Alec Woockman with a table in the foreground at Charles Schwab Field Omaha
Please tell us a little bit about your creations and your favorite ones. And I notice they’re very inspired by different ethnic cultures, which is a lot of fun this year.
Yeah, absolutely. We have, I think 12 new concessions items this year, which is a decent amount for us. It’s more than maybe in years prior. But yeah, we like to feature a lot of different flavors and a lot of different…you know, our favorite types of foods. So there’s some Middle Eastern items out there. There’s kind of some Mediterranean things with our gyro and our Mediterranean brat. We have some…definitely some southwestern flavors. That’s very normal for us… jalapeno jack cheese sauce everywhere and jalapenos and things like that. And then we definitely have some breakfast items this year that we’re…you know, we’re big fans of breakfast flavors. Bacon’s great, that type of thing. So we tried to include that in a couple items this year.
I would say my favorite items… probably the Walk-Off Burger, which is a burger that is nestled between French toast. It has bourbon, bacon, onion jam which has some maple in there as well. Cranberry compote, just to add some acidity and some sweetness. And like I said, it’s nestled between two pieces of French toast. So it kind of covers a lot of breakfast slots there.
One I feel like we need to touch on is the Stealing Home Colossal Pretzel. We love having shareable options that you can buy and feed a few people. Maybe, you know, you and a couple of kids and your friends? Whatever. So it’s a giant pretzel—I mean, probably 12 inches wide type of thing. And it has three different types of meat. So we have pork carnitas, chicken tinga, taco beef, cheese sauce, poblano crema, pico de gallo, so southwestern flavors, but just on a huge pretzel that is very shareable, very filling.
And I think I should touch on a hot dog. I mean, we got a lot of great hot dog options this year. We’re doing Footlong Frank and Bean Dog with baked beans on it, bacon bits, mustard BBQ sauce. And then we also have… in that Mediterranean kind of realm, we have a loaded brat with tzatziki, lettuce, tomato, feta cheese. Just have a nice fresh take on a brat. And then the Dinger Dog is a fun one as well. So that’s also more southwestern flavors. There’s avocado, poblano crema, lettuce, tomato, bacon, stuff like that.
So those are probably the ones that are my favorite this year. I can touch on any of them if you want more specifics, but those are the few that I could think of.
You told me before how you could share inspiration, but I always find it interesting. And then each year’s got to be just a little bit different.
Yeah. You know that that is the thing. Every year, there’s maybe one or two things that stick around from the previous year’s menu. And then this year we’ve got 12 new things. So it is a group effort. We have a group of chefs that all work together on these things. We couldn’t do it with just one person. It always helps to have a lot of minds thinking on it. And we have people from different cultures and backgrounds who have some great flavor profiles to work with, so… the Big Kahuna Burger’s got the Asian Hawaiian influence. And we’ve got, obviously, lots of southwestern flavors. But it’s really a group effort. It takes a lot of people to come up with these different types of…
Of the returning ones, which one is your favorite?
Of the returning ones, I think everyone’s favorite is usually the Grounds Crew Tatch. That’s come back for years and years now, so that one’s great. The Nacho Omaha has been a big hit for a few years now. We’ve got like an Italian Meatball Slider and a Home Plate Box that’s been popular for us. So those are the big three, I would say, that are returning. Yeah.
Please, tell us about the NCAA and ways that people aren’t thinking of it, because there’s so much hard work that goes on there.
Yeah. I think one of the comments I mentioned during the press conference was about the excitement that these young men will have. It’ll be reminiscent of when they played Little League, right? They’re still playing for their institutions, for their teammates, and that’s still important to them, so we just want to make sure that that’s not lost in some of the other news media that’s going on around name, image, and likeness to (?) as employees. What you’ll see over the next two weeks is young men playing for the love of the game, and that’s what we’re excited about.
I think the balance of all those things is rather difficult to achieve, so…
Yeah, it is. I think certainly there’ll be thousands of fans here watching and cheering for them, and should they reap some benefits from that? And I would say absolutely. And I think that’s the model that we’re moving to.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came into your position.
Well, I’ve been at the National Office for 15 years now, all in Championships. Prior to that, I spent some time in professional sport and amateur athletics and high school association and the Olympic movement, so all in sport for over 25 years. But just working through various groups and departments and connections kind of afforded me an opportunity to join the NCAA 15 years ago.
What baseball memories would you like to share with us?
Oh yeah, so I was a baseball player growing up and loved the sport. It was my first love. I was a catcher and outfielder…really enjoyed the game. I really like the…it’s a team sport, but there’s an individual component. When you’re in the batter’s box trying to figure that out or a ball’s hit to you and how you have to make a play on that, and other people are relying on you. So I remember those lessons learned playing Little League, high school, collegiate league to understand and have kind of a connection with the young men who are playing now. So, but yeah, I could never have played at the level that these guys are playing at, so I’m a huge fan. I just really like to watch and enjoy their talent and their performance.
I think that’s really key and important, and I’m glad that you’re emphasizing the love of the sport and all of that. It’s hard to have that balance between running it and preserving it.
I really enjoy seeing you year after year and all your presentations, and I’m so happy that this is finally the year I was able to interview you. So thank you.
No, no. My pleasure, and thank you for your coverage and your support, for sure.
A food tasting event was held after the Pre-Game Press Conference on 12 June.
Alec Woockman, the Executive Sous Chef at Levy Restaurants, presented his and his teams tasty offerings for the College World Series.
Alec Woockman with CWS NCAA sign in background speaking at the CWS Food Tasting
Transcript of Event by OmahaNebraska.com
Alec Woockman: I’m Chef Alec Woockman. I’m the Executive Sous Chef of the buildings here. I’ll walk you guys through everything we do around here.
So, first, on my right here, we have our Ancho Chicken Quesadilla. This is our house-seasoned grilled chicken, cheddar jack cheese blend, pickled jalapenos, cilantro and a chipotle ranch dipping sauce.
Next is our first hot dog. This is our biggest hot dog. We have a Footlong Frank and Bean Dog. So, this is a 100% beef, half-pound Omaha Steaks hot dog. A combination with hot dogs and campfire baked beans, so we’ve loaded it up with campfire baked beans, bacon bits, diced red onions and some mustard BBQ sauce.
Our next hot dog is our Dinger Dog. Dinger Dog is—once again all of our hot dogs are 100% beef Omaha Steaks hot dogs. This has avocado on it. It has lettuce, tomato, red onions, bacon bits and roasted poblano crema.
Next up, we’re going to talk about our gyros. So, something new this year, we have a portable gyro cart, which we haven’t done in the ballpark yet and we’ll be offering two different types of gyros. So, we’ll have a traditional Lamb Gyro and a house-made Chicken Shawarma Gyro. So, we’ll have both to try. It’s naan bread, house made chicken shawarma, lettuce, tomato, onion. We’ve got cheese and then of course tzatziki sauce on it.
We have one loaded fry this year. Our loaded fry is the Moon-Shot Fries. So, it is crinkle-cut fries, jalapenos, cheddar and jack cheese sauce, sliced kielbasa sausage, bacon and onion jam, which we liked it so much we put that bacon jam on a few items today we’ll talk about, and then some fresh diced jalapenos.
So, next we have our first burger of the day. Our first burger is the Walk-Off Burger. It is a breakfast-themed burger. I think breakfast food, it’s good. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. We don’t have to confine it to just in the morning, but that being said, double headers, we’ll have folks walking around here at 11:00 a.m., so maybe they’ll need something to eat yet. So, we have an Omaha Steaks All Beef Patty. It is nestled between two pieces of grilled French toast. We have pepper jack cheese and we have bacon, onion, and maple and bourbon jam. And then to round it all out, give a little acidity, we have a cranberry compote on there.
So, next we have our loaded brat option. So, this is our Mediterranean Loaded Bratwurst. So, basically, we take the same toppings we have on our gyros and put it on a brat. So, shredded lettuce, tomato, onion, feta, tzatziki. It’s a fresh take on a brat, which you can find, obviously, in any stadium.
So, next we’re going to talk about our shareable option. We always like every season to come up with something that you could buy and share with your kids or share with a couple of friends. So, this is our Stealing Home Colossal Pretzel. So, it’s this giant soft pretzel. There’s three different types of meat piled everywhere, so we have pork carnitas, chicken tinga, ground beef taco, our jack and jalapeno cheese sauce, and our roasted poblano crema.
We’ll move on over here to a few sandwiches here.
So, our last burger we’re going to talk about today is our Big Kahuna Burger. So, this is a Hawaiian-themed, you know, kind of tropical Asian take on a burger. So, we have that same Omaha Steaks burger patty, we have pineapple chutney, teriyaki aioli, cheddar cheese, and bacon.
Two different fried sandwiches here. First one we’re going to talk about is the Fried Chicken Club. This is more of a classic flavor combination, but just a new take on our fried chicken sandwich here in the stadium. So, we have lettuce, tomato, a heavily dilled ranch aioli, bacon, cheddar cheese on a brioche bun.
And the last sandwich, maybe my favorite sandwich among our concession sandwiches, is our Triple Play Pork Sandwich. This is a fried pork cutlet topped with two other types of pork called the triple play. So, there is smoked pork, and then that same bacon jam we’ve been talking about and some whole-grain mustard aioli.
And last but not least for our concessions’ items, we have our Everything Toasted Turkey Bagel sandwich, another item I think you know for our double headers, we have people walking around at 11:00 a.m. for that breakfast option at any time of the day. So, it is an everything bagel that is toasted, schmeared with chive cream cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and a thick stack of smoked turkey breast. That kind of concludes our concessions food.
We have a couple of premium items too that will be available only in the suites, but I just wanted to touch on a couple of those.
So, we have our summertime fresh mozzarella, cucumber, tomato salad, balsamic glaze, basil. It’s just a nice new fresh salad for our suites. And a new salsa offering we’ll have upstairs is our roasted corn and black beans, salsa, house-fried chips.
And that concludes the food today. So, it’s a lot of concession items and premium things. I think we have a wide selection for everybody out there. So, we’re excited to be able to have all these offerings and hopefully give folks what they want. So, that’s all I have today.
Here is some of the food that is prepared for the fans!
Stealing Home Colossal Pretzel
This massive pretzel is sure to steal home and so big it might feed your team of four or more. With a hefty amount of taco beef, pork carnitas and chicken tinga for the base and three more tasting toppings (jalapeno jack cheese sauce, roasted poblano crema, pico de gallo) it is sure to be a crowd please and a win for team Levy and Alec Woockman.
The Big Kahuna Burger
This big boss of a burger is made with an Omaha Steak burger and is topped with bacon, cheddar cheese, crisp shreds of lettuce, and tomato. It also has pineapple chutney, teriyaki aioli delivering big flavor of the Pacific.
Walk-Off Burger(Left) and Mediterranean Loaded Bratwurst (Right)
This walk-off burger was my favorite. A hefty Omaha Steaks burger with a surprise. Instead of a bun, there are two slices of french toast! No need to add ketchup or mustard, It’s perfectly balanced by the maple-bourbon bacon jam and cranberry compote. Definitely a walk-off for a burger. It’s also so hearty that you may also want to … walk it off.
Grilled Chicken Shawarma Gyro
Grilled chicken nestled in a warm naan, covered with crisp shreds of lettuce, tomatoes and onions. Add feta cheese and tzatziki sauce and you have another of the ethnic inspired dishes for this year.
Ancho Chicken Quesadilla
This was another surprise for me. While I enjoy quesadillas, a lot of them taste the same from place to place. Not this one! It’s the wonderful cheddar-jack cheese blend and chipotle ranch dipping sauce that give this a special depth of flavor that goes so well with the ancho chicken.
Fire Roasted Black Bean & Corn Salsa with House Fried Chips
This was another surprise winner for me. It had an unexpected depth of flavor that with a complexity worthy of an entree.
Footlong Frank and Bean Dog
Franks and beans-always a good idea but you’ve not had them like this before! This footlong hot dog is all beef and weighs in at half a pound. It is covered by crumbled bacon and campfire baked beans. Sounds great, right, but what’s different? It’s the sweet, but not too sweet, baked beans that is different. Not sure how they got so much flavor in the beans and how it’s delightfully a bit sticky, so grab some extra napkins and take this dog for a walk to your seat!
Everything Toasted Turkey Bagel
You guessed it from the name. It’s an everything toasted bagel with layers smoked turkey. What you haven’t guessed is that it has a hefty schmear of an amazing chive cream cheese that brings this all together with a dill pickle, lettuce, tomato, and red onions transporting it from breakfast to lunch.
Summertime Fresh Mozzarella Tomato, and Cucumber Salad
This one was light and refreshing. The balls of mozzerella were light and fresh. The cucumbers and tomatoes were good sized and very fresh also. The dressing was alsp light and tied the ingredients together well.
Dinger Dog
Amazing cremas on this one make it a dinger. We have a herbaceous and satifying guacamole crema and a delightful poblano crema (my favorite new condiment this year). Next up are bacon crumbles and red onions to make this extra tasty and give some crunch. Now we must not forget the star of the bun-an Omaha Steaks all-beef hot dog!
Crispy Chicken Club
This was another surprise for me. You are thinking tasty, right, but we’ve eaten these before. Not so! This is the best crispy chicken club I have ever had. The breading was perfectly done giving food credit where food credit should be done-to the chicken! The chicken was delicious and complemented by with a dilly-ranch aioli. Add crispy thinly sliced bacon, cheddar cheese,lettuce and tomatoes for the perfect chicken club. This one is the standard to judge the others and if it were a contestant in the Chicken Sandwich Wars, it would win.
Triple Play Pork Sandwich
The triple for this tasty sandwich is pork cutlet, pulled pork and bacon-bacon jam that is sure to win. Add a grainy mustard and let the flavors play across your home plate, I mean palate.
Moon-Shot Friesa
This one was my friend’s favorite. For him, it was the creamy jack cheese sauce that put this shot of crinkle-cut fries over the moon. Add the sausage, jalapenos and of course some bacon jam and your aiming at the stars, for sure.
2024
Please check out our posts on the College World Series for this year, so far, and share!
The College World Series Pre-Game Press Conference was held this morning.
Jack Diesing
Anthony Holman
Marcus Blossom
Mayor Jean Stothert
Roger Dixon
Speakers included:
Jack Diesing, President of College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
Anthony Holman, Vice President of Championships & Alliances at NCAA
Mayor Jean Stothert, City of Omaha
Marcus Blossom, McCormick Endowed Athletic Director
Roger Dixon, President/CEO MECA
Topics included:
App is available for the CWS.
Cashless Concessions- No cash will be accepted at concessions.
Reverse ATMS- For people needing to turn cash into a card, reverse ATMS will be available.
Clear Bag Policy- Still in effect.
Paperless Tickets- Tickets will be digital. If you do not have a cell phone or computer, you will still be able to attend. Admissions will be open and you can buy your ticket there.
Food- Favorites will be returning from years past.
75 year anniversary_ It is next year not this year.
Transcript of Event by OmahaNebraska.com
Jack Diesing: So good morning, everybody. Thank you all for coming. Welcome to the greatest show on dirt. I wanted to first of all recognize some of the College World Series…my board members that are here: Herb Hames, Tarci Slaybaugh, George Wachtler, Lisa Diesing. Thank you all for coming. As president of the College World Series Omaha, Inc. I’m excited to be here leading off the start of the 74th College World Series here in Omaha, NE. Today is the…really, the culmination of the Road to Omaha Journey. Omaha has become synonymous with the Men’s College World Series, much like Louisville is synonymous with the Kentucky Derby and Augusta, GA, is synonymous with the Masters, and Indianapolis is synonymous with the Indianapolis 500.
We really are proud and privileged to be able to be integral partners with the NCAA in both the past and the successive wonderful championships that this event ends up with. So we’re really looking forward to it. And as one head baseball coach said, “There are no bad days in Omaha.”
So up here with me today are Anthony Holman, Vice President of Championships at the NCAA; Mayor of the City of Omaha, the Honorable Jean Stothert; Marcus Blossom, the McCormick Endowed Athletic Director at Creighton University, the host institution; and Roger Dixon, the CEO of Metropolitan Entertainment, Convention Authority. And all of them will make a couple of comments here in a few minutes.
Just a few other things. We really, as I said, are at the Mecca of college baseball. To be clear, it all started on a much smaller stage: typically, local community fields across the nation, and that’s why every year CWS and the NCAA provide grant money to baseball and softball programs throughout the city. The “Restore the Diamond” program is what we call it. It’s a grant program that’s been supporting the community organizations’ baseball and softball programs since 1972, and this year is no different. This year, we supported eight different fields and facilities across the Metro, surrounding areas, and over the course of time from 1972 we’ve contributed about $5.3 million to these organizations to give something back to baseball and softball in the community, and that’s not to mention some of the larger contributions we’ve been involved with… with the UNO baseball field and soon to be Creighton baseball field, both of which are serving as practice fields for this wonderful event.
Finally, I do want to say—and I hate to use the word announce, but I’ll use it and know I’ll get in trouble for doing that, but we’re going to be celebrating the … College World Series 75th anniversary here in Omaha, but not this year. We missed a year. So this is the 74th of like, old Tom should tell…. He’s a hard guy to get rid of. And I kept telling this was the deal, and he said, “No, they want to do a story anyway,” so… but as part of this process, the planning is going to almost be a year-long process, and you all will be getting more information about this what will be taking place in the coming weeks following this year’s College World Series. So our partners will share a little bit more about what else is happening this year. And now it’s my pleasure to introduce Anthony Holman, the Vice President of Championships at the NCAA…Anthony.
Anthony Holman: Okay, I’ve got a few notes here, and I’ve got to change my glasses because I’m getting older and I couldn’t hit the slider before. They didn’t know that I needed glasses. I’d tell my parents I’d be in the big leagues if only they’d got me glasses earlier.
Jack was so kind to talk about the 75th anniversary that’s coming up and what the College World Series is synonymous with. I get so many calls, emails, text messages from folks that this is a bucket list type of event for them, just like Jack was saying for the Derby and the Masters and other events like that. And part of the reason why that is… it’s not just the location, it’s the people, it’s the community, that’s embraced and taken ownership in those events. And that’s certainly what we have here in Omaha. We’re so thankful for that. So we really appreciate all the support that we continue to get.
So a couple of things that are coming up with the championship. I think everybody… hopefully you’ve seen that the teams that are going to be here, we’ve got a number of institutions that are back for returners, some who were here more recently. We’ve got one that’s making their first appearance, but we’re excited to have Tennessee here for their seventh time; Kentucky is here for their first time. The Aggies of Texas A&M, making their eighth appearance. North Carolina, in for their twelfth appearance. They’re so excited they came yesterday, so we’re excited to have them. Florida State, making their 24th appearance, and the last time they were here was in 2019. And then both Virginia and Florida were both here in 2023, so we’re excited to have them back, and then NC State, excited to have them back, and I’m sure we’ll get questions about the last time that they were here.
But we’re just excited that… how resilient all of the teams are, and the opportunities that they come. There’s been so much talk, and I’m sure you guys are paying attention to it. So we’re not going to ignore the elephant in the room about what’s going on with name, image, and likeness and student athletes as employees and all those types of things. I’ll guarantee you nobody will be talking about that on the field here this weekend, right? Those…the excitement you’ll see from these young men in competing will mirror what you’ll see in August at the Little League World Series, where they’re playing for the enjoyment and the love of the game. And that’s what we want to celebrate over the next two weeks, so we’re excited about that.
A couple of announcements about our fan fest. We’re excited that our fan fest will continue to be available and open at 11:00 tomorrow and then it will be open on each of the days of competition. There’s a number of additional activities that that we would encourage folks to take part in. Thanks to our friends at MECA for helping us secure additional space to add some additional items and activities for our fans to take part in out there, so we’re really excited about that. Our partners, Capital One, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Buick, Great Clips, Rawlings are all returning with baseball activities, photo ops, giveaways, prizes, tons of activities. So we encourage everyone, even if you don’t have tickets, come on down and check that out for sure.
And we’re never sold out. There are always tickets. We don’t say that “sold out” word. Come on down; there’s something for everybody. And one of the other… last things that I’ve wanted to talk about was that we’ll also be inducting our fourth ever College World Series All Star, recognizing outstanding contributions to this wonderful event. And I’m so thrilled and excited that this year we’ll be recognizing one of my mentors and good friend Dennis Pope. And many of you know Denny, who was so integral in the development and the growth of this championship for a number of years for… both in attendance and exposure, and even bracket expansion. We were… folks won’t remember, not everybody remembers, but this was 48 teams for a long time and it went to 64 and Denny helped to usher that in. So we’re excited to have him and Donna and his family here to recognize them during the series, so please come out and help us thank him for his support.
And then the last thing is that if you if you want to stay up to date and in the know on all of the Men’s College World Series games, news, and happenings at the stadium, we encourage fans to download our Men’s College World Series app. My social media and communication team was all over me to make sure I got a plug in for that. So download the app. Plenty of information and activities to follow through that app. So we really appreciate that.
Thank you again, Omaha, for all the continued support and excitement that that we have. Folks come here in droves for a number of reasons. We’ve got tons of people who make this an annual trip and others that it’s a bucket list item for them and they can’t wait to get here. So thank you for your continued support. And we look forward to another great Series. So now I’ll ask our Honorable Mayor Jean Stothert to come up and provide a few remarks.
Mayor Jean Stothert: Good morning, everybody. Thank you, Anthony. I’ll take my sunglasses off. I don’t need reading glasses like you do, and I believe I’m a little bit older than you. But you know, just a few months. But it’s so good to be back at Charles Schwab Stadium, and we are very, very proud to be the host once again of this of the Men’s College World Series. And just thank goodness you don’t ask me to do the first pitch. I did that once at a Storm Chaser game, and I’ll never do that again. That was quite embarrassing. But again, thank you to all of our partners, the NCAA College World Series, Omaha and Creighton University, and of course… back up, the College World Series again brings great athletic competition to Omaha and thousands and thousands of visitors. It also brings Omaha together to make the next two weeks a great success that grows even bigger and better every single year, and we are ready for another record-breaking series.
This year, fans, families, and teams can visit the Heartland of America Park at Lewis and Clark Landing for the first time. It just opened last year, August 18th, and they will have a real treat walking through our new parks. The riverfront parks have exceeded all of our expectations. More than two million people have visited the parks for family movie nights, concerts, live theater, fireworks festival, walking their dogs, and special events. And so it will be a real treat for our fans this year too.
And next year. our fans can use the Baby Bob pedestrian bridge to walk from 10th Street to the Bob Kerrey Bridge and then cross over to Iowa. So those people in Council Bluffs can walk from Council Bluffs all the way to the ballpark, and that should be done later this year, this fall, and it’s another way that we are improving connections to all of our downtown events and venues, and it’s great to be downtown right now.
I would also like to thank the Men’s College World Series for supporting our community. One example of this is their continued support of the Readers Become Leaders program, which I love. Each year the College World Series of Omaha, Inc, and the NCAA partner with our schools to encourage enthusiasm for academics. This year, they partnered with 65 Omaha public schools, 3,700 third-graders, to help increase their reading proficiency. Students received incentives to read and complete reports on books. They earned prizes for their participation, including the opportunity to attend, of course, a College World Series game. Young readers completed more than 30,000 book reports, and that’s really great. Next Monday night, we will recognize Saddlebrook Elementary as the winning school. Thank you for supporting programs that teach young people about leadership and the importance of academics. I look forward to welcoming the student athletes tomorrow night at the opening ceremony and the opening games then on Friday. It’s going to be a good week. I wish I could guarantee good weather, but I can’t. But hopefully we’ll have good enough weather during the whole season this year. So now I am very, very pleased to introduce Creighton University Athletic Director Marcus Blossom. Marcus.
Marcus Blossom: Anthony talked about expansion. You get 88 in there… I think we earn that in there this year. We could talk about that a little bit later, but I do want to start by thanking Anthony and Randy and the rest of the NCAA staff. They do a great job. I happened to work with these two guys when I was at the national office, and it is a lot of work. They work tirelessly throughout the year to make sure we put on a very, very special event. Like the great game of baseball, Creighton University is full of cherished traditions and one of our most favorite traditions is having the honor and privilege of being the host institution for this special event, the Men’s College World Series. I speak for all Bluejays when I say how proud Creighton is to be partners with CWS of Omaha and the NCAA. On behalf of our vibrant community, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our President, the Reverend Daniel S. Hendrickson of the Society of Jesus; the entire Creighton Community; baseball head coach Ed Servais; and our dedicated athletic department, who spends tireless amounts of hours helping CWS Omaha and the NCAA put on this great event. Their efforts behind the scenes for the Men’s College World Series are definitely immeasurable. I do want to also acknowledge…I know she’s on the board of MECA, but she’s also our new chair of the board at Creighton, Miss Diane Duran. She helps a lot to bring this event to Omaha and she’s a big partner of Creighton University as well.
And now I have the pleasure of introducing one of the real big partners of Creighton and the one and only President of the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, Roger Dixon.
Roger Dixon: Well, Diane, he introduced you, so welcome and thank you for your support. And on behalf of MECA, our extensive team of events staff, baseball management, we are proud to welcome everyone back to Charles Schwab Field. We are thrilled to be entering our 13th year as the home of the Men’s College World Series. Above all else, we are focused on creating an atmosphere here that gives fan baseball fans from far and wide a seamless experience, and that starts with hard-working staff months before the first pitch is even thrown. We are also dedicated to making the guest experience feel new and exciting every year. With the help of our talented and creative concessionaire at Levy, we are once again featuring a menu that caters and customs to the Men’s College World Series. These signature creations will be available to taste following today’s news conference, so make sure you stick around for a preview of this year’s menu.
Aside from the fun food, we want to make sure all our guests are prepared for what our venue has to offer. As a reminder, Charles Schwab Field is a cash-free environment. Only digital or card payments will be accepted throughout the building, including in our concession stands. We have multiple cash machines on site that function as a reverse ATM which will disburse a VISA gift card equal to the amount of cash deposited. Also, the stadium is digital enter only, meaning tickets must be downloaded in advance and then scanned right from the phone. Our box office staff is standing by to help anyone who needs assistance with this process.
Like every year, safety is a top priority for MECA during the Men’s College World Series. Our clear bag policy remains in place. Additionally, each visitor who walks through our doors must undergo a screening process, which will again include walk-through metal detectors at each of our gates to both enhance and expedite the entry.
We also want to remind the public that our guest service desk is available via text message for any issues or concerns that arise during the game. Simply text Omaha space your issue and location to 69050, and we will dispatch the appropriate assistance. However, it is important if you see something that requires immediate attention, never hesitate to alert a nearby MECA staff member or on-site law enforcement. We are thankful to have a productive partnership with Omaha police to ensure this event goes without a hitch. We are looking forward to another fun, exciting, and safe Men’s College World Series and our confident everyone’s visit to Charles Schwab Field will be the best one. Thank you.
Jack Diesing: Well, thank you to Anthony. Thank you to the mayor. Thank you, Marcus, and thank you, Roger, and also thank all of you in the press and everyone else for being here to help lead off the start of the 74th College World Series here in Omaha, Nebraska. Feel free after this is over to ask questions of anybody that you want to, or if you prefer to just go have food, feel free to go do that. And as we said, Omaha is synonymous with the Men’s College World Series, so it’s about time to… let’s go play some baseball, okay? Thank you all for coming.
2024
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Amy Hornocker, Executive Director of CWS Omaha, Inc. at her office
What are the family activities that will be going on?
We have Thursday, June 13 as our open practice day. All eight teams will be here at some point during the day, starting at nine o’clock and they will have some time on the field and be around. Fan Fest will be open and there’s some new exciting stuff that will be in Fan Fest.
That’ll be good, and then we have team days.
Obviously, Sunday is Father’s Day, so that’s usually a big day at the park.
Monday, game eight, is Kid’s Day, a lot of kids’ activities, mascots. The kids will hit or run the bases at the end, 12 and under because it gets a little crazy with the big kids get involved.
And then Tuesday, June 18 is our Hero’s Night that we do usually annually. There will be different recognitions for police, fire military, you know, medical folks. That’s one that’s pretty popular.
Wednesday, June 19th is Teacher Appreciation. We do gift cards for the first 250 teachers. We had an honorary captain submission where you could submit you or someone else could submit a teacher and say “why”. We randomly picked from those submissions, so four of them will be captains and they’ll get to be in the dugout and just those kinds of things.
Wednesday, June 19 is Country Night. It’s just really, there’s not a concert or anything, but it’s just wear your cowboy hat, country music, just something to just kind of change it up a little bit.
I think I came to that one year, and I had my cowboy boots on.
Yeah, that’s what we want.
…but I always have my cowboy boots on. I got lucky.
(laughter) Then we have two planned fly overs planes, so that the first one will be actually Game Three which is Saturday. It’s kind of weird. Usually, we do Game One and Finals One. But we had some aircraft availability issues and, of course, when you’re doing the military and million-trillion dollar aircraft, it’s, “We’ll take whenever you can do it …
Game Three will be two EA-18 Growlers from US Navy’s attack squadron from Whidbey Island Washington. Finals One will be F-16s from the Colorado Air National Guard out of Buckley Space Force Base in Denver. Our staff member that does all of our military stuff, she puts paperwork in through the Pentagon and then people volunteer. Anyway, that’s what’s going on that’s a little different [or] special: otherwise, just games as usual. And yeah, like I said, some potentially different teams for people to set their eyes on. It’s kind of fun.
Are there any changes to things like one year we had the clear bag policy and then we had no cash …?
No, those all remain, but there should not be any new security things.
We’ll still have the walk-through metal detectors at the gates which have increased the availability of getting people in you do not need to take things out of your pockets. Their technology allows people to just pass through.
Those are nothing nLLSU and their fan base, setting attendance records. We continue just to have a demand for this. It’s a good problem to have.
We increased season ticket prices a little bit this year and still saw 98% renewal. That’s pretty unheard of. The traditions, people wanting to come to this, is still there, if not greater and definitely rebounded from COVID and I think we see you know, it took off. It took us a couple of years to get the corporate base back. People still weren’t gathering or doing employee-client outings and now they’re back.
It was a hard time for a lot of companies and a lot of other organizations not knowing how things were going to go and what to do.
Yeah, and we have two fairly large youth tournaments that pop up around this. The kids play during the day and come at night to a CWS game. Without the GA (general admission) ticket, it became a little more challenging to fulfill some of those needs, but we did that. We increased our group ticket allotment last year. We wanted to make it a really concentrated effort to get priority to those kids to get them in here. Because that’s, I mean, those are our future fans. So, the outfield will be full of little league teams most likely.
It’s great when you’re around town and you see them and you’re seeing them have fun and the love for the sport.
Yes, I think there’s over 700 teams that are enrolled. They come in different waves, so that’s a lot of room nights and a lot of people in restaurants, so it’s pretty exciting.
We did work with Visit Omaha on a new economic impact number. They have a calculator that we worked with them on and inputted numbers. The last time we had done an official study was 2019. We were at $88.3 million in economic impact then and then this year, the 2023 Study yielded $115 million. So again, jobs, taxes, all that stuff.
That’s the next question I was going to ask. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
… because it’s a huge impact to the area.
It is. It definitely is, and I think what we have to be thankful for is all the support that we get from the city to support all of these folks visiting.
So yeah, we’ve had three really great years with the teams that we’ve had here. It’s not like people’s disposable income was unlimited, so we’ll see what happens with some of these different teams here.
How many people came last year?
I’d have to [check the] official number. It’s at my desk, but I think it’s uh, it was upwards of 390, some 1000 which was a record. We sold out most sessions and then a lot of them, once we sell out, we do offer about 1000 standing room only tickets, and we’ll do the same. Those are usually determined that day though. And we figured out that we can get about 1000 more in without it just being too much. I think it was an average of 22,000/game. Again, if you average it out, but the other numbers are on my desk.
What’s capacity?
We’re 24,500, just depends on who you talk to.
…And whether they’re standing or not standing.
Yeah.
How many seats are there?
Technically 24,500.
So, any new technology? I remember some time ago there was a change in the bats.
Nothing new that I can think of… ESPN continues to change how they cover this. In fact, the NCAA entered into a new agreement with them starting next year, but what actually was really exciting for us is game two of the finals, which could potentially be the championship game will be on ABC. Being able to be off the cable network and probably get into more homes is pretty cool for us. [It’s the] first time that we’ve been able to do that. ESPN continues to expand our coverage of baseball.
They used a drone the last few years and then so looking at the at the game from different lenses. That’s been kind of cool for the audience.
The technology with the drones…
Yes. The funniest story of all is we have this resident hawk over here. It lives on the light standard over here in right field. She not a big fan of drones. You’ll see her kind of causing some problems sometimes out there.
So..she feels the drone is threatening.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So she’s pretty harmless, but she does show herself well.
..You know, your babies and your home. A drone must be a pretty strange animal [to her] and it flies.
Yes. It’s been pretty funny. Some people have names for her, but . . .
I was going to ask what do they call her
They call her “Falconia” or something. I don’t know. But there’s some funny stories that come around throughout the two weeks while they’re here.
I remember one of the years, there were this couple of birds that just kept flying around, a pair.
When you have an outside venue, you’re going to get some of that stuff.
Anything else you can think of? We want to get the fans all ready and know what are they supposed to be doing.
This year is pretty similar to most, so nothing new that we need a lot of people know about other than just some of those special days and we do still have Monday, Tuesday afternoon game tickets for sale, pretty reasonably in the outfield.
We have the ticket exchange where people will go out if they can’t make it. They’ll resell their tickets. We’ll just be a normal year, but were interested in to see how the Super Regionals shake out, and see who’s coming here. And hopefully we’ll know everybody by Monday night.
There’s just a lot of surprises [which teams are coming] this year.
Yes, definitely, which isn’t all bad.
Our opening event, we used to do the parade and everything. Last year we did it at the Steel House. It’s just a more private for the teams because they are here with one goal, and so we’re doing that again where they get to see a different part. So it’s a shorter than kind of per their request, but so…
So no big parade …
No big parade, fireworks or anything. Not this year.
We just we kind of struck out a lot. We had half the time ended up with weather that ruined all of our plans. We’re like, maybe we need to look at this differen
Once those are wired, they do have to go off. It’s sad to put those off for no one really.
They’ve oftentimes gone up just for us. That’s why we need to look at this differently. You know, continue to make sure that we have the student athletes’ best interest in their time.
You don’t want to wear them out either.
Right. That’s a really long day with their media obligations and practices and stuff. We’re trying to be cognizant of that while still giving them something special here.
Something that’s interesting, and something I learned this year that I didn’t know, is Saving Grace Food [Rescue]. They work with Levy, so any food that does not come out of the kitchens here that’s made, goes directly to them so that they can provide it to different parts of the community. And we’ve been working with them to try and also get that out to some of our private people that have hospitality, so that this food isn’t just being thrown away.
Some of the other events like . . .
Baseball Village, the Hilton does a lot of catering for hospitality. That’s a really cool community piece that I did not know about until this year.
Oh, that’s great.
I’ve been wanting to do a story on them. But they had different troubles different years when I was trying to do it. So this would be really great lead in to that story, too….
Yeah.
…Because we try to promote the nonprofits and people doing good in Omaha. I told you before we don’t do bad news,
If we find, bad news, we might connect people behind the scenes. But we want OmahaNebraska.com to be that place to go to find out cool good things.
Just another…We have a renewed partnership with the zoo. We’ve had our national championship trophy out there and got a win with the penguins, and interacted with some of the animals because it’s obviously our number one tourism destination. It makes sense for us. We have obviously a lot of our visitors will also visit there. It makes sense that we collaborate, so it’s been fun. They do nights at the zoo, adult nights at the zoo, so we’re going to have the trophy there Thursday. It’s going to be a baseball themed night.
There are probably some really good puns for social media.
We’re just trying to still get out [the word], still talk about it with our community partners and all that.
Thank you to the Mayor for the interview for this Omaha event.
Mayor Jean Stothert
There’s been so much amazing development in the area.
Right.
It has to feel great to have so much done.
Yes, it does.
I know there’s too many lists of favorites but what are some things you are hoping people will check out when they come to the College World Series?
You know, since the teams and their families stay in hotels around downtown. First of all, it was devastating a couple of years ago because of COVID when it was canceled, and people didn’t get to come to the College World Series. Last year, we had record breaking crowds, because people were so happy it started up again. Last year, the Gene Leahy Mall looked pretty, but you couldn’t go in it. It wasn’t open yet.
This year, it’s open. Kids can go in there and run around and play and play in the great play structure there. There’s events that are going on in the Gene Leahy Mall every day if they want to go and do some yoga or whatever. They could see what the other parks are going to look like because they’re getting done. They’ll open up in August. We have the new Steelhouse downtown, the music venue where the players are going to be tomorrow night. We have the Luminarium Now it’s open, the new museum that’s down on the riverfront. Just so much has happened in this downtown area within walking distance of the stadium. So, I think people are going to really be – those that are coming back. They’ve been here before are going to see a big change. And I think those that are here for the first time in many years are pretty much going to be astounded at what downtown Omaha looks like.
I can’t even fathom how many things have happened in so short a period of time.
Yes, especially because of COVID. You know, because a lot of cities everything shut down which we shut down a lot. But development shutdown to, but it really didn’t here. And you know, the Gene Leahy Mall just kept on right on track, right on schedule, all during COVID because the money has already been raised you know, and so they were on top of it. So, it was, it’s really good that downtown has progressed so much, so quickly. A lot more housing downtown now than there was before. You know, the first phase of the Mercantile which is down, which is on the old Con Agra campus that’s open now there’s a nice lap out there. People can walk around. So that’s going to be a real fun experience for people to see what’s going on.
What’s next on the horizon for development?
Well, I would say the one that I have been working with for a long time and I’m glad to see that construction will start is number one, that Civic Auditorium site which we own that site, and we had the old Civic Auditorium and you know, it was beyond its usefulness anymore. We had it demoed several years ago.
We do have a development that will start developing this summer, and then Crossroads, which is 72nd Dodge. And that is something we’ve been working on for years and years and years and that is underway too.
So, and then, we have all the way out west on 144th and Dodge. We have Heartwood Preserve. That is a big development that Applied Underwriters is doing, but that’s just like going like gangbusters too. So, we have them all over Omaha. We have a Downtown, Midtown, all the way. And then of course, I can’t wait. We can see it started coming out of the ground, but the new Mutual of Omaha tower downtown, and that’s underway too. So all of that is going on right now.
It’s really amazing.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Absolutely. It’s a thrill to see it become a reality.
OmahaNebraska.com Interview with Amy Hornocker at the College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
Thank you to Amy for the interview for this Omaha event.
Amy Hornocker, CWS Inc, Executive Director
Please tell me how you came to be here.
I grew up over in Des Moines. I went to school at Iowa State in Ames. I played sports in high school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had an advisor that was kind of like we have a sports management program. So I worked in the football office there, and then, I actually came over here in 2005 and did my internship under Katherine and Carol here and then, stayed in touch when I graduated. And then, Katherine’s husband, Dan, started the Omaha Sports Commission. So, I came over and worked for him and was with the Sports Commission for 10 years. Had the chance to do three Swim Trials and about 30 other really cool sporting events, so and then, in 2017, they had a staff vacancy here, and they called me and I was just like at a point where I was ready to try basically what we always say “coming back home.” I came you back here and did the Marketing Committee outreach and then, had the opportunity to interview for this, the executive director position when Kathryn announced she was retiring.
What are some of your favorite things about the College World Series and about Omaha?
Okay, so basically, Omaha feels like home to me now, even though it was you know, it’s not where I’m from. It’s so similar, but everybody’s just .. the amount of support that we get for this event and the amount of people that come out and it’s kind of like what it means to the city and what the city aims to. It’s like it’s so cool to see and so some of my favorite parts about what I get to do here is like less about baseball and more about our what we do in the community with our grant program. We’ve given over $5 million to local baseball and softball fields and projects in the Greater Omaha community.
And then we have this Readers Become Leaders initiative with the NCAA that we work with Omaha Public Schools for third grade reading, once you can’t read a third grade, by the time you’re in fourth grade, you’re behind.
Is that a pivotal age group then?
Yeah, so that’s what the studies show is that if they are lacking by fourth grade, then they never catch up again. And so we do kick offs in the schools. We contribute a bunch of books to each kid and then incentives to read … and then they submit book reports. We had one girl I think she I think I’d have to the look 55 reports she did. She’s the winner. She’s the winner. So 15 of them with their parents will come to the one of the games. We have like five teachers that are from the winning classrooms. So that one’s fun. It’s so fun to go to the kickoffs and see them get excited about like their books and reading and it’s just a little way we can help there.
That’s something with a really great ripple effect.
Yeah, because you know, this one, we want to leave a legacy here. It’s great because the community pours their heart into it.
We put a donation program together this year for the first time with tickets that we’re we’re kind of testing this year. So when you go in to your mobile ticket account, you can transfer, sell, or donate. Like, if you can’t use your tickets or if you just want to donate, and we’re working with three organizations this year to see how it goes.
Vet Tix [https://www.vettix.org], which is a nationwide organization, so you can sign up. I think it’s first responders and military members and then you can sign up for access to these tickets. Then they go into the communities these events and find these people and it’s really turnkey. So we don’t really have to do much with that. And then we’re working with Boys Town and Boys and Girls Club of the Midlands. So because I feel like everybody from every corner of the city should get to enjoy it. So we’re going to try and build on that donation as we move forward. So that is really cool.
I think we already have seen some come through for Vet Tix and with Boys Town. It’s hard to find groups that can take a large quantity that like the last minute and be able to provide transportation, that kind of stuff. Those are some things we’ve got to kind of figure out but those are like some of my favorite things about the events and event and then obviously this time here when I look at the teams here.
We have our intern starting there’s some of my favorites because they change the dynamic of the office and we will have eight more getting here Monday. That will just work the two weeks and they come from all over the country. And so they apply and go through interviews and they they all become friends kind of it’s kind of fun to see them and help navigate this career path.
Did you ever think you’d be executive director..
No. [laughter] No, I’ve always been a behind the scenes person, like operations, and so I never thought that I would be here back here. Because I, you know, my first series, it was 1998 when I came with my high school baseball team. I was a manager.
I did not know that.
I was the manager of my high school team. In Iowa, we play summer baseball. So we were playing in a tournament in Sioux City. We came down here, well to Rosenblatt and did that the GA [General Admission] sat in the grass waiting to get in, and then, it just stuck with me. So, then, I did the internship so I never thought.. no…[laughter] .. I would be here.
Our leadership was and is phenomenal that the our board of directors that had the vision to bring this where it is today. There’s not another national championship that … They have some semi-permanent sites Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma, FCS football in Frisco, but nobody has an organization like this. The NCAA still runs those. They just have like kind of a semi-permanent city.
So they’ve really been smart and how they put this forward and then and how they’ve… during the COVID year, were able to keep us on staff, and then to see the vision of you know of moving it forward and letting me run with a creative and marketing person that we badly needed. There’s a hole that we didn’t have here. So, he’s got two social media interns that are doing cool things.
Is that something different or new you’ve been working on?
Yes, so we did not. So I was in a marketing role. And then we had another staff member and that wasn’t really our background and so we really were intentional about when Kathryn left to kind of restructured that that’s really the hole that was missing-was to promote this event year round and do it in these cool ways. I’m amazed all like, watch over these guys shoulders, because watching them put videos together and the hard work. They are crawling all over. They had the [National Champion] trophy at the zoo. So it’s really fun to watch it.
They took it to the zoo and it got to go in with the penguins and giraffes. Then they took it to the Gene Leahy Mall. And like Ryan was crawling around and so yeah, they took that roll. They’ve been taking around the city. Taking pictures everywhere. I think they went to Blackstone yesterday.
Thank you.
CWS Omaha, Inc., Building Exterior with Signage
College World Series of Omaha, Inc.
808 N 13th St.
Omaha, NE 68102
(402) 554-4422 https://cwsomaha.com
OmahaNebraska.com interviewed Alec Woockman,Executive Chef at Levy Restaurants.
What are the inspirations for this year’s offerings for the College World Series?
I try to stay updated on the trends as much as I can.
Also, these are flavors I personally like, and I think they fit well in the ballpark.
I take inspiration from a lot of things and Chris Myer. Everything from a sandwich with a lot of pickles on it to a vegetarian fried cauliflower curry aioli and sriracha. I think there is a broad spectrum of things that I like that I think also work well in a ballpark.
What are some of the items that you are most excited about?
Right, so some of the things I am most excited about are first the fried chicken sandwich.
I really wanted to overwhelm it with pickle ingredients.
I think you either love pickles or love pickles and I am the latter so . . . I took bread and butter pickles, aioli, a sweet and creamy aioli. Then we have fried pickles. We also have these really nice long crinkle-cut dill pickles that just hang over the bun.
I think one of the most fun items that we have is a shared item called The Slugger, an Italian beef sandwich.
So, it’s pretty classic Italian beef. We braise it in house with beef stock, Italian seasonings, and pepperoncini.
We braise that, shred it, and save that braising liquid to make an au jus which we serve along with the sandwich.
A 14-inch, full loaf of bread that we cut open ourselves, put a pound of Italian beef in, and top with cheese and we toast it in our pizza oven.
Then we top that with giardiniera and grated Parmesan cheese and add a cup of au jus.
We cut the sandwich in three pieces. It comes in a nice box with a handle on it that you can carry.
I say it easily feeds three really hungry people, but I think probably you can feed four.
What is your inspiration for the shrimp po’ boy? I’ve never seen that at a ballpark.
So, a shrimp po’ boy . . . it’s a very traditional shrimp po’ boy. We didn’t do anything too crazy. It’s fried shrimp on a hoagie with shredded lettuce and tomato and a remoulade.
It’s just a flavor that I think should be at a ballpark. I think it will appeal to the masses. I think it is missing from this environment. You don’t see shrimp po boys. Why not shrimp po’ boys?
Another very classic flavor this year is our Chicken Parm Sandwich . . . mozzarella, marina . . .I think it fills a slot that a lot of people will enjoy.
How did you become a chef?
I’ve loved cooking from a very young age. I’ve been cooking since I was 16 years old.
…
A few years went by and I went to culinary school and started cooking in restaurants.
I started with CHI, as well as the ballpark here. I’ve been here with this company for about seven years now.
And so, I have been just climbing the ladder.
This week I’ve been very excited. I’ve been wanting to be here for a long time.
I can’t imagine how hard this was, but amazing it is.
Yes. It’s absolutely amazing. Obviously, I love to cook, so getting to do this every day is dream come true.
I would say you are coming up with ideas and creating recipes.
I would say that it gets easier the more time you are doing it.
Starting at the beginning, it is a little harder to put this together, but I think we did a really good job this year in what we are offering. Yeah, it’s a blast!
