July 28, 2008

Three Coaches Added to Football Staff

Experienced Assistants

     Kearney, Neb. –  Nebraska-Kearney head football coach Darrell Morris today announced the addition of three new coaches to his staff.

    They include defensive assistants Matt Martin and Jesse Williams and graduate assistant Gino Polastri. Additionally, Grant Mollring has been elevated from a graduate assistant to full-time status and will lead the Loper wide receivers.

    Defensively in 2008, Martin will coach the outside linebackers with Polastri in charge of the inside backers. Next, Williams will lead the defensive line/ends and fourth-year coordinator Bob Crocker will be the secondary coach.

      Williams has spent the past 20 years as an assistant college coach, all on the defensive side of the ball. He also has served as a special teams coach at three schools.

       From 1999-07, Williams was the defensive line coach at Colorado State, helping the Rams become one of the premier programs in the Mountain West Conference.

       A Sonoma State (Calif.) graduate, Williams has also spent time at Division I San Jose State (1998), I-AA members Eastern Washington (1995-96), Holy Cross, Mass. (1996-98) and Portland State (1992-95). Finally, he began his coaching career at his alma mater (1988-92).

       Martin has spent the past two years as a defensive graduate assistant at Emporia State. A Kansas native and an ESU grad, Martin coached the Hornet safeties, defensive line and served as special teams coach.

      He also spent the summer of 2007 working at Nebraska-Lincoln’s camps.  As a Hornet wide receiver, he caught 76 passes for 853 yards in his career and was a two-time team co-captain. 

      Finally, Polastri comes from American River College (Calif.), where he served as co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach.  A California native, Polastri played at ARC – earning all-region and all-conference honors -- before finishing his career at Division II Concord University (W.V.). 

       While at Concord, he earned first-team all-conference honors as a linebacker and then played in the 2004 East Coast Bowl, an annual Division II all-star game.

      Polastri then worked as under-graduate assistant coach at Concord, working with the linebackers, for two years.

       This group replaces Jason Fairfield, Cesar Rivas-Sandoval, Jay Christensen and graduate assistant Ryan Bowers on the Loper staff. Sandoval is now a defensive assistant at I-AA Tennessee-Martin with Christensen the defensive coordinator at NAIA Morningside College.

    UNK, recently picked to finish third in the RMAC preseason poll, will begin the 2008 season at home vs. Wayne State. Time for that game is set for noon.