LINCOLN — Every time Matt Coatney sits in front of his computer these days, he has a new Facebook photo to examine, a fresh Twitter conversation to continue or an unread e-mail to peruse.
The radio play-by-play man for the NU women’s basketball team suddenly finds himself managing an interactive fan club, a growing group of basketball backers who’re becoming increasingly devoted after each Nebraska win.
Coatney, alongside color analyst Jeff Griesch, is the voice of the undefeated group’s remarkable run. It’s somewhat of an oddity in this digital age, relying on the radio for the live coverage. The Huskers, 26-0 and ranked No. 3, just won the regular-season title in the nation’s toughest conference, yet they’ve been on TV just a smattering of times.
But fans, hungry for instant updates, have latched to the Coatney-Griesch broadcast.
“It is unreal,” said Coatney, the NU women’s hoops play-by-play announcer for nine years. “I am living a dream here. And it really seems like fans are into what we’re doing.”
He and Griesch get constant correspondence from all over the state. They’ve been contacted by listeners in Singapore, the Dominican Republic, Japan. Coatney’s signature call “You Betcha!” is written on a couple of homemade signs that pop up every time Nebraska’s playing inside the Devaney Center.
“People have told Jeff and I, ‘You guys are having your best year,’” Coatney said. “We just tell them that it’s easy to sound good when your team is 26-0.”
Nebraska is on pace to shatter its home attendance record. The Huskers have had five straight crowds of 10,000 or more at the Devaney Center. But there’s increased interest even from those who can’t make it to Lincoln regularly.
Twenty-five stations are carrying all of Nebraska’s games now. Just two — Lincoln’s KFGE (98.1 FM) and Omaha’s KTWI (93.3 FM) — promised before the season to broadcast every matchup.
KCSR in Chadron carried about a dozen women’s games last season, according to 20-year owner Dennis Brown. The total’s well over 20 this year, and Brown’s already making plans to bring the postseason games to the state’s northwest corner as well.
“I’ve had more calls — Are we carrying games? — more calls than I’ve ever had,” he said. “We have a lot of interest here.”
Lexington’s KRVN has experienced an audience spike, too, according to general manager Eric Brown. The station has carried women’s games on-and-off for the past six years, sometimes choosing local sports coverage or other collegiate events when schedule conflicts occurred. Not so much this season.
“We think it’s a great success story,” Brown said. “There’s tremendous amount of interest in the games. ... Certainly, the buzz is there.”
To Coatney, he and Griesch are simply two basketball enthusiasts whose courtside conversation gets caught on tape. Nothing special, he says.
Griesch has been a sports information director for NU women’s basketball since 1998. Coatney started doing women’s hoops play-by-play at Southwest Missouri State in 1985. He’s a 14-year district supervisor at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and a longtime amateur softball umpire when he’s not around the game. That’s not often, though.
The NU radio team knows its stuff.
“I have so many friends in the world of women’s basketball,” Coatney said. “It’s been my hobby, my avocation, my love for so long. I am a women’s basketball guy.”
Contact the writer:
402-473-9585, jon.nyatawa@owh.com
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