Nebraska volleyball schoolmaster John Cook dinner refused to surrender on stricken megastar Harper Murray. Now she’s thriving
LINCOLN, Neb. — Harper Murray is smiling and giggling each and every while. And she or he’s enjoying her easiest volleyball in two seasons at Nebraska.
This rejected lifts spirits amongst Murray’s teammates. Her happiness issues to them. The Huskers noticed Murray spiral utmost spring amid people struggles together with her emotional fitness. Two prison incidents derailed her offseason later Murray was once named the zenith freshman within the Heavy Ten and a third-team All-American.
However her trail is set greater than rejuvenation.
The school volleyball population and Nebraska’s legion of fanatics have taken realize this autumn of Murray’s bond with Nebraska schoolmaster John Cook dinner.
“The connection that he has with Harper is extremely special,” senior co-captain Lexi Rodriguez mentioned. “I think anyone can see it, whether you’re on the court or not.”
Murray’s rebound is outlined partly through her unusual dating with the 68-year schoolmaster who stood up for her like the daddy she misplaced 13 years in the past. Murray, 19, brings out a cushy facet in Cook dinner that few have distinguishable. He cares for her like a daughter.
“It’s unconditional love,” mentioned Cook dinner, a four-time nationwide champion schoolmaster in his twenty fifth season at Nebraska. “That’s really what it is. In this day and age, with this generation, you’ve got to have that if you’re going to coach.”
They megastar in combination in TikTok movies. She created an account for him and controls the content material, the usage of his telephone. He revels within the hundreds of thousands of perspectives.
“He’s always asking what we’re going to do next?” Murray mentioned. “He loves it.”
GO DEEPER
From cowboy to schoolmaster, Nebraska’s John Cook dinner fuels a volleyball be on one?s feet
If the Huskers wish to create a request of the schoolmaster — perhaps it’s an adjustment to their uniforms or a tweak within the time table — Murray will get nominated. “You ask” teammates inform her, she mentioned, “because he’ll say yes to you.”
Cook dinner doesn’t say that Murray is his favourite. However the Huskers are aware of it to be true. And it’s OK. She wishes him in her generation.
@coachjohncook1 it aint simple being a cowboy #nebraskavolleyball #fyp #nebraskatok ♬ original sound – coachjohncook1
Incorrect. 2 Nebraska enters the overall moment of the common season at 28-1 and easiest within the Heavy Ten. It has received 54 of 59 units in league suits and performs at Incorrect. 4 Penn Atmosphere on Friday, adopted through a Saturday talk over with to Maryland. The postseason bracket disclose is on Sunday.
Murray’s 3.29 kills in step with eager and 27 provider aces top the Huskers. She’s the Incorrect. 1 attacking possibility at the maximum balanced offensive staff within the community. Her protection within the again row as a six-rotation participant has improved greater than any section of her sport.
However 3 months in the past, Murray was once terrified to travel onto the lawn in entrance of Nebraska’s fanatics for the preseason Pink-White scrimmage. She puzzled what public would assume, Cook dinner mentioned. What would they are saying about her? Would she get booed?
Again up 8 months. Latter December, Texas swept top-seeded Nebraska within the nationwide championship fit. Murray didn’t play games neatly, particularly in receiving the Longhorns’ serves.
On the information convention that adopted the loss, she was once disheartened. A reporter requested her in regards to the hour.
“I think we’re going to win three national championships (in) the next three years,” Murray mentioned.
The remark blow up on social media. Murray digested the reactions and buried herself in negativity. She fell right into a melancholy that lasted for months. On April 5, she was once cited for DUI in Lincoln. Lower than a life after, she were given stuck on safety digital camera shoplifting $65 of bijou at a wearing items pack.
ESPN featured the be on one?s feet and fall of Murray in an hour-long documentary, “No Place Like Nebraska.” It aired in August, monitoring the Huskers’ 2023 season and the months later it.
Murray misplaced her spot at the U.S. ladies’s U21 staff. Population contributors anxious that she may bodily hurt herself. Her mom, Sarah, feared that Cook dinner would disregard Harper from the staff at Nebraska. Each and every while Cook dinner talked to Sarah for weeks, she sought relief about Harper’s roster condition. Folk force existed for him to offload her.
“The thought crossed my mind,” Harper mentioned. “But I think I knew deep down that he wasn’t going to give up on me that easily.”
Murray was once the Heavy Ten Freshman of the Life in 2023 and her luck at the lawn has endured helped through the backup of head schoolmaster John Cook dinner. (Courtesy of Nebraska Athletics)
Cook dinner and Nebraska colleague schoolmaster Jaylen Reyes started to lease Murray ahead of she began highschool in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She attended the Huskers’ Dream Crew camp as an eighth-grader and fell for the whole lot in regards to the Nebraska program
As Murray evolved into the Incorrect. 1-rated probability within the 2023 elegance, her recruiting intensified. She was once named the Gatorade Participant of the Life and had her number of zenith colleges. However she valued her preliminary impressions of Nebraska, and Cook dinner received over her mother, partly, through ensuring she knew he would protect Harper and let Sarah know if her daughter made any needful selections.
It’s a message that Cook dinner tells the fogeys of each and every participant he recruits.
“It’s one thing to say that,” Harper mentioned. “It’s another to act on it.”
When her generation veered off the rails this yr, Cook dinner didn’t waver.
“I learned a long time ago that you do everything you can before you give up on these kids,” the schoolmaster mentioned.
Murray’s struggles reinforced Cook dinner’s constancy to her — to not be construed as going simple on her. Within the schoolmaster, Harper mentioned, she noticed a task style. He supported her, she mentioned, “when other people probably wouldn’t have.”
“I look up to him,” Murray mentioned, “and just the way he approaches every day in life. It’s different than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Cook dinner helped Murray create a tick list of things required to revive her excellent status with the Huskers.
She finished in depth population provider and greater than 100 hours of treatment, which continues along with court-ordered probation. Throughout the staff surrounding, Murray labored to regain believe.
Cook dinner frequently hears from former athletes and eyewitnesses that they recognize Murray’s expansion. He marvels at her get to the bottom of. Many athletes in her status, he mentioned, would have left this yr looking for a pristine get started.
She couldn’t loose. Now not later all that Cook dinner had accomplished to backup her.
“He wasn’t happy with me,” Murray mentioned. “But at the same time, he promised my mom that he would be there for me. And that’s exactly what he did. He held me accountable. But he gave me grace.
“I have a lot of love and respect for him. I wouldn’t be the person or the player I am without him. And I know that I owe a lot to him. One of my biggest goals in life is to make him proud, especially because I put our program through a lot. I put us in the gutter at some points.”
Murray’s father, Vada, died when she was once 6. He was once recognized with lung most cancers in 2008 and lived 3 years with the problem till future 43. Vada was once a standout protection at the Michigan soccer staff from 1987-90, enjoying in 3 Rose Bowls. He graduated to paintings as a police officer in Ann Arbor.
Harper holds handiest fragmented recollections of Vada. However the being lacking her father haunts her. She wears his jersey Incorrect. 27, simply as her sister, Kendall, did with Michigan volleyball from 2020 to 2023.
The loss that Harper skilled has impacted Cook dinner’s strategy to their dating.
“There’s a coach-player relationship,” Cook dinner mentioned, “but I also think there’s a … I don’t want to call it father-daughter, because I’m not her father. But it’s built on trust.”
Harper has distinguishable their bond develop maximum in the best way they keep up a correspondence. The TikTok movies permit the people to catch a glimpse. However the roots in their connection run a lot deeper. At the lawn, she mentioned, he’s tricky on her. Harper requested Cook dinner ahead of this season as she struggled with self belief to vacay up and display her extra compassion.
He complied. But it surely was once brief.
“He can make me really mad,” she mentioned. “But I know it’s because he wants what’s best for me.”
The generation utmost yr that caused Murray’s slide is bobbing up on its first annualannually. Cook dinner mentioned he’s now not anxious that she’ll endure once more in a matching approach if the Huskers fall cut in December. She’s extra mature, he mentioned. Her standpoint has modified.
Murray mentioned she’s as pushed as ever to win a countrywide championship.
“I feel like I have something to prove,” she mentioned.
Murray wears tape on her left hand all through suits. She marks the pinky finger with an “8” to honor Rodriguez, a guiding brightness for Harper, and the hoop finger with “27,” the Murray public quantity. At the index finger, Harper writes “JC,” the initials of her schoolmaster.
“He’s the closest thing I have,” she mentioned, “to a father figure.”
(Lead picture: Dylan Widger / Imagn Photographs)
