BIG TEN BASKETBALL MEDIA DAYS

October 12, 2022

Amy Williams

Nebraska Cornhuskers

Women's Head Coach

KEVIN WARREN: Also want to take a moment to thank TIAA for being a great partner of our men's and women's Basketball Media Days, but also our upcoming tournaments. We appreciate their partnership.

The next coach that we want to introduce is Amy Williams from the University of Nebraska. Amy has a lot of energy. She's a member of the Nebraska Athletics Inclusion Council, which meets to develop and deal with diversity and inclusion efforts for the Nebraska athletes.

She's a noted speaker, speaks regularly. Has spoken to the rotary club, Cornhusker Boys & Girls Club. She has a really, really exciting team, made the NCAA tournament last year. We're excited in the Big Ten to be able to see her team play this year. We're so grateful and blessed to have head basketball coach Amy Williams as a member of the Big Ten Conference.

Welcome to the stage the head basketball coach at the University of Nebraska, Amy Williams.

AMY WILLIAMS: Good morning and thank you to Commissioner Warren and Megan Kahn and the rest of the Big Ten staff that's worked so tirelessly to make this event possible. Thank you to everybody that's sitting out here today for covering our amazing, bright, talented, intelligent, creative, young student-athletes and telling their stories. We really appreciate you taking the time to shine some light on them.

I'm incredibly blessed to be here today representing the University of Nebraska and this women's basketball program. It's such an incredibly fun team to coach on a daily basis. I pinch myself at how just awesome it is to come full circle after playing at the University of Nebraska, to now be leading this program and getting to spend every day representing this amazing university.

Looking forward to the upcoming season. We feel like we've raised the bar for our program and want to continue doing so moving forward.

I am excited to answer your questions here today.

Q. We've talked about how important Sam Haiby has been for your program. What have you seen from her through everything she's been through the last couple of weeks?

AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, Sam Haiby has been an incredibly important piece to our program. She came and chose to come to the University of Nebraska at a time where she had to really believe in the vision that we had, then has just grinded through with us and stuck through a lot of ups and downs to really elevate and get us back into the NCAA tournament.

Obviously it was quite disappointing for us that she would have to miss this upcoming season with injury. But I've just been so pleased with the way she's handled herself. I can't hardly put into words how proud of her I am. Her approach, she has great mind space right now, great mental spirit. She's just approaching it the right way.

The other day I was having an academic meeting with Allison Weidner, and she told me that she had had lunch with Sam Haiby. They'd gone out to eat. Sam was talking to her about the ways she can step up in that point guard position and elevate her game. Just showed incredible leadership. I'm just so proud of Sam for stepping into that leadership role.

I know the rest of our team really wants to lean into playing hard just out of respect for Sam Haiby.

Q. What does this platform mean to you and your team? What can you do to spread the message about your program today?

AMY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I feel like this type of event, it is really immeasurable. It's kind of setting the bar and the standard for women's basketball across the country, for how to shine light on the incredible student-athletes that we have competing in the Big Ten Conference.

I'm just so grateful for today and the opportunity. Today Jaz Shelley and Alexis Markowski to be here, but for all the incredible student-athletes that are part of this event, to be able to shine their light bright, show some personality and see why these young women are so special, not just because of what they do between the lines every day, but who they are as people.