* We’re going to play a little game I like to call “Who the eff is Ryan Syrek?” (Also known as “let’s predict the winners, then tell you a week later how awesome I am at picking those winners.”) It’s one of those games where I like to toot my own horn about the College World Series.
* Among the hustle and bustle outside Rosenblatt’s College World Series this week is a little blue tent serving warm memories, tucked inside corrugated cardboard boxes.
They’re limited edition, hand-crafted and painted statues of the ‘Blatt. With a limited edition of only 1,948 (the same year the stadium opened), the Omaha Royals worked out an arrangement with the NCAA to sell the statues at the games. They are usually available only through the Royals gift shop.
* While we’re high-fiving the college kids who made it to Omaha this week, a tip of the cap to a pair of local college products who are shining on a bigger stage.
Former Husker pitcher and Grand Island native Johnny Dorn along with Creighton and Omaha Central grad Pat Venditte were named to the South Atlantic League All-Star squad last week. Dorn will toss for the Northern Division, which counts former Creighton (and Phillies Minor League) catcher Tim Gradoville among its coaches. The ambidextrous Venditte will pitch for the Southern Division June 23, at Appalachian Power Park in Charleston, W.V.
* In one of the more bizarre sports twists of the summer, the saga of the Phoenix Coyotes suddenly has a very local twist. Former Nebraska State Auditor (and current ‘Yotes minority owner) John Breslow wants to keep the team in the desert, and according to numerous news outlets, he’s assembled an ownership group to take over the troubled franchise that is rumored to include team Coach Wayne Gretzky.
Breslow, who made his fortune with the Lincoln-based company Linweld, Inc., might have the upper hand in the battle for the bankrupt franchise. National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman wants to keep the team in Phoenix and not relocate them to Southern Ontario, despite a plethora of cash from Blackberry CEO Jim Balsillie. Among the other suitors for the team is Jerry Reinsdorf, who owns the Chicago Bulls and White Sox.
Triple-A baseball can be an unforgiving place. It’s where careers can die and where players can realize that as close as they are to their dream of playing Major League Baseball, they have come to the last station on the line.
In the case of J.R. House, it can also be a place for careers to flourish and be revived. A career .311 hitter at the minor league level, he’s hitting at a .317 clip through the Omaha Royals’ first 32 games. His batting average ranks him among the leaders in the Pacific Coast League, and second on the team behind Ryan Shealy.
* If you see a jolly fat man, ho, ho, ho-ing his way around Rosenblatt Stadium Saturday night, don’t worry, Santa just stopped off to catch an O-Royals game on his way to Florida for the summer.
Trev Alberts is handling his new job exactly the way you’d assume the former Husker and Indianapolis Colt linebacker would be: tackling it straight on.
Alberts, the third athletic director that the University of Nebraska-Omaha has seen in the past three years, spent the past seven years working in for CNN, ESPN and CBS before coming back to Nebraska last month.
“I had some meaningful conversations with a lot of folks about getting back into intercollegiate athletics,” Alberts said. “It’s something that I’ve been thinking about since I was a student-athlete, but the timing was never right. This job came open and I had to decide if this was something I wanted to pursue.”
While the Cedar Falls, Iowa, native has returned to the Midwest, the transition from broadcasting to boss has been an eye-opener.
* In talking to Trev Alberts for our feature on the Nebraska-Omaha athletic department, the things that stood out most were his passion for the university and the desire to win.
Alberts tasted success in Lincoln, and wants student-athletes and coaches at UNO to have a similar experience. It’ll be a blast watching the department grow and compete over the next few years, and I’m guessing we’ll see a few more championship banners floating around the campus soon.
* Johnny Determan is living up to his nickname … he’s Joltin’. One of the nation’s top-ranked amateur boxers, 18-year-old ‘Joltin’ Johnny Detterman is turning pro after this weekend’s fights at the Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions in Salt Lake City.
“It was really a split-second decision I made after talking to some promoters,” Determan said. “I’ve been working fulltime since I got done with school. Because of that, it’s been a lot tougher to find time to box, and it was time for me to decide what I wanted to do.” Determan, currently ranked fourth in the United States in the 112-pound class, had his sights on the 2012 Olympic Games in London. He said he had wanted to participate in the Olympics, “but it’s just too far off right now.”
* The first order of business is a hearty congratulations for Creighton skipper Ed Servais on his 400th career win in last Friday’s 7-2 victory over the Bradley Braves at Rosenblatt Stadium. Servais is in his sixth season as head coach at CU after serving as an assistant since 1997.
The 23-18 Jays travel to Illinois State this weekend, but return for the final home stand of the season next week, with three games against Missouri State and the rubber match against the Huskers.
After ending the 2008 season in a heartbreaking 1-0 loss on the road to the eventual National Champion Maryland Terrapins, no one would have blamed the Bluejay men’s soccer team for phoning it in this spring.
That loss, however, lit a fire in the team as it entered the spring season, which is capped off by a trip to Peru in less than a month. Already CU has downed Eckard, Notre Dame, Denver and the Venezuelan Youth National Team, while playing Major League Soccer’s Kansas City Wizards to a 2-2 draw.
“We came back in January and really started working hard,” CU Coach Bob Warming said. “The biggest change this spring has been in our strength training, guys are working on more soccer-specific programs and are getting a lot stronger, faster and more powerful.”
By the time you read this, Trev Alberts may be the new athletic director at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
Alberts, visiting with faculty, students and community leaders earlier this week, would bring instant recognition to the school at 60th and Dodge that has struggled to win friends in the area over the past four years.
While he doesn’t have the hockey experience I said was necessary in this column a few weeks ago, he can get kids from Henderson to the panhandle excited about UNO.
The Mavs offer the City of Omaha, and the entire state of Nebraska, something unique. It’s affordable to take your family to a UNO sporting event, and they win games and compete for conference and national titles on an annual basis.
The issue was settled when Zac Lee entered the game. Just over four minutes remained in the Nebraska football team’s mid-September victory against New Mexico State. The score was 38-7. And that wouldn’t change.
Patrick Witt had played the first two series of the fourth quarter, losing a fumble on the first, then directing a 52-yard scoring drive capped by an Alex Henery field goal on the second.
Lee called six plays, one of which was nullified by a holding penalty. On third-and-22, he threw an incomplete pass, intended for Wes Cammack. On fourth down, he threw another pass to Cammack, this time complete for five yards. Those are the only passes of his Cornhusker career.
* Victory Fighting Championship is taking the show on the road this weekend when it rolls down to Lincoln’s Pershing Auditorium for the first time. Ten fights are scheduled, with the first bout at 7:30 p.m. Tickets, starting at $15, are available at ticketmaster.com or by calling 578.1749.
* It’s a Happy New Year for baseball fans, and the Omaha Royals begin the new season in style. Fans at Friday night’s home opener at Rosenblatt will see the staff decked out in stately coattails and top hats in celebration of the team’s athletic Auld Lang Syne. A champagne toast and a ball drop are also on the schedule for the 7:05 p.m. game against Albuquerque’s Isotopes.
* In an off-season dominated by the discussion of where they’d play, it’s finally time for the Omaha Royals to take the field.
After drawing over 349,000 fans last year, their highest mark since the 2001 campaign, the franchise is focused on raising the bar in 2009.
“The promotions each night help, but that’s just one of the tools to get fans into the ballpark,” Royals General Manager Martie Cordaro said. “What it comes down to is our staff making sure that each fan has a great experience when they get to the ballpark and that they want to come back out to another game.”
While the economy has forced families to cut back, it has also forced teams to look at ways to keep ticket and concession prices in check. Back again in ’09 is $2 Tuesday and Thirsty Thursday, two of the more popular promotions.
* It seems the Nebraska-Omaha athletic department is a living, breathing version of the Herman’s Hermits song “Henry The Eighth” … it’s the second verse, same as the first.
Once again, the University is looking for another athletic director. David Miller accepted the same position at Upper Iowa, and in doing so, apparently admitted defeat.
“The expectations of generating external resources is not as great here (at Upper Iowa),” Miller was quoted in the Omaha World-Herald. “ … We (UNO) get $3.5 million to $4 million from the school, and if that was for just a Division II program, that would be in the ballpark. When you throw Division I hockey in, that’s where the challenge comes from.”
To call the Creighton baseball team jet-lagged is almost an understatement. The frequent-flyer Jays have logged early-season trips to southern Texas, Phoenix, Conway, S.C., Wilmington, N.C. and Manhattan, Kansas since the 2009 campaign started Feb. 20.
To put it bluntly, CU struggled, with just a lone win against Notre Dame their only victory through the season’s first nine games. Despite the rocky start, the Jays have played .500 baseball over their last eight games, and that has Creighton skipper Ed Servais believing that this team may have turned the corner on a rough stretch of the season.
“I think that showed we’re making headway,” Servais said. “We’ve played a lot of really good teams early, and we’re starting to correct some of the mistakes that we made early in the season. We’re definitely showing a lot of improvement."
* While Creighton looks to the future and calling the new downtown baseball stadium home, another program is packing its bags, likely for the last time.
The University of Northern Iowa announced Feb. 23 that this would be the final season of varsity baseball at the Missouri Valley Conference school, barring the squad raising $1.2 million by April 5, to endow the program.
If it seems like you’ve heard this one before, you have. Iowa State dropped baseball after the 2001 season.
For Creighton’s Ed Servais, an assistant at Iowa State for two seasons in the mid-’90s, it’s more of the same.
“It’s a shame,” Servais said. “I know Coach (Rick) Heller really well and I feel awful for him, but I know that he feels just terrible for those kids.”
Sparked by tenacity, teamwork and the sharpest shooter in the land, the Bluejays have caught fire. Red-hot Creighton is burning up the Missouri Valley Conference, and if Booker Woodfox gets any hotter he’s going to need a skin graft.
Eight straight wins, including six by double digits, have vaulted Creighton into a tie for the league lead with Northern Iowa at 12-4, and improved their overall record to 23-6. The surge extends the program’s conference-record 11th consecutive season with at least 20 wins, matched nationally by only six other schools.
The Jays maintained their streak with a Bracket Buster torching of George Mason, 76-63, last Saturday night in front of 17,411 witnesses at the Qwest Center. That followed the previous weekend’s 82-60 blowout of Southern Illinois in Carbondale-where the Jays hadn’t won since 2001.
*Fresh off a 2-1-1 weekend in Lafayette, La., the Nebraska baseball team returns south this weekend for a four-game tilt in Huntsville, Texas, after their home opener against North Dakota on Tuesday.
What to watch for: Can the Huskers, who are unranked but receiving votes in the national polls, regain the swagger that has been the trademark of past NU squads? Skipper Mike Anderson’s club was tabbed seventh in the pre-season conference coaches poll, and has numerous holes to fill, especially on the mound.
Who to watch for: Freshman Khiry Cooper could help the Huskers regain that swagger. The two-sport star is stepping away from the gridiron this spring to focus on baseball. A fifth-round draft pick by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Cooper went 3-8 last weekend with one home run and two runs batted in.
