Grinding Without an Audience: How Kyle Crooks Prepared for the Opportunity to Become 'Voice of the Huskers'

So Crooks called games for himself. Every Saturday for the last several years, he would control what he could control. Crooks handled what is fairly the biggest critique of his hire at Nebraska.

"The one big thing that people are going to say is, 'he's not a sitting Division I football voice and he's only done this and he's only done that'," Crooks said. "People don't necessarily see the work behind the scenes. This has been hours and hours and hours and days worth of football tape that I've put together over a decade. Eight years of this works, this doesn't work, this in my prep works, this doesn't work.

"I got a stack of spotting charts, football spotting charts behind me from seasons worth of Florida football, just calling games and making mistakes and doing things and getting better."

Crooks has been calling other sports - basketball, softball, baseball, and more - but football has been his love. On a day where he called a women's basketball game for the SEC Network, he didn't want to miss the chance to get better.

"So I literally went in my suit, ran over to the Swamp, to make sure my booth was set up to then get ready to call that game that somebody may or may not ever hear. That's that's been my existence for eight years," Crooks said.

That grind has paid off with Crooks becoming the new Voice of the Huskers, replacing the legendary Sharpe, who passed away from cancer earlier this year.

"I've said this a bunch. This is a very tough situation," Crooks said. "The best case scenario is Greg is getting set to call his 18th season of Husker football, and it was incredibly sad. He is forever going to be the Voice of the Huskers, and there's a reason that his name is on the booth. He meant so much to so many people internally in the athletic department, externally, of course, to the fan base."

Crooks understands the legacy of the position that he's stepping into. He's also put in the work to be here. When Aug. 28 rolls around and Cornhusker fans across the state tune into their local radio affiliate or on the Huskers app, Crooks will welcome them to year three of the Matt Rhule era from Arrowhead Stadium. It'll also be a new era for the Huskers Radio Network, but one that Crooks appears ready to tackle head on with a work ethic worthy of the post.

"I don't think I've wrapped my mind around this yet," Crooks said. "I don't know if I've really slept the last 48 hours. It's been an outpouring of support. And man, I'm just so grateful for how nice everybody has been."

Crooks will move to Nebraska this weekend. He'll start part time on Sports Nightly July 7 and be rolling completely in August, just in time for Husker football.

You can hear the full conversation with Crooks from HuskerMax Today below.

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