Nebraska officially starts the fall semester on Monday and the fall sports calendar is starting to fill up. That means the Nebraska news cycle is picking up right alongside it all.
This week’s Friday Five moves around the Husker calendar a bit: Amy Stephens is back at Nebraska to help build the new flag football program, Jillian Martin made even more bowling history, Nebraska softball’s staff earned more national recognition, Justin Evans added another preseason football honor and 18 current and former Huskers walked away with degrees.
Let’s get into it.
1. Amy Stephens is back at Nebraska
Nebraska flag football is still in the early stages of becoming an actual program but it added a familiar name this week.
Amy Stephens, a former Nebraska women’s basketball player and assistant coach, was announced Tuesday as the program’s director of operations. Stephens played for the Huskers from 1985-89 and has spent much of her career in coaching, including assistant stops at Nebraska, Iowa State, Saint Louis and Memphis.
She also has head coaching experience at Nebraska-Kearney and Drake, putting together a 348-173 record across 17 seasons.
“As the new director of operations for flag football at Nebraska, I am thrilled to be part of building a championship culture, empowering our student-athletes and growing the game of flag football in Husker Nation,” Stephens said in a statement.
It’s also worth remembering that Stephens was one of Nebraska women’s basketball’s best, earning a spot on the program’s All-Century Team in 2000 after helping the Huskers win a Big Eight title and reach the NCAA Tournament in 1988.
“We are so excited to have Amy joining our staff as we build this program from the ground up,” head coach Liz Sowers said in a statement. “She has valuable coaching experience and knows how a successful program runs. She is also familiar with Nebraska and its athletics culture and bleeds Husker red. She will be a great asset for us.”
2. Jillian Martin keeps making history
Former Nebraska bowler Jillian Martin won the PWBA Tour Championship on Tuesday night, defeating Germany’s Birgit Noreiks, 247-221, at Yorktown Lanes in Parma Heights, Ohio. With the win, Martin became the youngest bowler in PWBA history to win three career majors.1
The Tour Championship also gave Martin the Triple Crown: the United States Bowling Congress Queens, U.S. Women’s Open and PWBA Tour Championship. She is the first bowler to clinch that since the PWBA Tour relaunched.
“It’s shocking,” Martin told PWBA.com. “I would not necessarily expect to be here. Have I imagined being here? Did I know it could happen? 100%. But I never truly, truly was like, ‘Wow, this is going to happen, and it’s going to happen now.’”
At Nebraska, Martin was a four-time All-American and the 2025 NTCA Bowler of the Year. Now she is doing the same thing professionally, and quickly. She was also the only bowler to win twice during the 2026 PWBA National Tour season.
3. Nebraska softball assistants get national recognition
Lori Sippel and Diane Miller were named top 25 finalists for D1Softball’s 2026 Assistant Coach of the Year. The winner, along with the Pitching Coach of the Year, will be announced Aug. 31.
It is another nod to Nebraska softball’s historic season.
The Huskers went 52-8 overall and 23-1 in Big Ten play. The 52 wins tied the program record, and Nebraska also put together a school-record 27-game winning streak. The 23 conference wins were the most in program history and tied a Big Ten record.
Sippel, who retired this offseason, helped lead a pitching staff that ranked near the top nationally in several major categories, including second in strikeouts and strikeout-to-walk ratio, fourth in ERA and fifth in WHIP. Under her, Jordy Frahm earned her fourth First-Team All-America honor and Alexis Jensen was a Third-Team All-American. Frahm was also the NFCA and USA Softball Player of the Year.
Miller, who was promoted to associate head coach, oversaw an offense that finished in the top three in school history in several categories, including batting average, hits, runs, doubles, home runs, RBIs, slugging percentage and on-base percentage.
4. Justin Evans adds another preseason honor
Justin Evans was named a second-team preseason All-American by The Athletic this week, his second preseason honor after being named to the Rimington Trophy Watch List earlier this month.
Evans is one of the most experienced players on Nebraska’s roster, with 31 career starts and 38 appearances as a Husker. He started every game at center last season and helped pave the way for Emmett Johnson’s first-team All-America season. Before that, Evans started all 12 games at guard in 2024 and appeared in every game as a redshirt freshman in 2023, including five starts.
5. Eighteen Huskers added degrees to the résumé
Eighteen current and former Nebraska student-athletes received their degrees during summer commencement at Pinnacle Bank Arena this past weekend.
The group covered a lot of ground, both in sport and geography, with graduates from nine states and three foreign countries. Football was represented by Emmett Johnson, Dasan McCullough and Gunnar Gottula, while baseball added Dylan Carey, Jalen Worthley and Cooper Katskee. Carey’s graduation comes after an All-America season, a Brooks Wallace Award and the start of his professional career in the Mets organization, which is a pretty full sentence all by itself.
The list also included Allie Sczech from volleyball, Chance Lamer and Brandyn Van Tassell from wrestling, Kendall Blue and Braxton Meah from men’s basketball, Jack Critz from men’s gymnastics, Arden Louchheim from women’s golf, Kellyn Kortemeyer and Sakena Massiah from women’s track and field, and three tennis graduates in Reya Lee Coe, Nikolay Sysoev and Joan Torres Espinosa.
Over the last three graduations, Nebraska has now had 108 student-athletes earn degrees.
It’s important that we don’t lose that number, even when the calendar starts to get busy. After all, seasons end, eligibility runs out2 and awards get handed out and moved beyond.
The degree is the part that lasts.
She is 22 years and 24 days old.
Or does it? Ask the NCAA.
I have to admit I'm only peripherally aware of the bowling team, but I was familiar enough to know that Jillian Martin was good. But holy smokes