Following last week's retirement of legendary coach Francis Allen after 40 years as Nebraska's head coach, longtime assistant Chuck Chmelka will assume head coaching duties in a move that become official today. 1984 Olympic gold medalist Jim Hartung will remain as Chmelka’s assistant coach.

“It’s just been a whirlwind,” Chmelka tells Inside of the fast-paced changes at his alma mater. “It’s been hectic and stressful, but also really exciting and awesome too.”

Chmelka has been a Husker coach since 1982, when he started as a grad assistant. Chmelka joined the Nebraska staff as a full-time employee in 1986, and both he and Hartung were members of the university’s NCAA National Championship teams in the 1970s and ’80s.

“It’s my dream job,” Chmelka said of the head coach title he’s been waiting almost 27 years for. “I’m extremely honored, and humbled really, to be able to it. Very excited and nervous also.”

Chemlka’s nerves stem from the fact that Athletic Director Tom Osborne has publically stated that the future of men's gymnastics at Nebraska is murky. "Ideally, we'd like to continue on in the future, but there's just a lot of things about men's gymnastics that we need to look at very carefully here over the next several months," Osborne told the Omaha World-Herald last week after Allen’s retirement, refusing to guarantee the team’s security beyond the 2009-10 season.

The Nebraska A.D. was more upbeat in today’s release announcing Chemlka’s succession, but still stressed success. “We believe that it's important that each of these coaches work closely together to build a strong gymnastics team throughout this next year," Osborne said of Chmelka and Hartung, both of whom were up for the head coach position. "We appreciate their willingness to serve in these capacities and have reason to believe that they will do an outstanding job."

Nebraska football legend Osborne, who originally specified he’d taken on the A.D. position as a temporary measure, agreed to continue in that role “indefinitely” in an announcement also made Wednesday from Lincoln. It will be Osborne who makes the decision on whether to continue men’s gymnastics at Nebraska after next year.

“He said he doesn’t want to cut any programs,” Chmelka reports of his own lengthy conversations with the A.D. “He told me that, and I believe him. He just doesn’t want mediocrity, and I understand that. We gotta be held accountable. And we should be.”

The program's future depends on a successful 2010 season. The once unbeatable Huskers—they’re the only team, ever, to win five men’s titles in a row (1979-83) and own eight national titles total; only Penn State and Illinois have more—finished the 2009 season ranked ninth (out of 20 teams) and haven’t won a National Championship since 1994.

But Chmelka is confident Osborne’s definition of success is about far more than just ranking. “We need to show overall improvement,” Chmelka says. “It has to be getting better in all aspects, not just your final ranking at NCAAs. It’s the budget, it’s recruiting—that’s a huge one—discipline; just the overall direction of the program. He’d like to see more people in the stands, more alumni involvement. We have one year to show him that we are improving in all aspects and, if we do that, he’s on board and he’s all for us.

“I know exactly what he wants and the time frame he wants it,” an upbeat Chmelka adds. “It’s totally do-able. We can do it. He doesn’t expect us to go out and, suddenly, be third at NCAAs, but he does expect us to have discipline, team unity and have the guys come together as one. All the stuff that makes a team, if they’re not already in the top six, be on the way to getting there. That’s what he wants, and I do too.

“Honestly, I feel like everything [Osborne] wants, we would have done it anyway,” Chmelka concludes. “It’s the direction we need to go. It’s the right way to do things. That’s what Jim and I want. I really feel like it’s already started. We started that direction on Monday, and the guys have been so supportive. We understand exactly what [A.D. Osborne] wants and we’re going to work our tails off to give it him.”

Chmelka, who is married to fellow former Husker gymnast Kim Grabowski with a son, Alex, also a gymnast, runs the well-respected Nebraska School of Gymnastics, the junior program based in the Husker’s facility.

A program Chmelka is insistent will go on, with or without him. “NSG has to continue,” he says strongly. “We only have two or three [boys’] USA Gymnastics teams in the state. Will I be a part of it? Yes, for sure. To what extent, I don’t know.”

Right now, Chmelka’s focus is on his new role as the Husker head coach, and leading his team back to top of the men’s gymnastics ranks.  

“The first thing we gotta address, and fix, is recruiting,” Chmelka says of how he plans to get there. “We’re going to recruit differently than we have. We have to. Our guys are good, and we’re getting better, but we need a couple of the top guys to challenge those top teams. Somehow, we gotta get ‘em to come to Nebraska. It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be a lot of work. But it can be done. Mark (Williams) did it [at Oklahoma], Stanford went through it. I know we can do it too.”

Despite the rumors, Chmelka clearly feels his team’s future is bright. “Do I think we’re going to have a team next year?” he asks, answering emphatically, “Heck yes! … I’m not even thinking that we’re not going to be here next year. I’m planning on being here for a long, long time.”