Ryan Held Fired Up to Take Over as New Loper Football Coach

assistant/running backs coach at the University of Central Florida (2016-17). He was twice named one of the nation’s top 25 recruiters by Rivals.com while at Nebraska.

A coaching veteran with 13 years of head coaching experience, Held climbed the coaching ladder as a junior college, NCAA Division II and NAIA head coach before joining the Division I ranks. He had head coaching stints at junior colleges Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College and Highland Community College, Division II Southwestern Oklahoma State University and Oklahoma Panhandle State University, and NAIA Peru State College.

Held’s other coaching stops include Butler Community College and the University of Tennessee, where he was a defensive graduate assistant in 1998-99, helping the Volunteers win the 1998 national championship.

Bauer chose Held following a nationwide search. He replaces Josh Lynn, who was UNK’s head coach the past six seasons.

“Ryan has created a strong reputation for leading, recruiting and developing players,” said Bauer. “His focus goes beyond the game, aimed at elevating players to become the best version of themselves on and o the field.

Former Nebraska and North Alabama coach Ryan Held is the new head football coach at UNK. Athletic Director Marc Bauer announced the hire in late December.

“I can’t tell you how fired up I am to be the next head football coach at UNK,” Held said. “The opportunity to return to Nebraska and lead the Loper football program, which has tremendous tradition and is committed to winning championships, is something I can’t wait to take on. The MIAA is one of the toughest football conferences in the country, and UNK is right there at the top with a strong foundation in place.”

Held, 48, spent the past season as interim head coach and o ensive coordinator at NCAA Division I University of North Alabama. Before that, he was an assistant/running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (2018-21) and

“Equally important, Ryan believes in the Division II model. Not only does he have plans to guide and continue to elevate the program, but also create a culture driven by our mission, complemented by our core values and e orts to contribute to our campus and community.”

UNK went 27-11 over the past four seasons, including a 10-3 record in 2021 while advancing to the second round of the NCAA Division II Playo s. The Lopers won the Mineral Water Bowl in 2019.

“We have a great opportunity to build on recent success,” said Held. “There are a lot of really good players returning. We’re going to add more moving forward and build on recent successes in the great MIAA conference.

“I look forward to meeting all the great alumni, boosters and community members who make it possible to build our program.”

An interview with Barry Samsula '77

Interview with Barry Samsula ’77 as he recounts his time at Kearney State College and a career that revolved around academia and broadcasting.

Tell us about what made you choose Kearney State College, your career path and how you got to where you are today.

During my nal year of high school in St. Paul, Nebraska, our guidance counselor assigned every senior to write a paper on a career. e challenge was to hone in on a future career path, pick a job, nd out what kind of training is needed and what the expected salary is, and then do an interview with someone in that eld. is project forced me, for the rst time in my life, to re ect on my strengths and weaknesses and make a plan for the future.

I was sitting on a tractor, discing a eld on our farm, thinking about our assignment and all the high school organizations and activities I had participated in and enjoyed over the years, including sports, theater, speech and music. As the tractor radio blasted music from the nearby Grand Island station, it hit me. What about broadcasting? Johnny Carson was from Nebraska, and he was doing pretty well for himself.

My research led me to Kearney State College and a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting. It was far enough away from home, not too big, and it o ered plenty of opportunity to get involved and had a radio and television station. A campus tour clinched the deal.

My career path and memorable moments during my years in Kearney (1972-1984) and at KSC are intermingled. During that time, I gave campus tours, served as an admissions counselor, was a radio announcer at KGFW, produced and voiced a show called Walt’s Wisdom that was broadcast on both KGFW and KRNY, wrote commercials, and was the voice of the NTV television network. I was also the rst deejay at Dicky Dugan’s Saloon and Dance Hall (Kearney’s rst discotheque) and deejayed all over the state with one of the rst portable discos in Nebraska. While I was in school, I met the love of my life (Susan (Hughes) Samsula ’78), got married, and she and I served as house parents for the Alpha Phi sorority in Stout Hall, worked together at KSC’s summer orientation and had two kids, all while working towards my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in speech communications.

In 1984, I left Kearney to become the director of admissions at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota. en I was o to Richardson, Texas, in 1990 to start my role as the director of enrollment services at e University of Texas at Dallas for nearly 20 years. e whole time, I stayed active in broadcasting by announcing various sporting events and graduation ceremonies, and voicing numerous university marketing tapes and DVDs. After 30 years as an administrator at three universities, I decided to retire from academia. Not ready to give up on being productive and spending time interacting with people, I decided to go back to my rst love – broadcasting. My time at Classical 101.1 WRR FM started with part-time work doing commercials and weekend shifts that included everything from announcing music to operating the board during church services and the Metropolitan Opera. Pretty soon, I was lling in for someone who took a vacation, then somebody else moved on permanently, and nally things shifted around until I was working full-time during weekdays.

What are some of your most memorable moments with WRR?

One of the things that kept me so focused at WRR was the type of music. Back in the ’70s at KGFW and Dicky Dugan’s, it was top-40 rock; then at WRR it was 24/7 classical. I’m talking Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. What a learning curve! I think a lot of people feel like classical music is so highbrow that they just don’t listen to it. With a master’s degree in speech, my goal has always been to try to explain things in terms that anybody can understand and to try to make it interesting enough that people will listen to what I have to say. I always try to make it relevant and talk to my audience, not at them. Sometimes you wonder if what you’re doing is making a di erence and if you are getting through to your audience. All you have to go on are positive comments from people who call in or post something nice on Facebook. So, it was a real honor to be selected for the Wall of Fame at Dallas City Hall, a recognition for customer service based on letters written by listeners.

Similarly, it was an honor to be asked to serve on the Kearney State College alumni board with other graduates who had made positive contributions to the college. At my retirement party, the Farewell Roadshow, I was just totally overwhelmed at the number of people who came to say goodbye. I met a family in the reception line who handed me an envelope with a couple of pictures in it. e lady handed me a phone and said, “My daughter wants to talk to you.” e person on the other line was the girl in the pictures. She told me that years ago she was my very rst March Buddy (a weekly program where I recognized birthdays, anniversaries and other dedications sent in by listeners), and that the rst picture was of her at that time. e second picture was of her as she looked now. She apologized for not attending the party but said that she was teaching an opera workshop in Austin at the time. Talk about coming around full circle! It was humbling to think that years ago maybe I played some small part in encouraging a young person to listen to the music and sparked her interest to pursue a career in the music industry.

What do you look forward to now that you’re retiring?

My wife and I recently moved to Robson Ranch near Denton, Texas. It’s a gated retirement community o ering golf, pickleball, swimming and hundreds of other amenities. We want to enjoy those activities and spend time with family. Our goal is to continue traveling and listening to classical music in famous venues around the world.

What’s the best piece of advice you could give to current students?

Don’t expect someone to just hand over the reins to you without proving yourself and your dedication. Follow your passion and be willing to start at the bottom and then make yourself available. You may have to start out by working weekends or late-night shifts, but you’re working, you’re learning, you’re meeting future colleagues and your supervisors are watching. And, if you have done your best, then you will be creating opportunities for yourself.

During part of his tenure as the Director of Enrollment Services at The University of Texas at Dallas, Barry Samsula continued to stay close to his passion for broadcasting as the public address announcer for UTDallas Comets basketball and volleyball games and the Dallas Fury of the National Women's Basketball League (NWBL).

Barry was also the University Orator for many graduation ceremonies, announcing the names of graduates as they crossed the stage.

Jan. 3, 2023 marked the beginning of the 108th Legislature for the state of Nebraska. State senators are convened at the Capitol, where they are addressing key issues and setting the state budget for the next two years.

The budget is particularly important because UNK's operating budget relies largely on state support and tuition. Of the nearly $3 billion dollars it takes to run the university system — from football to bookstores, research expenditures to named chairs — one third supports selffunded initiatives, such as athletics and residence halls. One third are restricted dollars, such as federal research grants or University of Nebraska Foundation gifts for buildings and scholarships. The other third of those dollars are operating costs

The other third of those dollars are operating costs.

The nearly $1 billion system operating budget supports paying university faculty and staff and keeping the lights on. Sixty-two percent is funded by the state; the difference is funded primarily by tuition. Strong state support helps keep tuition low, making college affordable for Nebraskans.

The arc of this year’s legislative session moves through bill introduction and hearings in January, committee hearings and floor debate on bills in February and March, and floor debate and a preliminary budget in April. This is where we are at now. In May, floor debate continues — including around the final state budget — and June brings any veto overrides and the end of session.

To help support a strong future for UNK, it’s more important than ever for Lopers to write or email your state senator and tell them how UNK has made a difference in your life. You can also become a member of the NU Advocates, a group of people who are amplifying the conversation around making an investment in the University of Nebraska, at nebraska.edu/advocates.

Together, we have the opportunity to demonstrate to the Nebraska Legislature that Nebraskans believe in our university's ability to address major challenges facing our state — and grow our workforce for the future.