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LINCOLN — As the losses have piled up, Nebraska basketball coach Tim Miles will tell anyone who will listen the problem with his team is mental.

He said it was why the Huskers lost seven straight games, why they shot a Pinnacle Bank Arena-low 21 percent against Maryland and why this season went off the rails after an 11-2 start.

On Thursday night, he said it again, after Nebraska’s 82-53 loss at No. 9 Michigan.

“We didn’t come with a mentality that was equal to Michigan’s,” Miles said. “We gotta get our mind right.”

Miles saw this coming, even before the season began. His team was casual, with no alpha dog. So last August, Miles enlisted an ex-Navy SEAL, Jack Riggins, to help with developing leadership and team chemistry.

Riggins had worked with Nebraska teams in the past, including with Bo Pelini and John Cook. Weeks into Riggins’ help, basketball coaches and players alike agreed he was making a difference.

But after three months, NU administrators told Miles that the ex-Navy SEAL had to go.

What followed was a season that began with promise, and is now shaping up to be one of the most dramatic collapses in NU basketball’s history. There’s no definitive proof that the firing of Riggins led to the 15-14 record, or that his help could have saved the season. But NU’s abrupt decision to disallow Riggins’ help opens the door to the little-known backstory behind this basketball season’s demise, and the athletic department’s broader policy on limiting outside consultants.

The policy, first enacted by former Athletic Director Shawn Eichorst and continued under new A.D. Bill Moos, has prompted grumbling inside the athletic department and among some former insiders who remember how things used to be done.

Nebraska now prefers the use of in-house professionals, a drastic change in thinking for NU’s athletic department. In an interview with The World-Herald, Moos said he wants his coaches to rely on athletic department resources and their own ability to diagnose team problems and motivate accordingly.

“(We’re) paying them a lot of money,” Moos said. “And there’s more than X’s and O’s that go into being a head coach at this level.”

But Jack Stark, one of NU’s best-known former outside consultants, calls the approach “stupid” and “tragic.” In the case of men’s basketball, the move may have left a fragile team without a full lineup of resources, contributing to the derailment of one of the most hopeful seasons in decades.

Outside consultation is not banned by Moos. But it is allowed only via special request, which must be approved at multiple levels of the athletic department. Discouraging outside consulting and pushing in-house resources exclusively runs counter to the history at Nebraska. And according to industry insiders, it is rare among athletic departments around the country.

For decades, it was normal for Nebraska coaches to use whatever outside help was deemed necessary. With Bob Devaney as A.D., for example, Tom Osborne brought in Stark, a sports psychologist, to consult with the football program. Stark implemented the “Unity Council,” a group of players who had input in team decisions and disciplinary measures. He did the same for Danny Nee’s basketball teams in the 1990s.

With Stark around, Nebraska won three national titles in football and made the NCAA basketball tournament five times. He stopped regularly consulting with Nebraska teams in 2003, following the firing of Frank Solich, and now consults with Creighton sports, including the basketball team. He worked with the Wisconsin basketball team this season, too.

After Stark left in 2003, it was common for A.D.s Steve Pederson and Osborne to allow coaches to use outside help. Volleyball coach John Cook, hired in 2000, said he often brought in speakers and consultants in the early 2000s without having to cut through red tape.

That culture changed on Nov. 30, 2014, the day Eichorst fired Pelini.

“For lack of a better term, it just kind of became the, ‘OK, I’m gonna build the department Shawn’s way,’ ” said Riggins, who had worked as a consultant for Pelini.

* * *

The SEAL arrives

Riggins’ role began in 2009, Pelini’s second year as head coach. Pelini asked Riggins to help improve internal leadership and mentor Ndamukong Suh. Pelini liked Riggins’ work so much he kept him on as a consultant for the next four seasons.

Before the 2013 season, Cook heard there was an ex-Navy SEAL helping the football team. For years, Cook had been looking for a way to toughen up a generation he found soft and unwilling to battle through adversity. Cook went to a speech Riggins gave at a business close to Memorial Stadium and believed he found his missing piece.

Riggins was invited into the volleyball program for that next season and consulted with team captains via Skype sessions while stationed in Germany. Even with Eichorst as A.D., there were no issues with the consultation.

Because Riggins is a Nebraska alum, he didn’t charge Pelini or Cook a fee. Payment in the consulting field, Riggins said, is often more about who you work with, rather than pay. That’s common, Stark said. After his first few years in the 1990s, Stark didn’t charge NU, either.

In 2014, Riggins moved back to the States and embedded himself with the volleyball team. He worked with athletes one-on-one, mentored assistant coaches and worked with Cook on team-building exercises with no pushback from the administration.

The first red flag of change came in summer 2014, when Cook wanted Riggins to tag along on a trip to China. He thought it was important for Riggins to see his players fight through adversity during matches overseas.

But Eichorst said no. The ex-Navy SEAL didn’t have the proper governmental clearance to travel with the team, Eichorst argued.

Cook fought the reasoning but got nowhere until Osborne, who had stepped down from the A.D. position less than a year before, got involved.

In his book, “Dream Like a Champion,” Cook wrote that he believes Osborne made a phone call to change some minds on the use of Riggins. The athletic department finally relented, but Riggins was forced to pay his own way. Cook covered Riggins’ cost out of his own pocket.

Eichorst, now the executive senior associate athletic director, internal affairs at Texas, did not respond to The World-Herald’s request for comment for this story.

Four months after the trip to China, Pelini was fired. Eichorst began to make a concerted effort to replace outside consultants with internal employees. On the recommendation of Dr. Todd Stull, Nebraska’s current senior associate athletic director for performance, Eichorst hired two sports psychologists. He bolstered Nebraska’s performance wing, which assigns a strength coach, a nutritionist and, in some cases, a psychologist to each team.

Riggins continued to consult with Cook, but wasn’t asked by Mike Riley for help. In fall 2015, Dr. Brett Haskell was hired and assigned as the sports psychologist for the volleyball team. Cook used both Riggins and Haskell that year. Nebraska made the final four in Omaha.

On Dec. 4, 2015, Nebraska swept Texas 3-0 to win the national title.

The next day, there was a celebration at the Devaney Center. One hour after that ceremony, Eichorst and Pat Logston, deputy athletic director, met with Cook in his office. He was told he was no longer allowed to use outside consultation. Especially Riggins.

After that, the message from Eichorst to the rest of the coaches was clear: The athletic department no longer wanted outside help.

Which meant Stark, once a close Osborne confidant, was cut out of the picture. From 2003 to 2014, when coaches at Nebraska wanted advice, Stark was always happy to meet or talk on the phone. That happened often.

Then it stopped completely after the Pelini firing.

“Some of these coaches, I go back 30 years. And some of these coaches, I was with them in college. And I couldn’t come back and help them. They were afraid to call me because of Eichorst,” Stark said. “It’s stupid to continue that kind of process.”

* * *

Miles looks for help

Miles met Riggins on the golf course a few months after Cook was forced to let the ex-Navy SEAL go.

Miles wasn’t aware of why Riggins wasn’t consulting with the volleyball team anymore. But when he heard of what Riggins was able to do with Pelini’s and Cook’s teams, he believed Riggins was an asset he needed to use. Nebraska was coming off a 16-18 season and losing seniors Shavon Shields, Benny Parker and Andrew White. NU needed help.

On the course, Miles and Riggins formulated a plan. Then Miles approached Eichorst in summer 2016 with a proposal to bring in a leadership consultant. Initially, Eichorst was supportive. But according to sources, as Miles was leaving the room, Eichorst asked who he was going to use.

“Jack Riggins,” Miles said.

Riggins was a Pelini guy, Eichorst said. He didn’t want him around anymore.

Miles told Riggins the deal was off. He was to use in-house resources instead. Nebraska finished that year 12-19 and lost 13 of its last 16 games.

Despite Eichorst’s policy, before the football season that year the athletic department paid Atavus — an outside consulting firm — $100,000 to teach rugby-style tackling to Riley’s football team.

When Moos replaced Eichorst in October 2017, Miles and Riggins believed the policy would change.

After a 22-11 season, Nebraska was snubbed from an NCAA tournament bid. Miles was rewarded with a one-year contract extension by Moos and told to repeat the success. Miles returned most of his main contributors, but could sense his team needed help getting over the hump. They were collectively casual, and he wasn’t sure they would handle adversity on the court well together. So in July 2018, Miles presented the idea of bringing in Riggins to Marc Boehm, associate athletic director for basketball.

“Tim felt that it was important,” Boehm said. “He wanted to try and see what he could accomplish, and I told him, ‘Well, that’s gonna have to get approved because we have this policy in place.’ ”

Moos and Boehm say they told Miles and Riggins that they could work together on a temporary basis — just five weeks. Miles and Riggins say their impression was a plan for yearlong help was approved.

In October 2018, soon after a story of Riggins’ impact appeared in The World-Herald, Moos met with Boehm and told him to inform Miles to “wrap it up.”

“It just kept going and going and going and we just said, ‘OK, the time is up let’s move on, thank you for your service,’ ” Boehm said.

On Nov. 9, Miles was instructed to shut it down for good. The Friday before Veterans Day, Miles called Riggins to relay the news before a prescheduled coaches training session.

Boehm allowed that session to happen. None were permitted after that.

Moos said NU already has three — soon to be four — in-house sports psychologists on salary. In his view, there wasn’t a need for a leadership consultant like Riggins.

In a meeting with Moos in December, Riggins was told the basketball team would receive help from Stull and the rest of the performance team. Boehm told The World-Herald that he believed Stull and Haskell were working with the team on a regular basis.

But Miles confirmed that from November to February, none of Nebraska’s three sports psychiatrists, or Stull, stopped by the basketball offices to offer help. That includes during Nebraska’s seven-game losing streak, when Miles said publicly multiple times that the team had serious mentality issues he was trying to fix.

Miles did not reach out for help from Stull’s team, but he did meet with Stull two hours before Nebraska’s game against Minnesota, the first meeting of that kind this season.

“Wouldn’t you think they would walk in there with open arms immediately following (my firing), and say, ‘Hey what can we do to help you?’ ” Riggins said. “But then even if you got into now, December and January, wouldn’t you be down there going, ‘Hey there’s only two sports really going on right now, or three. I happen to catch on the radio that you’re having some issues. What can we do to support?’ And that hasn’t happened. And that’s insane.”

Stull says it’s protocol.

The sports psychologists wait to be invited into any of the 19 programs before showing up, he said. The goal is to make sure coaches know the services the sports psychologists provide and wait for a cry for help.

“Coach Miles was fully aware, I’ve told him multiple times, we can help with team building, we can help with leadership, we can help with communication, we can help with motivation, conflict resolution,” Stull said. “They were aware that we were available.”

Prior to Riggins helping in fall 2018, Haskell was working with the men’s basketball team, as well as the volleyball team. When Riggins showed up, Haskell backed away. She has not returned to the team since Riggins’ firing in November, Stull said, because Miles has never requested her help.

Stull runs the performance side of the athletic department and said outside help doesn’t work with the way Nebraska’s system operates. The work of the weight trainers, nutritionists and psychologists is shared. Outside consultants don’t have access to their collective data, Stull said, and aren’t in meetings about the performance team’s overall goals.

Two weeks ago, Cook had meetings with all 13 of his players with the entire performance team. And afterward, Cook was blown away with the progress.

“No one else in the country is doing this,” Cook said. He’s thrilled with the setup and has been impressed with the work Haskell has done with his players.

Moos believes outside consultants are a liability. He worries what they might say to student-athletes when unsupervised. And he doesn’t like the idea of going to lunch at the training table and seeing people he doesn’t recognize.

“We just can’t have everybody just doing their own deal,” Boehm said.

Stark recently felt firsthand the new culture of not allowing outsiders.

Recently, he was eating with a coach at the training table and felt unwelcome.

“People giving me bad looks, the staff there, administrators,” Stark said. “Upset that I would be coming around.”

He’s not returned since.

* * *

Exceptions to the rule

At least twice in the past year, Moos has signed off on Nebraska coaches bringing in outside help.

In January 2018, football coach Scott Frost brought in The Program, a leadership building organization run by former Marine Eric Kapitulik. The Program spent two full days with the football team. During spring football, players and coaches raved about the progress made. Before the season, Frost appeared on an ESPN feature with Kapitulik hiking 24 miles through the Grand Canyon.

“As long as I’m a coach, if we have a chance to get Eric Kapitulik and The Program around, we’re going to bring them around,” Frost said at Big Ten media days in Chicago in July 2018. “I think it does wonders for the way our team thinks.”

The idea to bring in the outside consultation was brought to Bob Burton, deputy athletic director, and both he and Moos approved it at a cost of $35,000.

In June 2018, Cook approached Moos about bringing in an outside nutritionist. The entire nutrition staff was about to be fired and replaced by Dave Ellis, Cook said. He lobbied to Moos that the volleyball team couldn’t afford to begin the summer without a nutritionist.

Angie Asche of Eleat Nutrition consulted with the volleyball team through the 2018 season. Cook now has a full-time, in-house nutritionist provided by the athletic department.

Moos has said multiple times that he wants to give coaches everything they need to succeed.

What happened with the basketball team this year, Riggins argues, makes him wonder.

Cook, a volleyball coaching legend, and Frost, Moos’ first hire, were both allowed to bring in consultants to help with issues they found in their team.

Miles, on the hot seat this season, was not, despite feeling progress was made with a free service. Before the season, at Big Ten basketball media day in Chicago, players agreed that Riggins’ presence was helpful. Senior guard Glynn Watson said he could feel himself becoming a better leader. Junior forward Isaiah Roby was learning the art of delegation and inclusion. They affectionately called Riggins “Captain Jack.”

And still, Riggins wasn’t allowed to help for more than a few weeks, he said.

“For two years (Miles has) recognized shortfalls and things he wants to work on, and his staff and his kids,” Riggins said. “And he brings in somebody and there are measurable differences. Measurable. And then you pull it away? I don’t know how you can make sense of that.”

The policy on approving outside consultants is still relatively new, Moos said. Each request is evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

“And at the end of the day, I’m the one who signs the exceptions,” he said. “And there’s been a couple of examples when I denied them. And I think people are realizing that this is important and I mean business.”

Riggins said he was recently asked to help with two prominent Division I basketball programs, one in the Big Ten. He’ll go where he’s wanted, he said.

The basketball team is 15-14, and surely out of the NCAA tournament. Miles’ job is believed to be in serious jeopardy.

“Some of our problems are still our problems regardless, even though we know what the solutions are sometimes, or don’t know in other times,” Miles said. “I just feel bad that these guys are going through what they’re going through right now.”

Stark has consulted at 40 universities over the years. From his experience, he said, Nebraska is the only school that runs outside consultation this way. He believes the system isn’t fair toward coaches.

“Sports psychologists don’t get fired. Coaches get fired. Coaches should have the freedom to bring in whoever they want as long as they’ve been screened and have validated credentials,” Stark said. “These coaches, these are smart guys. They’re not going to bring in people that don’t have credentials. These are policies under the former athletic director, they’ve unfortunately been continued, but I’m sure Moos, once he gets a handle on things, he’s going to be able to take a look at these things and change some policies. I hope.”

Moos said his policy on outside consultants will remain and he will be picky. He doesn’t want “just anyone” to come into the athletic department to help, and at the end of the day, he wants coaches to be good enough that they don’t need help.

“If you’re gonna be a major college coach, or any college coach, this day and age, you need to be on top of these things with your student-athletes,” Moos said. “If they need help, because they’ve got a challenge and they’re frustrated or whatever, we can provide that internally.”

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