we are going to win academically, and we are going to win socially, and we are going to win with character and we're going to win with integrity."

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