Every year, people around the country come to Omaha for the College World Series to see who will become the NCAA baseball champion. This year, three Yutan seniors had the opportunity to experience the College World Series in a new way by working there.
“It’s definitely an experience that not very many people have because being close to Omaha, that’s the only place it is every year, so a lot of kids around the country obviously don’t get to do it. So being from Nebraska and being 30 minutes away is a cool experience,” senior Carson Jurey said.
Jurey, along with seniors Maddox Wentworth and Jenna Benjamin, worked at Fan Fest, which surrounds the outside of the stadium with free activities for younger kids. The three seniors helped with many different things over the two-week period, including merchandise sales, home run derby, speed pitch and a basketball station.
“Most days, I ran the home run derby. I usually played in the outfield and someone would pitch the wiffle ball, and the kids tried to hit home runs,” Wentworth said.
While the students worked a variety of stations, the daily schedule looked the same.
“Most days were 10:30 to 6:00, but some days we would get done around 4:00 to 4:30. I would sign in, and they would tell me what station I was working at that day. I would get my badge and go to my station, and I’d either have to take inventory of the merch, or I would have to set up the basketball stuff. At the end of the day, you turn your things in, and then you can go home,” Benjamin said.
All the students agreed that working the College World Series comes with a lot of positives, including getting paid $20 an hour.
“Just being there with all of my friends while getting paid quite a bit of money and also being able to watch the games made it a good experience,” Jurey said.
The work environment was also a key benefit for Benjamin while working this summer.
“I really liked tanning, hanging out with friends and just being outside,” Benjamin said. “It also pays really well, and you don’t do a lot, like I got to play basketball for about eight hours, and I could talk to and meet new people.”
One of the benefits for Wentworth was the memories he made while working.
“I made some diving catches that I thought were pretty cool, and then I robbed some guys’ home runs, so that was pretty fun,” Wentworth said.
Although for the most part work was beneficial and had many positives, there were some challenges the students had to face.
“Besides most days being super hot, people would come up asking questions, or things I didn’t really know, like they’d ask Capital One questions, and even though I was working the Capital One merch station, I just don’t work for Capital One,” Benjamin said.
Overall, however, the experience was positive enough that all three seniors plan on doing it again next year.
“I’ll probably do it from here until I have a full time job, I guess throughout college, because there’s not many things that are that easy and you get that much pay for it,” Jurey said. “And I know a lot of people that are doing it, which makes it fun.”
