Nebraska got the shocking news Wednesday that Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts was leaving to take the same position at Texas A&M.
Alberts’ departure, just four months after he received an eight-year contract extension, baffled and surprised all involved with Nebraska Athletics — coaches, athletes, administrators, media and fans alike.
And it led to speculation about why Alberts would leave. His salary was $1.7 million a year, making him one of the nation’s highest-paid athletics directors. So money likely wasn’t the major factor in his departure. Nor would a lack of facilities or public support have sent him to College Station.
Shock quickly gave way to finger-pointing regarding Alberts' decision.
Gov. Jim Pillen put the blame for Alberts’ departure on university leadership, specifically targeting the Board of Regents for failure to find a replacement for NU President Ted Carter, who left the university last year.
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Others, however, pushed that blame back toward Pillen and state legislators.
“Talented people (Ted Carter, Ronnie Green, Trev Alberts) leave a team when the leadership above them loses sight of the team’s purpose,” former NU volleyball coach Terry Pettit wrote in a widely-circulated Facebook post. “The team is the University. When the leadership cuts funding and undermines the team’s purpose with political dogma, they leave.”
Specifically, Pettit and others directly link the departures of former University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Green, who retired in June 2023, Carter, and now Alberts to the administrations of Pillen and former Gov. Pete Ricketts and the Legislature not fully funding — or at least coming closer to fully funding — the university’s budget requests.
Carter’s departure then left Alberts without his strongest supporter and athletics partner and advocate. And it leaves Matt Rhule, hired by Alberts, in an unenviable spot.
The stunning departure of Alberts, deeply rooted in Nebraska as a former player and longtime University of Nebraska-Omaha athletics director, is being cast by some as a betrayal, a money grab and a lack of loyalty.
All of those are unfair to Alberts, who like anyone in any job is free to pursue more money or a better opportunity.
But there is a lot of good going on in Nebraska, including the hiring of Rhule, the record-setting Volleyball Day in Nebraska, the completion of the new athletic training complex and a new $300 million media rights deal, not to mention men's and women's basketball teams with breakthrough seasons this year. It's disappointing that all that and good money couldn't keep him.
Of immediate concern is the possibility that Alberts’ leaving could delay or even scuttle plans for a $450 million renovation of Memorial Stadium.
The regents and UNL administration are now in something of a bind. Carter’s replacement needs to be found, perhaps before a new athletic director can be hired. But a lengthy delay in the AD hire would not be good for the department and Nebraska Athletics.
And the issues raised by the departures of Green, Carter and Alberts must be addressed by the regents, the governor, senators and, pivotally, Husker fans, university supporters and the public as a whole.
If not, the churn of university leadership and Husker ADs will continue as it has for two decades.