NU VOLLEYBALL: A CHAMPIONSHIP TRADITION
Nebraska’s club volleyball program in the early 1970s set the foundation for the Huskers’ early successes.
by Mike Babcock
A bulletin advertising an opening for the head volleyball
coach’s job at Nebraska had been discarded in a wastebasket in
the coaches’ office at Louisburg College. Paul Sanderford, the
first-year head coach of the women’s basketball team at the
North Carolina junior college, retrieved the bulletin from the
wastebasket and handed it to Terry Pettit, the school’s head
volleyball coach.
Without that assist from Sanderford, Pettit, an aspiring
English teacher with a background in creative writing and
poetry as well as coaching, would not have known about the
opening. If he had not known about the opening, he would
not have applied. And if he had not applied and been hired,
the history of Husker volleyball would have been altered
dramatically, because he and Husker volleyball became one
and the same.
Pettit was the Nebraska volleyball coach from 1977 to
1999 – all but two years of the program’s first 25 years of
existence. Pat Sullivan, the Huskers’ first volleyball coach,
compiled an 83-21 record in two seasons of competition
sanctioned by the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for
Women.
Before 1975, Nebraska didn’t sponsor women’s athletic
teams. If women wanted to compete, they did so on loosely
organized and unfunded club teams. It had been that way since
the early 1900s, when a women’s basketball team occasionally
competed against teams from outside the University.
Basketball was introduced in the university’s physical
education classes for sophomore women in 1896, and as was
the case with male students, class teams competed against
each other.
Nebraska’s first All-University women’s team was
organized in 1896 and included the best players regardless of
class, according to the Nebraska State Journal. The team never
lost, which should not be surprising, given how it was chosen
and the quality of its intramural competition.
The first women’s basketball game played before an
audience was part of the University’s sixth annual gymnasium
exhibition in the spring of 1897, according to Phyllis Kay Wilke’s
“Physical Education for Women at Nebraska University, 18791923,” published in Nebraska History in the spring of 1975.
Louise Pound seems to have been the driving force in
women’s basketball at Nebraska, organizing as well as playing
on the earliest teams. She was captain of the first team to play
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2015 NEBRASKA VOLLEYBALL
aga inst an opponent from outside the University in March
of 1898. Pound, who also was the first All-University tennis
champion, scored 11 points in a 15-7 victory against a team
from Council Bluffs, Iowa.
In April of 1901, the university sponsored a women’s state
tournament under Pound’s direction at Grant Memorial Hall.
Nebraska was represented by an A team and a B team in a
field that included teams from the Omaha YWCA, Lincoln High
School and Wahoo High School. Nebraska’s A team won the
two-day competition and a month later won a rematch with
the Omaha YWCA in Omaha.
In November of 1901, Nebraska played a team from the
University of Missouri at Grant Hall, “the first intercollegiate
match for girls ever played in the west,” according to the
Nebraska State Journal. Missouri was no match for its more
experienced — and to that point undefeated — opponent,
losing 31-4.
The Nebraska women did not suffer their first defeat
until 1904, when they lost to a team from the University
of Minnesota at Minneapolis after opening an abbreviated
schedule by shutting out a team from the Lincoln YWCA. The
Nebraska women avenged the Minnesota loss two weeks later
in Lincoln.
The Nebraska women played games against the University
of Minnesota, home-and-home two weeks apart, again in
March of 1908, losing both, the second after a five-minute
overtime.
Before the Minnesota games, Nebraska had defeated
Nebraska Wesleyan to finish what was to be its final season
with a 1-2 record against outside competition. University
women were not allowed to compete in basketball, as well as
other sports, only in physical education classes after April 24,
1908.
In response to the concerns of faculty members, who
considered such activity inappropriate, the University board of
regents abolished intercollegiate athletics for women. If not
for the passing of Title IX by Congress in 1972, there probably
would not be women’s intercollegiate athletics now.
Initially, “there wasn’t an embracing of women’s athletics,”
Pettit said. “It’s like any civil rights movement almost. It’s
tolerated, and you have to educate the public as to what it
means. Today if you asked on a ballot if women should have
the opportunity to compete in sports, there would be an
overwhelming majority of people who would support it. But
that wasn’t the case in the 1970s.
“One of the things that allowed Nebraska to be successful
was that we jumped in with both feet,” Pettit said. “Nebraska
decided: ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it well.’ Whereas
some schools were hesitant to get going, Nebraska was one of
the first to offer scholarships. In any endeavor, if you’re among
the first, that gives you a tremendous advantage, and you
continue to reap the benefits years later.”
Under Pettit’s direction, volleyball became to Husker
women’s athletics what football is to the Nebraska men’s
program. Pettit’s teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament
semifinals six times, and his 1995 team won the national
championship, defeating Texas in the finals at Amherst, Mass.
The 1995 Huskers finished 32-1, with their only loss
coming against Stanford in the second match of the season.
Senior Allison Weston was the AVCA Co-Player of the Year and
among three first-team All-Americans from Nebraska. The
others were Christy Johnson and Lisa Reitsma.
Weston, a middle blocker, earned first-team All-America
honors three times, the first Husker to do so. But Nebraska
consistently has been represented on All-America teams since
1980, when Terri Kanouse became the Huskers’ first volleyball
All-American, as selected by the AIAW.
Three Huskers have earned All-America honors from the
American Volleyball Coaches Association in the same season
The first Husker volleyball team, coached by Pat Sullivan (far right, back row), set the tone for future teams, compiling a 34-8 record and advancing to the AIAW regional
finals in 1975.