How Katie and Alan Huss found their way home to Creighton

As head coach, he believes those people remain one of Creighton's greatest strengths and one of the program's greatest recruiting advantages.

"Creighton is not for everyone," he says. "It narrows our recruiting scope significantly, but it narrows it to the cross-section of people that we want here."

Two paths to the same place

Katie's ties to Creighton stretch back generations. Her grandparents met while her grandfather attended medical school. Her father graduated from Creighton, several great-aunts attended the University, and her uncle, the Rev. John P. Fitzgibbons, SJ, taught in the English Department while she was a student.

Alan, a Kansas City native, had no previous connection to Creighton. But when he arrived on campus as a basketball recruit, he created one for himself immediately.

“I knew right away when I came on my visit that Creighton was my place,” Alan says. “And probably more importantly than that, the people here were my people.”

As a student-athlete, Alan spent much of his time around basketball, but some of his best experiences came outside of the program, including living in Swanson Hall, meeting classmates and becoming part of the broader Creighton community.

“I was looking for a home,” Alan says. “And I found one.”

A few days into their freshman year, Katie and Alan also found each other. They began dating and built a relationship that has now lasted more than 20 years.

Finding their way back

As fresh graduates from the Class of 2002, Katie and Alan moved to Illinois, Katie as a teacher, and Alan working in the corporate world.

But an opportunity to coach at the high school level started a dream that the Huss family would chase across the country.

That journey first brought them back to Creighton in 2017.

While attending Easter Vigil in Albuquerque, Alan's phone rang off the hook. On the other end was McDermott calling about the assistant coaching opportunity at Creighton.

Unable to answer until the service ended, Alan returned the call and soon found himself on a flight to Houston to meet with McDermott after Doug McDermott’s NBA playoff game.

"I think he felt my passion for this place, for Omaha, for the University, for Creighton basketball,” he says. “I don’t know exactly what I said to him. Fortunately, it was enough.”

A culture that endures

As a former student-athlete, seven-year assistant coach and now the first Creighton alumnus to lead the men's basketball program since Tom Apke's run from 1974 to 1981, Alan brings a perspective few others can. He's experienced Creighton as a recruit, a player, an assistant coach and now the person responsible for carrying the program forward.

Much has changed since his playing days. The conference is different. The facilities have evolved. College athletics has entered a new era.

But about a year after accepting the first assistant coach role, Alan looked around the locker room of one of the nation's top 20 teams and realized the same qualities he valued as a student still defined the program.

"Of course I want to win," he says. "Doing it with the same type of guys that I played with is awesome."

It's those people, he says, who continue to make Creighton special.

"I love the people who are attracted to Creighton."

Experiencing a Jesuit education

Katie comes from a long line of teachers, and her passion for education was clear from a young age. Her cousins were her first pretend students, and she often found herself helping classmates. As an elementary education major at Creighton, Katie’s relationships with faculty helped turn that instinct into a career.

“Those relationships were so impactful and meaningful to me,” Katie says.

Although he never planned to become a coach, Alan's education as a management information systems major in the now Heider College of Business prepared him for the analytical side of basketball. The ability to evaluate data and find patterns helps him make decisions in a sport filled with uncertainty.

“Basketball is a series of shades of gray,” Alan says. “You’re trying to find ways to objectify the subjective.”

Beyond his business courses, Alan credits his well-rounded Creighton education with expanding his perspective through courses that challenged him intellectually and spiritually.

“I genuinely believe it was God’s plan for me to have all those eclectic experiences that I could lean into,” he says. “It’s helped me grow as a person and as a coach.”

Both Alan and Katie experienced the kind of personal formation that defines a Jesuit education.

“Being at a Jesuit university taught me to put God first in all things, put others before yourself, be of service, continue to grow in my faith and try to see the good in all things,” Katie says. “I'm so very grateful for my education here. It's helped shape me to into who I am.”

Alan sees that same influence in his own life.

“The values that I still hold close to my heart—the things that formed me into the man that I am—largely came from the folks that I spent my time with here at Creighton."

Two teachers sharing a goal

Katie teaches in a classroom. Alan teaches on the basketball court. Though their work looks different, they're united by the same drive to help others succeed.

Through moves, new jobs and adjustments, wherever their journey has taken them, it means more because they did it together.

"This life has been challenging," Katie says. "But I do it because I know he would do it for me."

The future has yet to write itself. For now, they're finally unpacking in the place that's always been home.