Former Husker Volleyball Players Petition NU to Correct History, University Says No
by John Gage
LINCOLN – Former players of the 1974 Husker Women’s Volleyball team sent a letter in January to NU Athletic Director Troy Dannen asking him to reconsider the school’s decision not to recognize their team as the first official NU varsity volleyball team.
“While never seeking public acknowledgement prior to the University highlighting the history of the volleyball program, the undersigned now feel that history should accurately include us and the 1974 Volleyball Team as part of the narrative,” the letter stated. “Presenting anything less than the truth would be a misrepresentation of that history.”
The letter was signed by Cheryl (Nolte) Henry, Vicki (Ossenkop) Highstreet, Denise Stange, and Ann (Garrett) Zespy. Henry, Highstreet, and Stange were all seniors on the 1974 women’s team, while Zespy left the program after her junior year in 1974.
The historical dispute started back in 2000 when former NU Head Volleyball Coach Pat Sullivan, who coached at the university from 1974 to 1976, was invited back for a banquet to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the start of the program. “We were sitting there thinking, ‘Well, wait a minute, this is not 25. This is the 26th,” she said.
Following the passage of Title IX in 1972, the university transitioned an earlier “extramural” volleyball team into an official volleyball team a couple of years later. The university recognizes the 1975 team as the official first varsity team, but not the 1974 team, despite hiring a coach, putting players on scholarship, joining an athletic conference, and playing a full season that year.
The four players, whose last year of volleyball for NU was 1974, have been asking the university to “correct the history” for decades now, but the university continues to say they “consider this matter closed.”
The players said any appeals have gone unheeded by the university, and the athletic department has continually refused to meet with either them or Sullivan in person to discuss the matter.
In a 2023 article for Huskers Illustrated, the university told the magazine that they did not consider the 1974 team the first official team because of “lack of records and tradition.”
Sullivan told The Plains Sentinel that the university is in possession of the full records from the 1974 season and that the record keeping between the 1974 and 1975 season were of the same quality.
“The record is clear. We have the whole record,” she said. “We hosted the AIAW [Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women] tournament in Lincoln.”
In an email response to the players’ January letter, Dannen said the transition to the women’s varsity team in the 70s was similar to how the university is handling the transition to the new women’s flag football team.
“During the 2026-27 school year 15 players will be under scholarship and they will practice and perhaps compete on an informal basis against other teams,” Dannen said. “But 2027-28 will be the first varsity team at the competition and that team will be recognized as the first varsity flag football team.”
Sullivan said the two situations are not comparable at all, saying that universities did not give out scholarships to women’s teams in the 1970s and 80s that were not varsity teams. “That’s not how things worked in 1974,” she said. “People did not support women’s athletics in general that way.”
“I would be willing to bet there was not a program in the country that awarded scholarships to a team that wasn’t a team,” she added.
For the team, there is both a sense of injustice and a lack of respect by the university in not correcting the record.
“If you are going to make a historical record, then make it accurately,” Stange said. She added she felt that when they approached the university, they were treated “like we are petulant little children.”
Henry said their treatment, “Makes me feel like a liar.” She said the lack of recognition still stings all these years later when they go to watch the volleyball team compete and see the history on the walls of the sports center.
“Hurts our hearts every time we go down to the Devaney and see the 1975.”
The Plains Sentinel emailed Dannen and the athletic department, asking if they had a response to Sullivan and the players. The university said in a statement, “There are no plans to re-visit the matter at this point, and multiple athletic administrations and athletic directors have arrived at the same decision.”
The players told The Plains Sentinel that they did not believe the university had seriously considered changing their decision.
“I don’t think Troy [Dannen] has read the record,” Stange said. “They don’t have anyone there who knows or cares.”
A request to NU for electronic records regarding discussions about the 1974 team returned a single email reply from the athletic department to the players, which stated the department had “much internal discussion and consideration of the historical records.”
Sullivan and the players say the athletic department’s response does not make sense since no one currently at the university understands what things were like in 1974.
“No one was there who was there in 70s,” Highstreet said. “It doesn’t have to be the big thing – just correct the history.”
Ironically, Sullivan’s record as the head coach of NU is recognized by George Washington University, where she left to coach next after the 1976 season.
“I just told them what my record was,” she said, and the university included her full record, including the 1974 season, in their media guide.
A Husker athletics booster with close knowledge of the situation told The Plains Sentinel that it’s possible Husker athletics recognizes 1975 as the first year simply for the “promotional purposes” of having the 25th anniversary fall on the year 2000.
“While the optics of having 1975 being recognized as the first team so that the 25th anniversary was celebrated in 2000 and the 50th in the fall of 2025 may be more desirable for promotional purposes, the evidence is clear that 1974 was the first ‘official’ year.”
John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.
