At 71, Pepin Celebrates Title, Coach of the Year

Pepin Named Big Ten Men's Indoor Coach of the Year

Ten Huskers Qualify for NCAA Indoor Championships

Husker Men Win 2015 Big Ten Indoor Championship

Randy York’s N-Sider

When you’re 71 years old and believe, deep down, that a few of your most recent men’s track and field teams had the talent to win a conference indoor championship, but for some reason, failed, you learn to look at the world a little differently. If you’re Nebraska legend Gary Pepin, who was named the 2015 Big Ten Conference Men's Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year Tuesday afternoon, you begin to realize that winning 70 combined men’s and women’s indoor and outdoor championships in three different conferences over a 35-year span is never automatic. That applies to Pepin, who now has earned a whopping 25 Coach of the Year awards in the Big 12 and Big Ten Conferences, including three since Nebraska’s move to the B1G – the women’s indoor honor in 2012, the men’s outdoor accolade in 2013 and the men's 2015 indoor award following the Cornhuskers' lopsided championship in Ohio.

Huskers Beat Runner-up Illinois by 41 Points, No. 3 Minnesota by 51

Each championship becomes a chance for joy, and for the first time in a long time last Saturday, Pepin, Nebraska’s legendary head coach for both track and field programs, let his hair down. When the Big Ten Network asked Pepin for an interview after the Huskers crushed runner-up Illinois by 41 points and third-place Minnesota by 51 points to win the Big Ten Men’s Indoor Track and Field Championship in Geneva, Ohio, Pepin not only obliged, but had some serious pep in his step before the camera lights came on. “He kind of let it all come out a little bit and showed his jubilation,” T.J. Pierce said of Pepin, his former head coach who hired the former Husker pole vault specialist to coach NU's vault and combined events. “We were away from the camera, but we were all very happy inside. We’re Nebraska guys. We’re usually vanilla ice cream.”

But not this time. “When Coach Pepin's around our student-athletes after a meet like this one,” Piece said, “he can show the same emotion they do. He can get all fired up. He can high-five, jump up and down and holler a little bit.” It’s a rarity, to be sure, especially when Nebraska’s longtime head coach would prefer his student-athletes get 15 seconds of fame over him receiving 15 minutes of it. “He believes they deserve all the attention,” Pierce said, “because it’s their time, their victory and their championship.” Saturday’s title turned the tide, changed the paradigm and made it a team-wide celebration. “As a coaching staff, we open the door, but the guys are the ones who have to walk through it,” Pierce said. “This was one time when they more than walked through it. They kicked the door so hard, the frame widened for everyone.”

Big Ten Champion ‘Dapo’ and Sean Pille Trigger Confidence, Emotion

Pierce views track and field athletes no differently than football, basketball or baseball players. “There’s momentum changes in all sports when one team goes up and another team goes down. Emotion changes,” he said, pointing out how Nebraska had dropped behind the leader in scoring right before the 60-meter hurdles. “When Dapo (Oladapo Akinmoladun, pictured above) and Sean (Pille) went 1-3 in that race, the whole team just lit up,” Pierce said. “Everyone started nodding their heads. It was an energy swing. All of a sudden, everyone wanted to ride the wave. Our athletes started to pile it on. They were flying around the track like we were a football team making one big play after another. From that point on, we let loose and poured it on.”

Billy Maxwell, Nebraska’s sprints and hurdles coach and Pepin’s longtime close friend, agrees with Pierce that their head coach embraces the euphemism to hope for the best and prepare for the worst, especially after Nebraska didn’t win a men's Big Ten indoor championship before last Saturday’s breakthrough. Maxwell also agrees that Pepin “would have been an awfully good battlefield general because he’s always thinking of all the angles that play out, whether they end up being in our favor or our opponents’ favor,” Pierce said.

Saturday became an avalanche of multiplying emotion and escalating point totals that took Nebraska to the top before any other conference rival could even think about the math. “We came into this meet the last three years thinking we might have the best team and couldn’t win the darned thing,” Maxwell said. “This was a great victory and it's a great feat anytime you win the conference championship. Gary deserved a meet like this one. He’s worked awfully hard to get this program to this point, but I know what’s going through his head right now – we have to start figuring out how we’re going to win the outdoor championship this year.”

Olympic High Jumper/Volunteer Coach Dusty Jonas Weighs In

Dusty Jonas, Nebraska’s former 2008 national indoor high jump champion who competed that same year at the Olympic Games in Beijing, China, is a volunteer coach for Husker men and women jumpers as well as a professional jumper. “I don’t know anybody who dislikes winning,” Jonas told me Tuesday. “I don’t want to call Coach Pepin an eternal pessimist or eternal optimist, but he seems to go into every season and every meet wanting and expecting to win, and I feel like anything less than that really would be considered a disappointment. He’s done so well for so long as a head coach, I can’t really put my finger on it. Does he like winning more? Or does he hate to lose more? He’s insanely competitive, which is why I think we get along so well. It was hard to believe that he hadn’t won a men's conference indoor meet since I was a junior in college in 2007. Winning the Big Ten Indoor was great for the entire coaching staff. We felt really good about James White (pictured above) and Landon Bartel finishing 1 and 2 in the high jump.  People wonder when Coach Pepin will retire or call it quits. Man, I’m hoping he coaches until he’s 173 years old, not just 73. He wins so much, and he enjoys every minute of it.”

Legendary Coaches Allen, Kendig Admire the Fire in Pepin

Pepin is a legendary Hall-of-Fame leader who has set the standard, coaching 35 conference championship teams. Nebraska's Francis Allen has coached 41 individual NCAA champions and eight NCAA team champions. In his 40 years as the Huskers' head coach, Allen earned eight National Coach of the Year Awards and three NCAA National Coach of the Year honors before retiring. He served twice as USA's Men’s Olympic Gymnastics Coach in 1980 and '92. “I know why Pepin keeps winning conference championships,” Allen said. “He’s out there every day. I mean, you go out on the track and you see him coaching when the snow’s still deep. He has everybody doing all these weird things like jumping off of boxes. Then, at the end of the season, bingo – he wins another conference championship. He even makes champions out of all the local people from Lincoln, Omaha, Grand Island, and everywhere else in this state. That’s a point that really resonates with me. It’s awesome the way he’s developed all these Nebraska kids.”

Dan Kendig, the Nebraska women’s gymnastics head coach, has tutored 134 All-Americans and 16 Husker teams to NCAA Championship appearances that included 11 Super Six finals. He was his sport’s National Coach of the Year in 1999 and 2003 and has earned conference coach of the year honors nine times. Count Kendig among those who marvel at Pepin’s contributions over 35 years. “Look how long he’s coached and how he’s kept up with the times,” Kendig said of Pepin. “He has a system. He has the respect of his athletes. He has a really good staff, and I think it takes all of that to do what he’s done. I don’t know anyone who wants him to retire.”

There is an exception. Rival coaches would like to see Gary Pepin retire asap. That would incrementally increase their chances to experience a conference championship celebration.

Send a comment to ryork@huskers.com (Please include city, state)

Follow Randy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RandyYorkNsider

Randy’s N-Sider Blog Archive

Randy’s N-Sider Column Archive