From Nebraska News Service
By Heath Topil
As a new school year begins, so does a season of Husker hockey. A new season brings fresh players, interesting changes and unique challenges. However, not all things will change for the men’s club hockey team at UNL. For the past 21 years, a single family has stood behind the bench and coached the Husker hockey team.
From 2005 to 2023, Larry Taylor was on the coaching staff of the Husker Hockey Club Team, and after a brief hiatus, he is returning to the club in 2026. During Taylor’s tenure as head coach, he was assisted by his two step-sons, Nate and Reed Fuller. With Nate joining the coaching staff in 2020 and Reed in 2011, the trio cemented a family and winning legacy around Husker hockey that has been built upon over the last few decades.
“We’re all a big family here,” Taylor said. “Obviously the coaching staff, but the players and everybody as well.”
Both Nate and Reed grew up being coached by Taylor in Lincoln throughout their youth careers, which culminated in ending their playing careers with the Husker hockey club again for Taylor. From there, they made their individual transitions to the Husker Hockey coaching staff. That transition, according to Reed, was one-of-a-kind.
“It was super exciting to have it be more of a family event,” Reed said. “I was having a blast with him (Nate) sharing the bench.”
Even though their roles have changed over the years, Nate, Reed and Taylor have had front-row seats to each other’s development and achievements as coaches. Nate specifically mentioned how he is trying to bridge the gap of the “old school” style of hockey that Taylor brings and the “new school”.
As with all families, Nate, Reed and Taylor butt heads. Nate recalled what it was like to go from being coached by his stepfather to now coaching with him.
“Frustrating at times,” Nate joked. “Like that’s probably one of the first things that comes to mind.”
The challenges of coaching with family don’t end at the stepfather/stepson dynamic. For Nate and Reed, years of sibling rivalry have simply found a new setting behind the bench.
“As teammates, we were brothers,” Nate said. “We fought, we bickered, we punched each other, we argued and we gave each other rides to practice.”
While things haven’t changed much for the brothers from their playing days, they have matured as they’ve moved into coaching together.
“We still argue and bicker and don’t see eye to eye a lot of times,” Nate said. “But it’s much more we just talk it out.”
For all the arguing and bickering that occurs between the two brothers, their relationship is about more than just hockey. From growing up together and playing together to now coaching in the same organization with each other, and through the occasional sibling rivalry and disagreement, they have been able to share the highs, lows and everything in between with one another.
“Sharing all the good things and bad things,” Reed said. “There’s nobody else I’d rather do it with.”
While their relationship obviously extends far beyond the rink, hockey has remained a constant in Nate, Reed and Taylor’s lives. Cumulatively, they hold multiple decades of coaching experience and numerous awards and achievements. Their individual accomplishments set the scene for how they arrived behind the bench and how their combined experience has helped shape the Husker hockey program into what it is today.
Taylor has by far the most extensive resume of the trio, racking up two Pacific Region Coach of the Year awards, two Mid-American Collegiate Hockey Association (MACHA) Coach of the Year awards and one Division III American Collegiate Hockey Association Coach of the Year award. On top of that, he took the Husker hockey club to two straight MACHA conference championships in 2018 and 2019 and four straight national tournament appearances from 2018-2022.
Reed was selected as the 2025-2026 MACHA coach of the year and was the head coach when the Husker hockey team won the inaugural Nebraska Cup, an in-season tournament of all the Division III club hockey teams in Nebraska. While Nate hasn’t won any individual coaching accolades quite yet, he remarked just how pleased he has been watching his teams grow.
“The thing that makes me the most proud is just watching you guys click,” Nate said. “Watching all of a sudden things that have been frustrating a group and then all of a sudden it just clicks, that’s fun for me.”
After multiple decades of coaching, the Taylor-Fuller family’s connection to Husker hockey has been about more than wins and losses. It has been about fostering a family atmosphere and a feeling that extends from the actual relatives behind the bench to everyone within the club.
(Originally published at https://www.nebraskanewsservice.net/unlimitedsports/a-husker-hockey-legacy-one-family-that-has-been-behind-the-bench-for-decades/article_9c945ee7-df39-4497-9efc-d021c2677b85.html)
