LINCOLN, Neb. — Harper Murray is smiling and laughing day-after-day. And she or he’s taking part in her greatest volleyball in two seasons at Nebraska.
This alone lifts spirits amongst Murray’s teammates. Her happiness issues to them. The Huskers noticed Murray spiral final spring amid public struggles along with her emotional well being. Two authorized incidents derailed her offseason after Murray was named the highest freshman within the Huge Ten and a third-team All-American.
However her path is about greater than rejuvenation.
The faculty volleyball neighborhood and Nebraska’s legion of followers have taken discover this fall of Murray’s bond with Nebraska coach John Cook dinner.
“The connection that he has with Harper is extraordinarily particular,” senior co-captain Lexi Rodriguez mentioned. “I feel anybody can see it, whether or not you’re on the courtroom or not.”
Murray’s rebound is outlined partly by her unusual relationship with the 68-year coach who stood up for her like the daddy she misplaced 13 years in the past. Murray, 19, brings out a comfortable aspect in Cook dinner that few have seen. He cares for her like a daughter.
“It’s unconditional love,” mentioned Cook dinner, a four-time nationwide champion coach in his twenty fifth season at Nebraska. “That’s actually what it’s. This present day, with this technology, you’ve bought to have that if you happen to’re going to educate.”
They star collectively in TikTok movies. She created an account for him and controls the content material, utilizing his cellphone. He revels within the hundreds of thousands of views.
“He’s at all times asking what we’re going to do subsequent?” Murray mentioned. “He loves it.”
GO DEEPER
From cowboy to educate, Nebraska’s John Cook dinner fuels a volleyball rise
If the Huskers wish to make a request of the coach — perhaps it’s an adjustment to their uniforms or a tweak within the schedule — Murray will get nominated. “You ask” teammates inform her, she mentioned, “as a result of he’ll say sure to you.”
Cook dinner doesn’t say that Murray is his favourite. However the Huskers realize it to be true. And it’s OK. She wants him in her life.
@coachjohncook1 it aint simple being a cowboy 🤠#nebraskavolleyball #fyp #nebraskatok ♬ unique sound – coachjohncook1
No. 2 Nebraska enters the ultimate week of the common season at 28-1 and excellent within the Huge Ten. It has received 54 of 59 units in league matches and performs at No. 4 Penn State on Friday, adopted by a Saturday go to to Maryland. The postseason bracket reveal is on Sunday.
Murray’s 3.29 kills per set and 27 service aces lead the Huskers. She’s the No. 1 attacking choice on essentially the most balanced offensive workforce within the nation. Her protection within the again row as a six-rotation participant has progressed greater than any space of her recreation.
However three months in the past, Murray was terrified to stroll onto the courtroom in entrance of Nebraska’s followers for the preseason Pink-White scrimmage. She questioned what individuals would suppose, Cook dinner mentioned. What would they are saying about her? Would she get booed?
Again up eight months. Final December, Texas swept top-seeded Nebraska within the nationwide championship match. Murray didn’t play properly, particularly in receiving the Longhorns’ serves.
On the information convention that adopted the loss, she was despondent. A reporter requested her in regards to the future.
“I feel we’re going to win three nationwide championships (in) the subsequent three years,” Murray mentioned.
The remark blew up on social media. Murray digested the reactions and buried herself in negativity. She fell right into a despair that lasted for months. On April 5, she was cited for DUI in Lincoln. Lower than a month later, she bought caught on safety digicam shoplifting $65 of bijou at a sporting items retailer.
ESPN featured the rise 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 after it.
Murray misplaced her spot on the U.S. girls’s U21 workforce. Members of the family fearful that she would possibly bodily hurt herself. Her mom, Sarah, feared that Cook dinner would dismiss Harper from the workforce at Nebraska. Each time Cook dinner talked to Sarah for weeks, she sought reassurance about Harper’s roster standing. Public strain existed for him to dump her.
“The thought crossed my thoughts,” Harper mentioned. “However I feel I knew deep down that he wasn’t going to surrender on me that simply.”
Murray was the Huge Ten Freshman of the Yr in 2023 and her success on the courtroom has continued helped by the assist of head coach John Cook dinner. (Courtesy of Nebraska Athletics)
Cook dinner and Nebraska assistant coach Jaylen Reyes started to recruit Murray earlier than she began highschool in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She attended the Huskers’ Dream Workforce camp as an eighth-grader and fell for every thing in regards to the Nebraska program
As Murray developed into the No. 1-rated prospect within the 2023 class, her recruiting intensified. She was named the Gatorade Participant of the Yr and had her alternative of prime faculties. However she valued her preliminary impressions of Nebraska, and Cook dinner received over her mother, partly, by ensuring she knew he would watch over Harper and let Sarah know if her daughter made any poor selections.
It’s a message that Cook dinner tells the mother and father of each participant he recruits.
“It’s one factor to say that,” Harper mentioned. “It’s one other to behave on it.”
When her life veered off the rails this 12 months, Cook dinner didn’t waver.
“I discovered a very long time in the past that you just do every thing you possibly can earlier than you surrender on these youngsters,” the coach mentioned.
Murray’s struggles strengthened Cook dinner’s dedication to her — to not be construed as going simple on her. Within the coach, Harper mentioned, she noticed a task mannequin. He supported her, she mentioned, “when different individuals most likely wouldn’t have.”
“I look as much as him,” Murray mentioned, “and simply the best way he approaches day-after-day in life. It’s totally different than anybody I’ve ever met.”
Cook dinner helped Murray make a guidelines of things required to revive her good standing with the Huskers.
She accomplished in depth neighborhood service and greater than 100 hours of remedy, which continues along with court-ordered probation. Throughout the workforce setting, Murray labored to regain belief.
Cook dinner usually hears from former athletes and observers that they admire Murray’s development. He marvels at her resolve. Many athletes in her scenario, he mentioned, would have left this 12 months seeking a contemporary begin.
She couldn’t go away. Not in any case that Cook dinner had finished to assist her.
“He wasn’t pleased with me,” Murray mentioned. “However on the identical time, he promised my mother that he could be there for me. And that’s precisely what he did. He held me accountable. However he gave me grace.
“I’ve plenty of love and respect for him. I wouldn’t be the particular person or the participant I’m with out him. And I do know that I owe lots to him. One in every of my greatest targets in life is to make him proud, particularly as a result of I put our program by means of lots. I put us within the gutter at some factors.”
Murray’s father, Vada, died when she was 6. He was identified with lung most cancers in 2008 and lived three years with the illness till age 43. Vada was a standout security on the Michigan soccer workforce from 1987-90, taking part in in three Rose Bowls. He graduated to work as a police officer in Ann Arbor.
Harper holds solely fragmented reminiscences of Vada. However the absence of her father haunts her. She wears his jersey No. 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 relationship.
“There’s a coach-player relationship,” Cook dinner mentioned, “however I additionally suppose there’s a … I don’t wish to name it father-daughter, as a result of I’m not her father. However it’s constructed on belief.”
Harper has seen their bond develop most in the best way they convey. The TikTok movies enable the general public to catch a glimpse. However the roots of their connection run a lot deeper. On the courtroom, she mentioned, he’s robust on her. Harper requested Cook dinner earlier than this season as she struggled with confidence to ease up and present her extra compassion.
He complied. However it was non permanent.
“He could make me actually mad,” she mentioned. “However I do know it’s as a result of he desires what’s greatest for me.”
The second final 12 months that triggered Murray’s slide is arising on its first anniversary. Cook dinner mentioned he’s not fearful that she’ll undergo once more in an identical approach if the Huskers fall brief in December. She’s extra mature, he mentioned. Her perspective has modified.
Murray mentioned she’s as pushed as ever to win a nationwide championship.
“I really feel like I’ve one thing to show,” she mentioned.
Murray wears tape on her left hand throughout matches. She marks the pinky finger with an “8” to honor Rodriguez, a guiding mild for Harper, and the ring finger with “27,” the Murray household quantity. On the index finger, Harper writes “JC,” the initials of her coach.
“He’s the closest factor I’ve,” she mentioned, “to a father determine.”
(Prime photograph: Dylan Widger / Imagn Photos)
