John Cook quote check

You know, Cook is soooo much fun when quoted in the press, let's see what he has to say after Nebraska's 3-0 win over Texas Tech:

"Defensively, we were really good tonight."

A-HA!

...OK, that's actually not that bad.

"We wanted to serve tough, and even though we had 11 errors, we were really attacking them."

That's pretty tame, too.

"The first 10 points, they were in a great rhythm."

OK, we get it already. You're not gonna stick your foot in your mouth this time...this blows.

"...but once our serving took over, it was downhill from there.”

Eh. That's pretty innocuous by any standards. Maybe tomorrow he'll say something funnier...

Cook mere steps away from life in a bubble

You know, Cook has never been one to couch his words, not known to beat around the bush. This time, according to an article in the Lincoln Star Journal, he wants atmospheric approval before the Huskers venture into Penn State's Rec Hall two years from now.

Cook wants a guarantee that Nebraska won’t have to play in (humid) conditions when the Huskers make a planned return to Penn State in 2009.

That's funny. When I look at Houghtelling, Pavan, Larson, Cooper, Holloway, Schwartz, heck even Lee Maes, the term "fragile" never really occurred to me. Nor "dainty," nor "delicate," nor...

Does Minch Move Make Cook a Mensch or Pragmatist?

So, just to recap, according to newspaper articles, Danielle Minch verballed to Nebraska around April 2006, but a year later Cook asked her to postpone school at Nebraska and go to a junior college for a year (Because that's what all D1 volleyball players want to do; put off going to the school they signed with for a year.).

Cook might as well have asked her to work in a coal mine for a year. As a result, Minch is now going to Colorado State (Tom Hilbert: "Yippee!").

I don't know if this is shady and Cook is evil, I don't know if it's completely normal and Cook is perfectly human, I don't know if it's a sign that college volleyball is getting bigger and Minch unfortunately got in the way.

But, just for fun, let's take a look at what Cook said about Minch in November when she signed:

“Danielle is a typical Nebraska volleyball recruit, as she comes from a small town and has played several sports in high school."

Maybe that was the problem! Cook's looking for a change of pace, wants to mix it up a little. He's won two titles, so let's take this one out for a test spin, see what it can do.

"She is playing middle blocker in high school, but we are going to move her outside."

Little did Minch know that by "outside" Cook meant "outside the University of Nebraska school system."

"...and we think she has the potential to be a very good player for us."

Whoops.

"Dani is a tremendous athlete with a big-time arm swing..."

...which Hilbert is obviously aware of...

"...and we look forward to watching her develop in our program.”

Not so much.

23 is the magic number...?

Whilst watching a rerun of David Letterman the other night, we caught an interview with Jim Carrey about his new desperate attempt to show he's more than just funny movie "23." Carrey was describing the freaky characteristics of the number 23, which if you don't know is 2/3=.666, number of the beast, blahbity blah.

But what about volleyball? How does this devil number affect the sport we love? After some digging, we've come up with some scary realizations.

• The AVCA Coaches Poll ranks the top 25. Only 23 of them are actually any good.
  
  
• The 2nd and 3rd letters of "Gimmillaro" are 'i' and 'm,' the 9th and 13th letters in the alphabet. 9+1+3=13. There are 10 letters in "Gimmillaro." 10+13=...23
  
  
• Heather Cox has 10 letters in her first and last name, 7 in her maiden name. 10+7=17. Number of times she mischaracterizes a team's tactics or shot selection in any given match is 6. 17+6=23.
  
  
• 23 months is the age at which an athlete starts being recruited by college volleyball programs.
  
  
• 23 is the number of weeks NC State waited before finally hiring a coach.
  
  
• 23 beats per minute was John Cook's heart rate when he took the infamous 2-0 timeout, which was coincidentally Jim McLaughlin's heart rate during the finals this year.
  
  
• 23 seconds is the average length of a question at a Final Four Coaches Convention seminar when all everyone else wants to do is get out and go have a pretzel.
  
  
• Kay Rogness is 23 years old. She will find this not funny in 2.3 seconds.

Dream a little dream...

The teams and location of next year's AVCA Showcase have been decided, giving the head coaches of UCLA, Nebraska, Utah, and Tennessee a chance to dust off their moldiest platitudes about the great honor of being a part of the tournament, what a tremendous event, bleep blop blorp.

"UCLA is honored to be invited to participate in the AVCA Showcase," is a pretty typical quote, given here by Andy Banachowski. The quotes by Beth Launiere, John Cook, and Rob Patrick are all pretty much the same, straight out of the Crash Davis School of Sports Quotes.

Wouldn't it be nice, just once, to have a head coach with the candor of, say, Charles Barkley? Why can't Patrick just say, "Look, who am I kidding? We're gonna get clobbered at this thing, but even bad exposure is good exposure"? Wouldn't it be refreshing if Launiere said, "Honestly, I was fed up with people saying our top 10 ranking was a joke, so, hey, bring it beee-atch"?

Wouldn't that be more fun?

Ouch. That's gotta hurt.

"Jenny" Lang Ping has been replaced at a coach's seminar in Ottawa, Canada, by John Cook.

Creative differences was cited as the cause for Ping's replacement. The USA top dog will appear on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" instead as part of a cooking segment with Rachael Ray and Andy Dick.

Stemke signs up to get heart broken again

Lizzy Stemke, nee Fitzgerald, has been lured away from the Joe Sagula Empire of the Southeast to John Cook's Oasis on the Plains. A bold move for Stemke, under the circumstances, as she was recruited to play at Wisconsin when Cook was the head cheese, only to see him scoot south to Lincoln a year later.

We hope Cook is more considerate of her fragile emotional state this time around.

And how about this picture of Cook? A T-shirt! Look how relaxed this guy is now! Winning the national title in December was the equivalent of spending a month with the Dalai Lama. Look for Cook to stop shaving soon and grow a full beard.

Sarah Drury's Journal: More fun than we first thought

We anxiously awaited the next player journal from USAVolleyball.org, hoping it would give us some insight into the status of senior citizen Tom Hogan's recent back injury. Unfortunately, Sarah Drury's entry doesn't help us out much.

After letting us know that the team calls her Puff Daddy -- or something like that -- Drury lets us know that Coach Hogan was a nice guy and gave them last weekend off. Well of course he did; he's in traction. There were no other clues as to Hogan's health, though, and Drury spent much of the rest of the entry talking about wrestling.

The best part might be another John Cook sighting in Puffy's action shot! If you squint, you can make out Cook and his Boy Wonder (yeah, that means Cook is Batman, we know), Lee Maes, cozying it up in the background of the picture. Is he living in Colorado Springs now?

If you recall, Cook was in the background of Courtney Thompson's action shot, chewing the fat with Kevin Hambly while an anonymous dude splayed his legs suggestively.
In this new shot, Cook seems to be showing Maes something: "And here's the gold-plated Winnebago I bought with my bonus." Or perhaps they're looking over a list of candidates for the vacant assistant coaching job:
"Schaub?"
"Hired by MSU-Billings."
"DAMN! OK, what about Hazelwood?"
"Went to Austin Peay just the other day."
"Well, you're just no help at all, you know that? What am I paying you?"

Tagaloa not tagging-along-a, anymore

Charlene Johnson-Tagaloa, she of the ever-present flower / pen... thingie... has resigned from Nebraska to take a job that better suits her family life. So the recent female assistant coaching lineage at Nebraska goes like this: Kathy Noth. Stacie Wolfe (remember Stacie Wolfe? Sigh...). Charlene Johnson-Tagaloa. Whoever fills the position will have to continue the long legacy of Husker setting training, which was STELLAR under Noth. Not that Johnson hyphen Tagaloa was bad, but Noth set the bar pretty freakin' high.

Plus there was that whole period where Cepero came back from training with the national team and all of a sudden her hands were like salad tongs trying to shuffle a deck of cards. That's I think the moment when some people started to say, "Hey maybe this Toshi guy ain't all he's cracked up to be."

Who are the preeminent college setter trainers out there? OK, besides Debbie Green. Who are the preeminent college setter trainers out there that would move to Lincoln? Might Cook try to pull a Hebert and hire a male coach? Or go back to his San Diego roots and yank someone out of the club scene? Can you envision a Husker staff that reads Cook, Maes...Ozhan?