Trev Alberts Press Conference Transcripts

University of Nebraska Chancellor Ronnie Green
“Welcome this morning. It's great to see everybody here at Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Nebraska.  It is a big foundational day for us and our 130-year history of collegiate athletics at the University of Nebraska. Words cannot fully describe how pleased I am that we had named Trev Alberts as the 14th Athletic Director at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Trev is exactly the type of leader that will help our incredibly talented coaches student athletes and staff here at Husker Athletics to succeed on all fronts. As this transition was developing there were several things that we knew that we needed the next person in this role to fill.

And before I go through how well Trev checked off those boxes. I want to thank right up front the Search Advisory Committee who came together to help counsel and advise us as we looked through a very deep pool of national candidates for this position.  I just want to call them out for you here this morning so you know who was part of that process. Many of them are here today and I want to thank them on behalf of the University of Nebraska for their leadership.

That group included student athletes Austin Allen from our football program and Taylor Johnson from our track and field program. It included former student athletes with us from the Husker population including Jordan Burroughs Ndamukong Suh Eric Crouch Peaches James Keaton and Bill Jackman. It included Darin Erstad and Charlesette Foster from our Student Affairs Division here at the University of Nebraska and the mother of two former Husker football players. It included our Faculty Athletics Representative Scott Fuess here at the University who served as a co-chair of that committee along with Kristen Blankley the faculty chair of our intercollegiate athletics committee and a professor of law in our College of Law. It included two of our University of Nebraska Board of Regents members and I want to thank them. Tim Clare who is here today and Jack Stark so two of our University leaders involved in the effort. And business and civic leaders, including Tonn Ostergard in particular and I am very pleased he was part of that group. I'd like for you to join me in thanking them for the advice and counsel that they have assisted in this search.

There was one potential candidate to emerge that check all of our boxes. It's having all of the right qualities to be the next day Athletic Director here at the University of Nebraska. Trev know what it means to put everything you've got into competition and to succeed at the highest levels.

He's first and foremost student-athlete focused and that's at the center of his attention. Both in the arena and competition on the field in the classrooms academically and in life. He is a game changer. He appreciates the big changes that are undergoing right now in collegiate athletics. I think you can all appreciate the dynamic time that intercollegiate athletics is in with Name, Image and Likeness. You know that big change that's afoot - the sustainability of the NCAA. 

When some of the things that athletics is grappling with we see as an opportunity here at Nebraska especially for us here in Nebraska in the future from these changes. He understands the talent that we have amassed here at the University of Nebraska. I want to thank Bill Moos for his previous leadership in our role as Athletics Director and for the talent that he brought here and came to our university with our coaches and the talent that is here. Also I want to thank very personally on behalf of the university Garrett Klassy. Garrett stepped up to be our Interim Athletic Director a few weeks ago said this to our staff earlier this morning. Garrett’s boat was full. He is the leader for bringing our multimedia rights inhouse. He is the leader in our Name Image and Likeness strategy. He's the leader of our external relations. His boat was full and he stepped up and has done a great job as the interim leader and I want you to give him a round of applause as well.

And then importantly you have heard me say a little bit about this over the last couple of weeks. Trev is dedicated to putting in the hard work to ensure that we are competitive five years, 10 years, 20 years from now in Husker Athletics. I was looking back over a little bit of our history during this search. You know we had an athletic director here who was a good friend of the other guy sitting in the back there (Tom Osborne) in Bob Devaney so 25 years isn't out of the question. That longevity and that commitment is important. Our future is bright. We have the right people in the right places. I am very pleased to have Trev here as our new A.D.  And now I would like to invite our University of Nebraska system President Ted Carter who has been my trusted partner in this search for some comments on the importance of this hire.”

University of Nebraska System President Ted Carter
“Thanks Chancellor Green and welcome everybody. This is a great day. It's a great day for the University of Nebraska. It's a great day for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It's a great day for Husker Athletics. And quite honestly it's a great day for the entire state of Nebraska. I want to give a couple of thank yous out before I make a couple of remarks.
 
First of all to Chancellor Ronnie Green. I empowered him. I gave him the direction for how I wanted this search to be done. I want to tell you he's done an outstanding job as he already just outlined with our Search Advisory Committee. Extraordinary work. Extraordinary work just collecting that amazing body of thought and talent to get us to the right screening and ultimately interview and select Trev Alberts. This is a remarkable point right now. I also want to thank our Board of Regents. As Ronnie already pointed out Jack Stark Tim Clare represented on the Search Advisory Committee but I also want to highlight our other six publicly elected regents who were all informed of this selection prior to us being here today and 100 percent in support of our selection of Trev Alberts. To include Governor Pete Ricketts who was also aware of this selection and also passed on his personal congratulations to Trev on a selection.
 
I also want to echo what Ronnie said about Garrett Klassy. Garrett some of you may or may not know this and I actually met about two and a half years ago. I was still the superintendent the US Naval Academy and we were hosting about 100 athletic directors from all over the country as well as the power five and group of five commissioners and I gave a leadership talk. And we got to host all of them at our very historic home on the Annapolis campus. Honestly I can't remember all those athletic directors that came but I do remember about three. One of them was this tall guy named Garrett Klassy and he was still at Illinois-Chicago at the time.  I was impressed then and I certainly am now. He did a remarkable job. We did not lose a single beat. As Ronnie pointed out there is a lot going on. When it comes to this amazing intersection that we are now approaching with a future for student- athletes in the NCAA I feel that Nebraska is poised to be a leader in Name Image and Likeness and what the future for athletics is going to look like for the future student athletes. Garrett you deserve a lot of that credit.
 
When it comes to the selection that was just made. Ronnie went through a number of the attributes that we were looking for. I know we're going to hear that. I'm not going to go through a whole lot of detail but let me just sum it up and the one thing that I was looking for. I wanted to leader.  You know 38 years wearing a uniform in the Navy having flown at Top Gun with a lot of people in combat and seeing a lot of different things. I've seen some phenomenal leaders I've seen some not so good leaders but I feel like I know a great leader when I see one and we have a great leader here with us today.
 
Trev has shown what he could do as a student athlete, going into the highest levels - consensus all-American Butkus Award winner his number is retired here in this stadium professional athlete.  And he's shown that he's got longevity having been the athletic director at the University of Nebraska at Omaha for 12 years. And although there were certainly some struggles there he got handed a deck of cards and dealt with them. He made tough decisions and got that campus on track.
 
So yes, there's a little bit of a loss today for UNO because they just lost their athletic director but in the bigger picture this is a big one for the entire state. I feel confident very confident that we have the right leader for the right time to take care of our student-athletes today and into the future. So the future is now and we’re going to go forward. We're going to have a whole new view of what it means to win in this program. The culture of this program as good as it's been historically as good as it even is today is going to see a whole new rebranding under Trev Alberts as our new leader. Trev you have my utmost confidence that you're the right man for the right time now and into the future.”
 
UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green
“It never fails when you start listing off all those names that you leave people out. They told me I would do it this morning and I did. There were two members of that search committee that I didn't mention earlier that I want to point out – Amy Williams our women's basketball coach and John Jentz our CFO of Husker Athletics so thank you as well for being part of the Search Advisory Committee.
 
Ted's already told you and mentioned some of Trev’s accomplishments and there are many of them both as a student athlete from a career in the media industry and sports from the leadership the last 12 years of our sister institution at the University of Nebraska Omaha and the building program that you've accomplished there that's still on the build as we speak. I'm not going to reiterate those to you. I'm just going to tell you that I could not be more pleased. I am 100 percent confident that this is the right person to lead Husker Athletics moving forward.”
 
Nebraska Incoming Director of Athletics Trev Alberts
Opening Statement
Thank you all for coming. I know many of you got an invite at the last minute and so it probably disrupted your plans. To many of the coaches and staff that are here, thank you so much for being here. I first want to say thank you Chancellor Green. Thank you so much for expressing that confidence in me. President Carter, thank you as well. I will work, we will work, hard every single day of the week to continue to keep that confidence that you have in my and our athletic department so thank you very much.

I love this place. I love the University of Nebraska, and I learned so much as a young man. I've told a lot of people and I’ve told Coach Osborne many times. But other than my faith and my family everything I have today materially, and otherwise, is a result of an opportunity to be a student at the University of Nebraska. I don't take this responsibility lightly. I will do everything I can to work as hard as I can for this place. I've got some additional thank you’s that I'd like to extend. I also want to thank the search committee.

I'll tell you that this time around this job it was different for me.  First of all, as was mentioned earlier by Chancellor Green, I just think the University of Nebraska today is in a sweet spot across our University in terms of leadership. Having President Carter leading this ship, Chancellor Green, (UNO) Chancellor (Joanne) Li, who's taking over at UNO and is going to be a dynamo. Chancellor (Douglas) Kristensen at UNK and Dr. (Jeffrey) Gold at UNMC.  It is a leadership group that I could believe in, and certainly willing to follow. But what was also different was that I had a chance to look at the priorities that the search committee had worked on. And it was interesting that my interest in applying for and pursuing this job changed dramatically when I saw what was important to the culture of this athletic department because it is exactly what I believe. It was exactly what I lived.

So I want to thank the search committee for their efforts. I want to thank the Board of Regents. We've got a great board that cares deeply about Husker Athletics and the University of Nebraska. Thank you for your support as well. I want to thank Bill Moos. I was in preparation for looking at this job, looking at the coaching staff that's been assembled, looking at the executive team and everybody that works in this athletic department. It's sort of remarkable. We have a group of some of the greatest leaders - men and women - at the highest peak of their profession that are part of Husker Athletics It's just so encouraging to me to be able to have an opportunity to work alongside people with such ability that I can learn from and I can grow from. Together, we can do some amazing things. I want to thank Garrett Klassy as well. It is a tough job, and he did a great job. It is tough to keep the ship going, and I'm really going to be depending on you and looking forward to your leadership and helping us as we move forward. So thank you Garrett. I appreciate that very much.

I want to thank John Christensen, my former boss at UNO for being crazy enough to hire me in 2009 and getting me to the University of Nebraska. The last 12 years has been the dream for me so I want to thank John and I want to thank Chancellor Jeffrey Gold. I learned a lot from Dr. Gold, I learned a lot about his leadership style, and he was obviously a great advocate as well.  I would be remiss if I didn't thank my colleagues at UNO. We spent a long time together and I can tell you that I would have never left UNO for any other job but this one. I loved working at the University of Nebraska, and I can tell you there's a group of unified Mavericks that are working extraordinarily hard in serving young people, and staying true. The best days and even those athletic department are still ahead and so I want to I want to recognize them.

Just a couple of introductions I'd like to make quickly and then I've just got a few comments. I won't ramble too long. My sister Tami is here. She's a school teacher in Iowa and is three years younger than me, so thank you for being here. I have an older brother Troy, but unfortunately, he couldn't be with us. My dad Ken and his wife, Maggie, thank you guys for coming. There's somebody who's not here physically, but I know she's here it's my late mother Linda. I didn't know I'd be this emotional and I apologize about that. Nobody was a bigger Husker fan than Linda Alberts.

I also want to introduce my family.  Our son Chase couldn't be here. He graduated from West Point and started his service at Fort Stewart in Savannah, Georgia. He's in the United States Army and of course he would love to be here. Our middle daughter Ashtynne just graduated with an accounting degree and she's actually at Ernst and Young doing an internship in Atlanta so I wish she could be here as well. This is our youngest daughter Breanna. She'll be a senior in high school next year and so thankful that she can be here. My lovely wife Angela, my partner for 25 years who has been by my side and provided great counsel. It wasn't always her idea to take these journeys, so thank you for doing that.

I thought what I would do quickly is share four thoughts, and I’ll tell you how I got to this point. As part of the interview process with Chancellor Green he asked me a question which I thought was a really good question. I thought I would share with you what I recall my answer was maybe it's not verbatim. But he asked me ‘you know, Trev, in two to three years, what would be some of the goals that you would hope would have been accomplished in the Athletic Department under your leadership?’

And so I thought about that a little bit and I want you to know that first of all we're not going to plow any new ground here right. This isn't going to be real profound but I also want to be very careful when I say these four things. I don't at all want to imply or infer that these things aren't currently happening within the University of Nebraska Athletic Department in our athletic programs but I think these four things will help you understand what's really important to me.

I think the most important thing that I've learned in my leadership journey is the importance of trust. The most important thing whether it's an athletic department whether it's a team whether it's church any business any organization. It is built on trust and the importance of building that trust. So within the next two or three years I've got to earn the trust of our student-athletes. That's really important. I always remind myself and everybody on the staff that nobody here would have a job if it wasn't for the student athletes. They are our focus and we're going to work every day to help them be successful just like some in this room did for me for four years back in the early 90s. We're going to earn the trust of our student athletes. We have to earn the trust of our coaches and staff. That is really, really important. We need to invest in, we need to trust each other, we need to be able to have healthy tension and we need to know that we're on each other’s side. We have to earn and continue to earn the trust of the academic side of the house. It's really, really important. I learned that lesson at UNO. We are not an independent unit.  We are the brand equity of the institution and the athletics department is an important tool to help advance the University of Nebraska as an institution so work really hard to have great relationships with the academics side of the house with Professors and Deans. And finally,  we've got to make sure that we've earned the trust and credibility of our fans and donors. It is the thing that's the most amazing thing to me. We are blessed with an opportunity and privilege that none of us probably understand but Husker nation and the fans that call this place home are really special and we can never take that for granted. We have an opportunity with donors and business leaders in this state that care so much about this institution. And so I will work hard to engender their trust and support.

Secondly, I think the other thing that I told Chancellor Green that would be a real goal for mine is that we are going to establish the proper work habits. In my last 12 years. I’ve have had such a privilege to be able to watch businessmen and businesswomen leaders in our community and our state who have accomplished unbelievable things. They build companies. They're changing the world. And each one of these leaders as I've observed them, had different characteristics and different attributes. They are all a little bit different, but there's one thing that every single one of them has. They are extraordinarily hard workers. Nothing ever happens by happenstance. So we have to be the hardest working athletic department in the country. That’s something we can control. And I know that that's something that you all care about as well. I want you to know that we're going to make mistakes and I’m going to make mistakes but we will work as hard as we can. We'll be transparent, we'll acknowledge them, and we'll fix them.

Third is we are going to establish teamwork and this is really important to me. One of the most important things. We're going to have clearly defined roles and we will always do what's in the best interest of Nebraska. We simply cannot afford to allow anybody to put their own personal agenda ahead of what's in the best interest for Nebraska. So every recommendation every decision that we make or what I recommend to Chancellor Green will be the question is ‘is this in the best long term interest of the University of Nebraska?’

Secondly, as part of that teamwork is we're going to value each member of our team. We're going to create an organization that respects one another it doesn't matter who you are. Every single person in this athletic department will have a very critical role and we cannot be successful if every single person isn't operating at an elite level. That's going to be really, really important and we're going to value and respect every one of those members. Another part of teamwork is unity of purpose. Something I believe in so strongly. I've watched organizations with tremendous talent accomplish very, very little. And I watch some organization with some marginal talent but because they were unified change the world. We're going to be an athletic department that is unified. We are going to have a unity of purpose and we're going to bring people together and bring our state together and bring our fans and donors together for something bigger than ourselves because that's when it's really fun.

Finally, what's important to me as well in two to three years and I know we have a lot of programs that are already this way, but let it be said of the Husker athletic department that this place is reflective of Nebraskans. And the way Nebraskans live their life that's really, really important to me. Because think about what Nebraskans and our alumni all across the country represent. They're tough. They're really hard-working people. They do the right things all the time. They do it the right way. They don't ever make excuses. Rarely do you hear Nebraskans make excuses.  And most importantly is they never ever quit and stay together. We're just going to work on continuing to have championship habits. I think if you just focus on those fundamental things those attention to detail things and we as an organization are unified with a unified vision. And by the way at the end we're going to have a little bit of fun. The end of the day we're in athletics right. We got to have some fun. And so I am just excited. I can't wait to get to work with our talented staff of coaches and staff and I'm just so incredibly honored to be here.
NU Athletic Communications