When UCLA visited Nebraska on Sept. 13, it was a matchup that would highlight the future of collegiate women’s volleyball.
Lauren Cook, UCLA’s freshman sensation, was setting one of her best matches to date and helped the Bruins shock Nebraska in five sets with an NCAA record crowd of 13,870 looking on.
What’s more, Cook was facing her father, Cornhusker coach John Cook, for the first of what was supposed to be at least three more times in her career.
But as of her announcement Monday afternoon, Lauren Cook is a Bruin no more.
“I’ve obviously been thinking about it for a while,” said Cook of her decision to transfer. “I didn’t want to think about it during the season, because I needed to focus on doing the best I could for UCLA and helping them out in any way I could.”
Cook’s reason for transferring?
“Academics,” she said in a press conference Monday afternoon in Lincoln. “It’s my bad for not looking at this before going to UCLA.”
UCLA does not offer an event planning major, and, according to Cook, Nebraska recently added that major.
“It worked out that it’s close to home, and they have my major,” she added. “You know academics, you don’t realize that when you’re committing, because you’re just thinking “˜this is for me.'”
Cook went on to explain that another factor in her decision to transfer was the L.A. culture.
“I just didn’t fit in,” she said. “I’m a Nebraska girl, a small-town Nebraska girl.”
John Cook said that upon Lauren’s return home for winter break, “she was adamant about that she did not want to spend the next four years at UCLA.”
With Lauren Cook now playing for her father, John Cook said he is confident that they can keep the father-daughter relationship separate from the coach-player relationship.
Now a walk-on with the Cornhuskers, Lauren Cook will have to work her way up to possibly earning a scholarship. Cook said she is honored to return to her home state, adding that she is “focusing on getting the respect and trust from the players here.”
Back in September, Cook said one of her reasons to part ways with her father and not attend Nebraska was to make her own path. She did not want to be known as “John Cook’s daughter.” In Monday’s press conference, she said she realized she had already made her own path, and any questions about living in her father’s shadow are now gone.
Cook added that UCLA’s weak fan base for women’s volleyball was another reason for her departure.
“UCLA is a great program, but they just don’t have a lot of support, not a lot of fans and stuff,” Cook said.
Cook added that the now-retired UCLA coach Andy Banachowski was understanding of her situation after she explained her issues with the event planning major. Banachowski added that Cook’s departure had nothing to do with his retirement.
“Andy is a great guy,” Cook said. “He taught me a lot, he gave me a lot of support. He was behind me, and he understood.”
The freshman setter who started all 33 matches and was named 2009 Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, Lauren Cook came into UCLA as the top recruit in Banachowski’s 2009 class and was honored with the Andi Collins Award, given to the best high school setter.
With Cook’s departure, the Bruins have a huge gap at the setter position. Banachowski said the likely frontrunner will be sophomore-to-be Bojana Todorovic, who spent this past season as the Bruins’ second outside hitter but is a versatile player with experience at every position.
Cook played every single point at setter for the Bruins this past season.
“We do have another setter prospect coming in next year,” Banachowski added. “I can’t comment, because we haven’t signed her.”
Banachowski added that the volleyball program has considerable work to be done, a “fun” challenge for his successor.