The hierarchy that exists among student-athletes and the coaching staff also is mirrored within the athletics department. Frequently, a coach does not feel like he or she can directly approach the athletics director with a question or a problem. Just as a coach determines playing time for an athlete, the athletics director determines the salary and ultimately, job security, of a coach.

So as difficult as it maybe for a student-athlete to approach the head coach with problems concerning the coach/athlete relationship, it is equally hard for a coach to go to his or her athletics director to discuss those concerns. That's why Terry Pettit, coach advocate and director of coaching enhancement at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, sought to break ground on the matter.

Pettit, former head volleyball coach at Nebraska who led the Cornhuskers to the national semifinals or final six times and claimed one national championship, is perhaps the only administrator of his kind in collegiate athletics. It's Pettit's job to be a resource and to provide a network for the coaches.

Since the demands of an athletics director at a major Division I institution may take him or her out of the office several times a week, Pettit also serves as a liaison between the coaches and the athletics director at Nebraska when travel prevents the coaching staff from having access to the director. In the role of advocate, Pettit speaks up for the coach's point of view when decisions are made.

"Student-athletes have all kinds of support, but for coaches, we've never had any kind of support. If a coach is struggling, they don't want to go to their athletics director about it," Pettit said.

Of all the administrators in the Nebraska athletics department, Pettit is the only one with a coaching background. Because of his experience with building the volleyball program, he said he has credibility and a relevance to the coaches that makes it easier for them to share their difficulties and concerns.

His job runs the gamut of presenting the coaches' ideas and concerns to the administration, working with student-athletes on performance intervention and helping coaches assess situations by acting as an objective observer.

"Sometimes a coach will come to me because he wants an evaluation of a player. He'll ask me to watch a player in practice and tell him what I see, if there are ways he could communicate better to the player, do things differently," Pettit said.

Furthering the theme of giving coaches an outlet, Pettit hosts coaches' roundtable breakfasts every two weeks. It's a place coaches can gather to learn how to "build leadership, manage a situation, handle a difficult athlete, anything a coach could think of," Pettit said.

Pettit said the roundtable develops a peer resource team for the coaching community at Nebraska, where a new coach and a seasoned coach can sit down and realize they are both dealing with the same issues.

Maybe the Nebraska athletics department that produces perennial powerhouses in nearly all sports is on to something that other institutions should notice.

Pettit said, "Coaching is basically knocking on a door until the student-athlete opens it and says 'I'm ready.' Your job as a coach is to keep knocking, thinking that 'today will be the day.' "

-- Crissy Schluep