Tribute The Finish Line Chance run-in started Kirk Bovill’s coaching career during a golden era of track and field

BY KIRK BOVILL (’84) Actor, Writer

When NU Head Track and Field Coach Gary Pepin announced his retirement last summer after 42 years on the job, I couldn’t help but look back with a bit of melancholy, knowing that an era was ending. An era that I had an unlikely part in 40 years ago as an undergraduate student from Aurora.

During his incredible run, Coach Pepin would lead the Huskers to three NCAA team championships and a mind-blowing 73 conference titles between the Big 8, Big 12 and Big Ten. In addition, he was named either the Big 8, or Big 12 or Big Ten’s coach of the year on 28 occasions.

It’s hard to fathom that length of tenure in any profession, but when considering the tenuous shelf-life of a college coach these days, where the inherent pressure to consistently win is constant, it’s nothing short of miraculous. Incredibly, Pepin did that for more than four decades at Nebraska. No other coach in the long history of Husker athletics has lasted that long at one job.

I was fortunate to have been at the right place and time to land a position on Coach Pepin’s staff with the women’s team as a third-year student, during its three-year national championship run from 1982-84. How’s that for timing?

I’d spent my first two years at UNL doing typical college stuff: going to classes, skipping classes, hanging out at PO Pears and Sweep Left, “gearing up” for the home football games and occasionally studying. Basically, just trying to find out where I fit in. I was clearly on the five-year graduation plan.

I tried the fraternity life my first year and hated it. Spent the second year in the dorms at Abel Hall. By the third year, I was living off campus and had a chance run-in with Sondra Obermeier, a member of the track team and a fellow Auroran that had been coached by my dad, Ron Bovill, in high school. I told her that I was interested in coaching, and she said that she’d mention it to Coach Pepin. Secretly, I was hoping to meet Jennie Gorham, a sprinter who had joined the team that year. When I did eventually meet Jennie, I found out that she had a boyfriend, so that was that.

Surprisingly, I got a call from Coach Pepin. He needed somebody to video tape practices and meets, help out at practice and whatever else was needed. I was in.

Coach Pepin was a family guy, and that’s how he ran his program. He never yelled at a kid in a demeaning way. He was an encourager. He could relate with anybody.

His staff consisted of Linda Zech, Mark Kostek and Mark “Dr. D” Deveney. Kostek had come over with Pepin from the University of Kansas where Kostek had been an All-American javelin thrower when Pepin left KU to accept the Nebraska job. In addition to being the throws coach, he was also in charge of making sure that I didn’t burn the place down. After an athlete cussed at me in practice, “Dr. D”, a Philly guy, once told me, “God has a purpose for everybody, for some it’s to serve as a bad example.”

During the championship run, the team’s marquee athletes leading the charge were Merlene Ottey, an eventual Olympic medalist and arguably the greatest Husker athlete ever, Rhonda Blanford and Angie Thacker. What I remember the most about that first NCAA title was when Coach Pepin asked me to be a part of the team picture. I didn’t think that I belonged, but he insisted. Forty years later, you’ll find me in that picture of the 1982 national championship team pictured above.

Coach Pepin had a great sense of humor. At the 1982 outdoor championship meet at Brigham Young University, we were roommates in one of the dorms for the male coaches of the women’s teams. While I was showering, he locked me out of the room, so I had to go to the front lobby in towel — only to get a key for the room as girls from other teams were passing through.

So many other memories: Coach Pepin moving us out of the University of Houston dorms at the 1983 NCAA outdoor championships due to a serious roach problem; the long van rides to meets when Nicole Ali would keep me company while I was driving; Merlene racing and beating Mike Rozier on the indoor track at practice; getting that first national championship ring; going out on the football field with the championship team to be honored at halftime during the UCLA football game in 1983 when Rozier had his Heisman highlight touchdown run; being called an “undergraduate assistant” at my last team banquet in 1984.

Pepin helped me land a graduate assistant coaching job at Louisiana State University when he connected me with his long-time friend Coach Billy Maxwell. I was on staff when LSU won its first two women’s NCAA team titles in 1987. I never would have been there without Coach Pepin’s help.

How do you properly thank someone who’s been helping people for decades? I’d suggest that the school name the new outdoor track facility after him. After 42 years of winning, I’d say he’s more than earned it. Let’s call it the start of a new era.

I am forever grateful to Coach Pepin, my friend and mentor.