OMAHA, Neb.—College football talking head Trev Alberts says he wants to begin a new career in athletic administration, and he’s back in the state of Nebraska interviewing for a job.
It’s not in Lincoln, where he was a football star for the Cornhuskers in the early 1990s. He’s spending a couple days at the University of Nebraska at Omaha—the commuter school 50 miles up Interstate 80—as one of four finalists for the athletic director’s job.
Alberts, 38, lives in Atlanta and works for CBS College Sports TV. When he was at the more visible ESPN, Alberts would often hearken to his playing days for the Huskers, and he did again Tuesday during a public forum on campus.
Alberts said he knows boosters of UNO athletics are skeptical about his motives, about whether he would approach the Omaha job as a steppingstone to the same job at Lincoln, where 72-year-old Tom Osborne is under contract until July 2010.
“There is no grand plan,” Alberts said. “Quite frankly, UNL has the best athletic director you could possibly find, and I hope coach Osborne stays there a long, long time. My intentions are pure.”
Alberts, under contract with CBS College Sports TV until July 31, said it’s natural for him to begin a career in sports administration in the state of Nebraska, regardless of which school. He grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa, but he said he feels connected with the people of Nebraska.
That’s exactly why UNO Chancellor John Christensen is interested in Alberts.
UNO is a Division I program in men’s ice hockey and Division II in its other sports. Understandably, the program operates in the considerable shadow of all things Husker and, in the city, struggles for exposure against the Division I men’s basketball team at Creighton.
“His name recognition would put a face on UNO athletics,” Christensen said.
Alberts said he has no problem with his celebrity being used to build inroads in the community. He said he would look forward to building partnerships with Omaha businesses and work to rebuild relationships with donors that soured.
Three athletic directors have come and gone the past five years. The last two—David Herbster and David Miller—were nearly invisible to the sporting public, Christensen said.
“For whatever reason, the last two did not get traction in the community,” Christensen said. “I want someone out in the community who whether you know him at the start of the day, you know him at the end of the day.”
The athletic director’s first task will be to evaluate a hockey coaching staff that has had a middling team in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association for several years running.
The old linebacker doesn’t pretend to know much about hockey, other than what he’s picked up from attending a few games of the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers.
He said he would reach out to “people who know hockey” before making any hockey decisions.
Alberts won the 1993 Butkus Award as college football’s top linebacker and was drafted No. 5 overall by the Indianapolis Colts in 1994.
He signed a multi-year contract valued at more than $8 million, but elbow and shoulder injuries limited him during his three-year pro career, and he retired in 1997. He once joked that he made $125,000 for every tackle he made and that he “stole more money from the NFL than anybody in history.”
Alberts drew laughs Tuesday when he joked that one of his first acts as UNO’s athletic director would be to call Osborne and set up a home-and-home football series with the Huskers.
“We’ll even go to Lincoln twice. They will come here once. We’ll sell out,” Alberts said. “I think I have an ‘in’ there.”
There are three other finalists for the UNO job—Omaha high school AD Nolan Beyer, Dana College athletic director and football coach Bill Danenhauer and Mike Marcil, commissioner of the Sunshine State Conference and former commissioner of the North Central Conference.
Christensen, however, hinted that he just might have found his man in Alberts.
“He’s charismatic and can bring people to the program,” Christensen said. “Leading candidate? I wouldn’t say that. I do think he’s a strong candidate for being a really good fit.”
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