1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Brett Forman: Nebraska Men's Tennis Assistant Coach - next steps: May 26th, 2026, 11:45am

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

What are the next steps for Husker Mens Tennis?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

to one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 The Ticket. Final segment, Brett Foreman, Husker, Vince, Teddust, and he just outlined a crazy, impressive off-season. That is, that is the work.

And when we say trust the process, it is that the plan that you have in place, that you're willing to take all the little, little steps to get the big things to happen. And to tell me that that's the seven that added to the program, that when the national tennis people start to say, hey, look, Nebraska just had a top 25 recruiting class in tennis. Not easy to do.

Not easy. If you said this in basketball, football, yeah, not easy in tennis because you have to travel the world and you can't miss. So it's impressive along the way. Let me ask this because through the offseason and then the change of culture, what would you say has been the thing that was most important in changing the way other people talk about Nebraska tennis? Yeah, I think first and foremost, like Pete coming in and becoming the head coach was huge. I think it's I think it's really easy to command like a room and demand the respect of your players

I don't think it it's a requirement but I think it's much easier when you've been the number one player in the country you have spent six years playing professional you coached a couple guys who are either top 100 in the world or just outside so as a junior player when you come in it's you know hard to really plead your case and like this so finding guys that are coachable So I think getting Pete to come in and have that resume really helps. And then he had an older team. So my first year was a couple years ago.

So like he inherited and I kind of I came a year after he became a head of coach, an older team. So honestly, I think that the biggest thing was getting those guys on board because I think it's always a little bit more difficult when you come in working, you know, expecting to play for one head coach. And then that head coach leaves. and we have a different head coach that you weren't planning on playing for. So getting those guys on board honestly was probably like the biggest thing, getting them like bought into what we were trying to do. And then it's just like it leads into the guys that come into the program. So last year we had five seniors and we had three newcomers.

Two of them were freshmen. One of them was a transfer from Sacramento State. And for those five seniors to pass on everything that, Pete's been preaching. That's huge for, for, like, instances like this year. So we've got seven new guys. But since those three guys that we have coming back learned from, from the seniors, and those seniors learned from the guys that are a year older that graduated the previous

year. Like, I think that's what the best cultures and the best teams do. I think, you know, in an ideal world, like, we're bringing in guys that are sticking around for four or five years and developing and getting better and passing down the information and like the work ethic and the things that we view that are important as a team and the program down to the younger guys. Then it's just a seamless process of guys coming in and teaching it down to the younger guys. I think it gets a little bit tricky.

I think it's one of the weird things of this new day and age of transfer portable guys are coming in and leaving. It's hard to have like amazing cultures. But when you can find he at a place where you have guys that stick around, then I think it's a huge benefit. So that's where like when you're recruiting, finding the right guy that actually wants to be a Husker, not just a guy that's looking to come in

and what can you do for me? What can you do for me? Man, preach. Preach. That's a whole thing. And then there's the other thing that movement, when national attention starts to be drawn to your program and your facilities, it has to be a part of Lincoln Challenger in July, is a statement out loud of Nebraska,

Nebraska, tennis, the facility and the city. How important is that to Nebraska tennis? Yeah, I mean, it's hugely important. I think, you know, from a recruiting standpoint, it's great for them to see how serious we are about professional tennis and look like there's top guys that are coming in and playing this tournament.

But I think the most important thing, Pete's probably alluded to, is just what it does to the community, getting, you know, tennis and Nebraska to be a little bit more popular. And, you know, maybe in 10 years down the road, we have a player or a kid who grew up going to the Lincoln Challenger and fell in love of tennis and, you know, maybe we have a, you know, a Nebraska softball situation where the,

you know, we have a homegrown product to come in and, and be one of the best players in the country. So I think that's, that would be a perfect world, but just getting people more involved in tennis in Nebraska is kind of the main goal out of it. Getting people over to our facility who haven't seen it, there's a surprising amount of people who, who, still don't know where the Nebraska tennis courts are. And once they see it, they're amazed by it. And once they see tennis, some of them, it's the first time they've ever seen live tennis,

at this level at least. And then, okay, now those people see the, they've seen the facility, they've seen the players. They've seen probably some of our guys play the tournament. And now we have a couple extra fans to come to our home matches. And then that's how you build up, like having a huge home court advantage. We've been lucky enough that to have some great Husker fans have made an absolute impact on our matches.

So just continuing to try to build that to help us in the spring as well. Box a member of that club went to his first tennis match here last year. I'm sure he'll be back. Brett, listen, we're going to do this often. And there's lots going on. Appreciate you making time today and dropping knowledge

and let us both know what this is. We'll do it again, sir. Awesome. Thanks, D.P. Thank you. Don't go anywhere. The big guy, Adam Caraker. He'll shake the walls. When we come back, 937 the ticket.

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