If you watched the Nebraska Cornhusker volleyball game on Sunday, September 7, 2025, they showed the name “Terry Pettit” that is on the side of the Volleyball floor in the Devaney Center. Of course, it is named after the famous Nebraska Volleyball Coach Terry Pettit. Terry Pettit was Nebraska’s second head coach, and from 1977 to 1999 he built the Cornhuskers into a national power. He led the program to its first national championship (1995), two national runner-up finishes (1986, 1989), and three other national semifinal appearances (1990, 1996, 1998). Former Nebraska Volleyball Coach John Cook was commentating and mentioned that Terry had a recent health issue and wished him well.
If you happen to follow Terry on social media, he was giving kudos to one of his former volleyball players, she played for the Nebraska Volleyball Team and was a Letter Winner from 1985 to 1987. Her name is Barbie Young, you might know her as Dr. Barbie Gutshall here at Avera St. Anthony’s Hospital in O’Neill.
In his post, Pettit said, “Let me cut to the chase,” the emergency room doctor said, “you are having a heart attack.” This was 10:30 am on Wednesday morning. An hour earlier, I had visited an Urgent Care that did an EKG and concluded I had acid reflux. The physician’s assistant had given me a cocktail that included lidocaine to remove pain in my chest and suggested I get an appointment with a gastroenterologist. (The lidocaine had no impact on the chest pain.)
I drove down the street and scheduled the appointment with the gastroenterologist, but something didn’t seem right. The copy I had of the EKG indicated that there was an abnormality that could be heart-related. I drove to a stand-alone UC Health emergency room, but before I entered, I called Dr. Barbie Gutshall, a friend and former volleyball player at the University of Nebraska, and asked for her opinion. Barbie said to get to the ER as soon as possible. (Her language may have been a little more forceful.)
An hour later, I was on a cold table in the cath lab at Poudre Valley Hospital. Throughout this time, I had the opportunity to reflect on two events that happened sixty years apart. In 1959, a teammate collapsed and died of a heart attack during our junior high basketball practice. He had forged his physical, and his death was something his teammates and his first-year coach would carry with them for the rest of their lives.
The other death of a very close friend, Dick Railsback, who went to the emergency room in Boise, Idaho, in 2021, where they determined he needed an intervention as soon as possible, but they couldn’t admit him because there wasn’t any room. The hospital was filled with COVID-19 patients, many of whom had not received vaccinations. They told him he could have the procedure in a couple of weeks. Dick went home, had a heart attack, called 911, and by the time the paramedics arrived a few minutes later, he was found slumped over a chair at the dining room table.
My surgery was delayed because two other patients had arrived at Poudre Valley Hospital just before me, and they had to call in a separate cardiac team from Loveland, Colorado.
The coronary angiogram I had is considered a safe procedure, and you likely know someone whose life has been extended because of it. The cardiac team went in through my right wrist with a camera and discovered a 100% blockage in my right coronary artery and inserted a stent. (Another friend I play golf with has seven stents.)
I am lucky. I was lucky I didn’t trust the initial evaluation at the Urgent Care. (I am skeptical about everything.) I am fortunate to have a former player, Barbie Young-Gutchall, a physician in O’Neill, Nebraska, with whom I have the utmost trust. I am lucky to have a highly skilled cardiac team and nursing care at Poudre Valley. I am lucky to have a caring wife, Anne, who was beside me during this interlude, and I am lucky to have this rescued dog who looked like this when we returned home.
In a post 2 days later, Pettit thanked everyone for their concern and also gave Dr. Barbie Gutshall another nice mention, along with her 1987 Husker Press Photo.
