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LEO ADAM BIGA

Flatwater Free Press

University of Nebraska volleyball coach John Cook entered the 2009 season having won 281 of his first 300 games – a ridiculous .937 winning percentage.

At age 52, he had already won two national titles.

But, inside, Cook didn't feel like how you are supposed to feel when you reach the summit.

Instead, even as his squad went 31-3 and reached the Final Four that year, Cook felt empty. Lost.

He felt like a failure.

"I thought I had it figured out and then it all came crashing down. I woke up one morning and the world was upside down...I was like, 'There's no more joy in this,'" Cook said.

Cook had been a confident coach, husband and father.

Now he couldn't sleep. He felt tired, anxious. His moods swung wildly.

He went to doctors. To specialists. To the Mayo Clinic. They ran test after test on the volleyball legend.

"They couldn't find anything wrong," Cook says today. "It basically came down to stress."

"It's one of those things where you hit bottom and you've got to make changes."

What John Cook now understands is that hinging happiness on perfection can make you sick.

Cognitive behavioral therapy and a host of other changes have helped Cook, now 66, turn the corner on his mental health. Now he's willing to talk about what he's learned – to his teams, to fans who revere him, to anyone who may be helped by hearing his story.

"At first I was very skeptical," he said about therapy and the other changes. "But it worked."

After Cook hit his self-described "bottom" in 2009, he began to work with cognitive behavioral therapy expert Debra Hope, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln psychology professor.

They met weekly until Cook started to emerge from the depths.

"A lot of it is breathing, being aware of the signals your body's sending and coming up with strategies on how to deal with it as opposed to letting those sensations get to you," Cook said.

Seeking help also meant being vulnerable with people Cook admires. He sought counsel from his mentor, Husker football legend and then-athletic director Tom Osborne.

"I asked Coach Osborne how he dealt with the stress of the job and he said, 'John, I didn't, I had a heart attack at 49,'" Cook said.

On Osborne's recommendation, Cook started to meditate. He began to pay attention to things he had rarely considered – nutrition, sleep, recovery, breathing.

"The little things matter," Cook said. "You can't just run yourself into the ground."

He has to pay close attention to the little things, Cook now knows, because the stress of Nebraska volleyball isn't going away.

Last year, for example, Nebraska fell just short of the national title, losing in the championship match. For almost any other volleyball program, the season would have been a stunning success.

For Nebraska: "We're expected to win," Cook said. "There's a lot of pressure... People just assume we're going to the Final Four every year.

"Well, it's hard to get to the Final Four. We feel that. That's where I've had to take my ego out of it and realize it's about Nebraska volleyball, the team, maxing out and those student-athletes having a great experience."

Now Cook has a game plan to daily manage his stress – a plan not all that different from devising a strategy for a tough on-court opponent.

He does yoga.

He has improved his diet. He even gave up coffee.

“My nervous system was fried from the caffeine.”

The self-described “animal of routine” now finds himself automatically meditating in order to calm his mind.

He sticks to a consistent exercise pattern. He tries to get consistent sleep.

“Those things all become more important in your life than whether you win or not,” he said.

Anxiety issues don’t only affect coaches. Cook now recognizes that his players obsess over winning, losing, roster spots, classes, dating and everything else college students juggle.

So he enlisted an expert to help his athletes with posture, nutrition, sleep and stress management. Two psychiatrists have helped the coaching staff understand this new generation of student-athletes – why their attention spans seem shorter, for example.

A calm app on their iPhones now helps Nebraska volleyball players meditate.

There were no phone apps when Cook went through his struggles.

Cook now understands how the darkness of 2009 happened. The endless hours and intense pressure to be elite are part of an unforgiving syndrome.

“That’s why you’ve got to meditate – you’ve got to let your mind-body calm down, otherwise you're on 90 miles an hour, 14-15 hours a day.”

That grinder’s mentality builds winners. But it can turn counterproductive.

“Coaching is like a drug,” said Cook, noting success breeds a hunger for more that can’t be fulfilled. “Eventually you reach a point where it’s hard to do any more.”

Like Osborne before him, Cook has learned to lean into the process without being so results-oriented.

That isn’t easy, Cook admits. But as he gets older, he finds himself not worrying as much about wins, losses or pleasing people.

That shift in thinking is why Cook thinks he’s so immensely enjoyed coaching his last few teams.

He now realizes: Finding that bliss is a choice.

“Some of my best teams didn’t win conference or national championships but those teams maxed out, so you have to feel good about that,” he said. “You have to savor the good experiences.”

Along the way, Cook has learned to delegate more rather than trying to control everything.

“I had to make some major changes to survive in coaching,” he said. “I see, every day, coaches that don’t make those changes and don’t survive.”

Former NU volleyball coach Terry Pettit handpicked Cook as his successor and remains close to him. He agrees that in modern coaching – in many aspects of life – you must adapt if you want to stay near the peak.

“I don’t think John’s ever standing still,” Pettit said. “He’s a lifelong learner.”

Power Five coaches aren’t the only Type-A personalities prone to burnout. CEOs, college athletes, fast food delivery drivers and telemarketers can struggle with it. When the bar gets set too high, life can feel like a vicious all-or-nothing proposition.

“The more I talked with people I found out most were not dealing with it very well,” Cook said. “This is a problem.’”

Cook’s work on himself remains a work in progress, even as the coach has added two more national titles since hitting bottom in 2009.

The need to get away from the job’s external and internal noise led him to take up flying as a hobby. He’s also gotten into horseback riding.

“You don’t think about volleyball perfectionism…when you’re flying a plane or riding a horse,” Cook said.

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