There's nothing like the feeling of coming home to stay, especially if the return comes with a pay raise and a chance to win your first national title as a coach.
Former Nebraska wrestler Jason Kelber now returns to the Cornhuskers as an assistant coach.
Kelber was a lightweight standout for the Huskers, wrestling at 126 pounds throughout his career. He was a three-time All-American and a two-time national finalist. In 1991, he won the national championship at 126 pounds. He ranks third all time in Nebraska career wins with 123.
Kelber replaces Brad Penrith as the assistant coach who deals mostly with the lighter weights. Coach Tim Neumann calls Kelber "the piece that was missing."
Neumann said he and Penrith didn't see eye to eye on many issues but worked together for seven years. With the addition of Kelber, someone who came through the NU program, Neumann said it felt like the Huskers took a huge step forward.
"It's hard to find someone who is that good of a wrestler who's here to coach and not to train," Neumann said.
Unlike many coaches, Kelber has taken his hat out of the Olympic competition ring to concentrate solely on coaching. He left the head assistant coaching job at Indiana to take the second assistant job at Nebraska. Mark Cody is the top assistant.
This job, however, carries just as much clout and a pay raise, Kelber said.
"It's all for the team, all for the wrestlers," Kelber said. "I'm here to give them all I have. I'm not competing, I don't have the luxury of thinking about myself."
He does have the luxury of convincing his wrestlers to think about themselves. He said one of the biggest things Nebraska, as a team, has to work on is mentally knowing it can win the national championship.
"No matter what your record is, the slate is clean," Kelber said of how to mentally approach the NCAA Championships. "Whether you have no losses or 10 losses, it doesn't matter. It's for the NCAA championship."
The biggest thing he can add, he said, is constant confidence in each athlete so he can be one of the best wrestlers in the nation in 1998.
"We're doing a lot of hard work, conditioning and mental imagery," Kelber said. "The biggest thing is letting them know you believe they can win it."
Neumann has already started that process.
Neumann said he did several "spastic" things with his team this summer that proved to them they can be one of the best teams, if not the best team, in the country in 1998. One of those things was a three-day workout that consisted of 500 push-ups, running 100 sets of stairs at Memorial Stadium and doing 200 chin-ups in less than 30 minutes. Each wrestler completed the physical tests.
"I tried to show them," Neumann said, "that out of shape, they can do things they never thought they could do."
