1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Peter Kobelt in studio: May 11th, 2026, 11:00am

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Husker Men's Tennis head coach Peter Kobelt in studio today!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

coming at you live from the heart of lincoln america on 93 7 the ticket and the ticket fm.com sponsored by the downtown lincoln foundation here is your host derrick pearson yes a tuesday boom to all the one on warners out there as we get the show rolling here on a tuesday i'm jac bach boclin in studio derrick pearson still back home so he will be uh traveling i think he's celebrating today his uh his high school football team getting um... recognize. So that is awesome. So we'll see in here from D.P. here in the next couple of days. But as usual on Tuesdays, we've got Nebraska men's tennis coach, Peter Kobel in studio for the next hour. So we're going to kind of pick his brain about what's going on with the program. Big week

in men's tennis as the NCAA championship will be this Sunday from Athens, Georgia. And so I'm going to ask a little bit about that as well. And some new recruits that you've got in town. but of course, we got to start off, Peter, with how things have been going. Of course, last week we talked all about your engagement. And DP was grilling. You wanted to know the details on weddings and stuff like that. Did you make any more progress? Are you still in the honeymoon phase of the engagement?

I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, still in the honeymoon phase for sure. Still super excited, obviously. Friends and family also in the same boat as us. So that's really cool. But we've got, I think we've figuring out a day. date. So I think it'll end up being this December. Okay. 90% sure that's the date. Now I think we're going to go try and find a few venues. I think we'll end up doing it maybe somewhere up in Omaha. That's kind of the easiest

way. Indoor's obviously for December. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, doing some lists, going to see a few venues. If there's any really cool venues out there, contact us. We're looking for a venue still. we're in the market for a venue. And yeah, I'm learning what all comes with a wedding. That's for sure. So now there's a lot of stuff, a lot of planning, a lot of things you got to do, which is fun and also stressful with the nature of my job with what we're doing here. So trying to balance both of them.

But it's been a really cool experience for sure. How does December fall into the tennis calendar? How's it going to work for you? Yeah, well, we're trying to squeeze it in between the holidays. and also kind of the end of our fall season. The end of November is when the NCAA tournament is the individual tournament for men's and women's tennis. So, you know, it'd be a pretty quick turnaround there.

But if everything's kind of planned and worked out, I think it'd be an easy thing to do. So, yeah, trying to navigate the football season and, you know, just people's plans and it's stuff to find a weekend that everyone can. make work, but it'll be, it'll be fun. Yeah, yeah, and doing it here in Nebraska. It makes some sense.

Her family is here in Nebraska. Your sister is here in Nebraska. You won't have to travel at least. How's the rest of your family with early, early talks? A lot of them going to be able to make it? I think so. I mean, we're all really excited on the, we did a bunch of Face Times and phone calls with my fiance,

Hannah. So they all kind of got to meet her. They haven't met her yet and see her, see the ring and all that stuff. They're all really excited. I think more or less everyone will be able to come. But yeah, most of my family is in Ohio still, either in the Columbus or the Cincinnati area. I was born in Cincinnati. That's where my mom and dad.

They got married. That's kind of where their relationship first started was in Cincinnati. So a lot of family there. And then my dad's family's kind of spread out a little bit more. But Omaha seems to be kind of the easiest spot to get to for everybody. So I think that's the main reason why we're doing it there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes a lot of sense.

Of course, at least the, you know, an airport there that it getting a little more true. I think probably Cincinnati to Omaha. Is that a flight that happens? You know, Omaha, you can't get from Ohio. I don't think there's a direct flight from Ohio. So you got to go through Detroit or Chicago or I think St. Louis. Those are probably the easiest connections. But, but yeah, we've had to answer that question a few times already.

But it's also only, it's for the guys, that want to drive for the people that want to drive it's about 11 hour drive from cincinnati i think 12 hours from columbus so it's a long one yeah you can do it have you have you made that drive before or a similar drive i have when i first moved out here oh okay yeah i didn't quite realize how far away it was at the be at the first time i did it i was like ah you know it's the midwest you know it can't be that that far part but um it was nice it was we did it over the fourth of july my mom and dad drove out here with me we spent the fourth of july on the on the on the Mississippi River in a little town called Quincy.

Okay. We saw it. We went, we got like a boat tour. That's cool. We watched the fireworks from the Mississippi River. So that was kind of a fun experience. But yeah, not a bad, a boring drive. Yeah.

A lot of planes and flat land and not a whole lot to see or do. But, but yeah, I mean, pretty straightforward drive. Easy drive. Now when you, when you officially or initially made the trip to Lincoln, do you kind of go through, you're going through your thoughts, So your new stops along the way. Of course, you know, now here in Lincoln, but do you kind of think of it a little bit as through the eyes of recruit? Okay, what am I looking at and what am I going to be able to sell here?

100%. Yeah, I mean, I obviously took a, as just like recruiting as a coach, like usually the head coach will bring you in on like a recruiting visit as well. So that's what I did. So I kind of got the lay of the land. I flew in. I got the whole tour. Obviously, the facility speak for themselves. The community speaks for itself.

But just looking around, you're like, okay, like driving around, you're like, hey, yeah, like, there's, there's things that, you know, Nebraska, you have this, there's a, there's a opinion of Nebraska before you get here. And it's natural to think like that, I think. And then once you're here, you're like, oh, all right, like, there's, no, this, this can actually work. Like, there's, there's a lot of infrastructure here that, that is very attractive to, that was attractive to me. and you know I think I have a great experience of of understanding those things just by traveling around playing tennis all over the world you see a lot of different things I'm like there's a lot of things here

that we have in Lincoln that is attractive to a tennis player specifically a tennis player so and I was asking that I've never been to Ohio how how different is Ohio than Nebraska obviously a few different few bigger cities yeah I lived in Columbus that was yeah that's a I think It's the 13th or 14th largest city in the states right now. So it was obviously a bigger town. I was used to living there. But I came from Lexington, so Lexington and Kentucky, which is roughly the same size as here.

So I kind of had a similar feel before I moved here. But I would say it's very similar. The people are very similar. The day-to-day life is very similar. It's the Midwest. So you're going to come across really good people that are just nice, that are welcoming. Same in Ohio as it is here, really.

It's just a different city, different things going on. But, but yeah, I would say, you know, the Midwest is pretty universal, like in terms of what type of people you're getting, maybe outside of Chicago, a little bit busier. But everything else you're running in the good people,

everywhere you go, Columbus all the way to Lincoln. You know, when I first got here, though, Bach, people were like, asking me where I'm from. I'm like, hey, I'm Columbus, Ohio, Midwest, Midwest. And they're like, Ohio's not the Midwest. And it kind of made me think about it. And I'm like, you know what?

We're kind of really not. We're kind of like the Mideast. If you really think about it. There's just no, you can't like make up new areas or whatever. But Nebraska's truly the Midwest. It's like right before you get out west. Ohio's like the Mideast, right before you get out to the east. Yeah.

But the term they used in Ohio is there are in the Midwest. Yeah, oh yeah, 100%. Yeah, all the way until you get to Pittsburgh or the Pennsylvania border. That's all the Midwest. See, I didn't even realize that Columbus was that big. I knew it was, you know, obviously big. I didn't realize it was that big. Much bigger than just, you know, there's plenty of college towns.

I don't think you could probably just kind of pinpoint that. But how big of Ohio State town is it? Huge. Yeah. Yeah. Just like Nebraska is to Lincoln, Ohio State is the same to Columbus. So in the state of Ohio. Very similar vibes in universe from the, just from the loyalty and the,

and the care for the university. The states are like both super gung-ho for their universities. So that's how growing up in Ohio, you know, all you want to do is play for Ohio State growing up here in Nebraska. I'm sure all you want to do is play for the university in Nebraska. But, well, yeah, Columbus is a big city. You got the three Cs, Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. Columbus is really the city that's thriving currently right now with a bunch of

iTech and newer companies moving to town which is cool every time I come home it's always changing and different which is great but yeah I mean I think we're also seeing a lot of that happen here in Nebraska and Lincoln too which is which is cool to see yeah yeah definitely seeing that too and you mentioned I just got to ask you mentioned Kentucky too same feel for there, you know, in Lexington. I know, you know, basketball is, uh, is, is, is huge there. But is the state of Kentucky kind of bought in on, on the university. Yeah, I think you, you have a little bit more competition with Louisville. Oh, sure. Yeah. You have Louisville,

um, not too far away. So you kind of have the blue and red rivalry, which was cool to be a part of. Um, but it's, it's a blue state. That's what I'll say. Okay. Being that can tell you, it's a blue state. But, uh, they bleed blue there. That's for sure. Um, but, yeah, simply. similar vibes huge huge great fan base especially for basketball I think with their new football coach they're they're trending in the right direction football wise too we'll see but but yeah very similar experience very loyal fans um I I compare Lexington to Lincoln all the time very similar size roughly 300,000 people college town I think Lincoln's um on the up and up a little bit more than Lexington is right now, just in terms of infrastructure and things that are going on in the

city. But Lexington's beautiful. I had an amazing time there. Great university. The coaching staff that I worked with there was great. The leadership there was great. I know they're still looking for their new athletic director, I believe. So we'll see what happens. But yeah, I always compare Lexington and Lincoln. Everyone in Lexington is like, hey, how's it in Lincoln? What's, Talk to us a little bit about it. And they're like, yeah, I'm like, it's honestly remarkably similar to Lexington. So if you've been to Lexington, if you've never been to Lincoln, like, that's probably the best one-to-one comparison that I can honestly think of. Well, I appreciate to let me pick your head.

I love all these college towns and grew up, you know, watching college sports. And, you know, there's different goals for everybody to try to get, you know, to move up market sizes and all that. But in all these different places, I always kind of think, man, I really want to go see, you know, South Bend, India. or Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Just these, you know, the college towns across the nation. For sure. There's a lot of really cool ones. And as a coach, you're lucky.

You get to travel around and see a bunch of them. And they all kind of have their own unique attributes about them. What makes them really unique and fun to be at, you go to these colleges. And you're like, why would someone want to go to, you know, this school or that school? And you get there and you're like, oh, okay, like, I can see why now. that's kind of cool that's kind of fun so i mean at the end of the day everyone's competing against everyone cities universities you know so um they're all trying to the level themselves up just like we are with the tennis program so but you get to really uh know and see and understand

just it helps you in the recruiting recruiting recruiting pathway to you go down and see some these schools and you're like okay like i think we have some things that are nicer they also do some nice things. But yeah, if you have a chance to go on the road and watch some of Husker, Husker Sports compete outside of Lincoln, absolutely do it. The Big Ten has a lot of beautiful campuses. Yeah, yeah, very cool stuff. I did notice you talked about a red and blue state there in Kentucky. There is Nebraska Creighton on the baseball diamond tonight. We'll see how that goes. But I did notice Creighton was on the schedule two years ago, but not this previous year. Is that a rival you try to keep going to in on the tennis sports? Well, Gerhard is a former

alumni. Gairhart's the head coach up there at Creighton. So it was more of a scheduling issue this year. Okay. He had a few different, a few different matches and sometimes you're able to make it a line and sometimes you aren't. But we sat down after season and I'm like Gerhard, we got to be playing every year. Same with Omaha. We're trying to put together. We're working through, I don't know when we'll do it either in the fall or spring, but we're trying to make like a Nebraska tennis day. Okay. Where it's not just Omaha. and Creighton, but we're trying to potentially bring in like Carney, UNK, and maybe a few other schools.

We're just in the process of kind of talking through it. So take that for a grain of salt for now. But trying to have some kind of event where everyone comes to Lincoln and we can really showcase all the tennis and with the universities here that do play tennis all in one spot. Yeah, that'd be very cool. I know, right? Yeah, yeah, looking forward to that.

And I think it is a cool aspect of it as we talked to you. You're pretty, and we talked about it before, but you're pretty much in charge of the non-con, right? I mean, so what is the, again, I'm probably asked this before,

but I love this sort of stuff. What is the, what is the process of doing that as like right now for next year's schedule? Is most of that, the non-con stuff kind of figured out? Or do you have to figure that out a certain month? Or when does it kind of come, come up?

Yeah, so it's 100% on me and our staff to kind of fill out the non-con, the best, the best you can. You try and project what other teams are going to look like, but now that's even harder to do now than ever with transferring and NIL and all these different moving pieces. So you do your best with it. You're trying to schedule as many teams that you think will be ranked between 30 and 40 in the country or better, depending on what level you're at as a program. If you want to make the NCAA tournament on the men's side, you've got to have 10 ranked wins. And the more

that you can have in that 30 to 40 range, the better of a chance you'll make the NCAA tournament. So there's a lot of things that go into the scheduling. Also, you try and keep it as regional as you can. So we'll always try and get on the schedule with Wichita State. And, you know, the Oklahoma schools down there, Tulsa's down there. You know, we just lost North Dakota, North Dakota, their program. They're going away from men's and women's tennis, which is a shame.

but trying to get Drake on the schedule. So there's some matches that we're going to try and play every year. And then each year we try and find two or three matches where we can kind of use them to kind of build an out-of-conference schedule where if we get those wins, it really bolsters our NCAA resume at the end of the year. So there's a lot of thinking. The scheduling is very important. It's one of the most important pillars in coaching for sure, even still.

with all the craziness going on like if you don't have a good schedule or if your schedule's too hard you're you're you're not doing your yourself justice for for the team and not positioning the team the best you can now do you have to as far as like because i know a lot of those teams are somewhat regional i mean can you could you just hey i want to go to play oi this year you have to go talk to troy or do you have to like communicate with with other folks about travel well yeah mr danon it's surreal Oh, man, that was funny. Well, Mr. Dan, he's made it clear, like, the tennis programs are in a good spot.

Like, we're in a good spot right now with all the hoopla going on. And he's also made it clear that he wants to win. So with winning, you have to try and do some of these things. We're not, you know, we're not going to fly out to Hawaii or do anything like that. But I'm very mindful of the budget and what we're spending, what we're not spending. there's always a give and a take if we're going to do something like that. So that's where some of the fundraising stuff comes into play for us as well. If we have some extra dollars in our excellence fund,

I believe that we can use it to do something like that. But really, it's conversation where we just sit down and I talk with my boss, Brandon Meyer, and we're like, hey, this is something that I think we need to do as a program. And then if it gets approved, then we'll go ahead and do it. There's a, there's kind of a process to it, but Mr. Danan wants to win in every sport. And I know every athlete director says that, but he's a man of his word. And that's why it's fun to come to work every day to have a boss. Ultimately, that really cares about tennis.

The expectations are just the same as it is for football. Very cool stuff. Let's, let's continue this conversation. We've got a lot more to talk about. You've signed a few new folks for the team coming up this year. also the NCAA championships happening this weekend. So I want to get into that. We can talk more about that on one-on-one

with Nebraska men's tennis coach, Peter Kobel, coming up next year on 93-7, The Ticket. Download our app by searching 93.7, the ticket in your app store. You're listening to One-on-One-on-one with DP on 937, The Ticket and The Ticketfm.com.