{"id":7984,"date":"2025-06-09T22:14:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T03:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/?p=7984"},"modified":"2025-06-13T11:34:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T16:34:34","slug":"cws-interview-amy-hornocker-executive-director-college-world-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/cws-interview-amy-hornocker-executive-director-college-world-series\/","title":{"rendered":"CWS Interview: Amy Hornocker, Executive Director – College World Series"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Amy Hornocker at College World Series at Omaha, Inc.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Omaha, Nebraska.com here with<\/b>\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n

Amy Hornocker, Executive Director, College World Series Inc.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been now doing this for a couple years.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes.<\/p>\n

And you have the one for the 75th year of hosting it.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes.<\/p>\n

Tell us about it, please<\/b>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the 75th anniversary of the College World Series in Omaha. The event has been running longer. So we just want to make sure that people know that it\u2019s just the one that\u2026for the city. But it is still very important.<\/p>\n

Obviously, 75 years in a city is significant. So we\u2019re just doing some things to celebrate. I think our biggest one that we\u2019re doing is the 75th at the Riverfront. [https:\/\/theriverfrontomaha.com\/events\/?&eventid=7971<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Thursday, June 12th at Gene Leahy Mall, we have three bands, food trucks, and then capping it off with fireworks. And it\u2019s free, open to the public. We want to celebrate with the community that\u2019s given so much to this event.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll also just have some other general celebrations throughout.<\/p>\n

We have Ashley Spitsnogle. She\u2019s a painter. She started a painting, which is basically Rosenblatt fading into Charles Schwab Field, and then she\u2019s going to finish it on Finals Game 1. She\u2019s going to finish the field piece of today, and then that will be available for purchase when she completes the whole painting, following the Series.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s kind of a cool thing. Yes, that\u2019s about it for celebrating.<\/p>\n

I know you celebrate different groups of people too.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes.<\/p>\n

First responders, teachers\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes. Heroes in the Heartland is Tuesday, June 17th. Game 10. We\u2019ll honor heroes within the community. So that\u2019s police, fire, doctors, nurses, military. So that\u2019s a cool night.<\/p>\n

Teacher Appreciation is game 11. That\u2019s Wednesday afternoon. The first 250 teachers that show their ID get a Levy concession gift card.<\/p>\n

We have a partnership with Omaha Public Schools on a reading initiative. We\u2019ll celebrate some of the top readers that came out of their competition at that game too.<\/p>\n

Is that the Readers Are Leaders?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes, Readers Become Leaders. We worked with Omaha Public Schools district-wide this year. Before this year, we just worked with one whole school to see if that would be like more intentional. We worked with Skinner Elementary in North Omaha. We did a couple pep rallies there, and it was fun to see the kids excited about reading.<\/p>\n

Saturday, Game 4, we have the All Star Award. It\u2019s usually been coaches, former coaches basically for their contribution to the game. But with the anniversary, we\u2019re actually honoring Jack Diesing Sr. and Jr. Obviously, Jack Jr. is the chairman of our board, and his father was instrumental in keeping this event in Omaha and growing it. They\u2019re going to be honored on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

And then the very famous Rawlings keychain giveaway is on Monday afternoon at 1, game 7.<\/p>\n

I have one of those and enjoy it very much.<\/b><\/p>\n

They are very popular. People like to collect every year.<\/p>\n

Anything the fans should know about this year? I know there\u2019s a clear bag policy \u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes. So clear bag. And then it will be the same metal detector walk-through. So it should be the same process to enter the stadium.<\/p>\n

We actually do have some enhanced security in the way of road closures. This is for fan pedestrian safety mostly. Two hours before each game and one hour after, 13th Street will be closed completely from Cass to Cuming. The only way you can get down here is if you\u2019re escorted by the Omaha Police Department \u2026 And we have rerouted the ADA drop off to over by Rocco\u2019s.<\/p>\n

All that\u00a0 is available on our website. The information is at cwsomaha.com<\/a>, and we have updated maps and everything like that.<\/p>\n

[The app is located here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/championships\/baseball\/d1\/app<\/a>]<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been doing this for many years now. What kind of things have you decided to add to the fan experience? And then I know you\u2019re very active in the community as well as the CWS. It\u2019s \u00a0not just a couple weeks of the year\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes. So I think this year, besides all the stuff for the anniversary, we also have our normal Fan Fest that\u2019s presented by Capital One.<\/p>\n

The Ferris wheel will be back, which was popular, and they\u2019re actually extending the hours of its operation on that first Saturday because they usually close with Fan Fest at 6:30, but they\u2019re going to leave it open until the final until the game 2 is over and just see how that goes and then we\u2019ll kind of see if there\u2019s a lot of ridership.<\/p>\n

The Air Force also is bringing one of their national assets, which is pretty cool. It\u2019s a VR, it\u2019s called the Hangar. So it is going to be like a pretty big footprint, and you\u2019ll be able to go in and they have some virtual reality simulator.<\/p>\n

So those are some new fan enhancements. And you know, Fan Fest is open to the public. So even if you don\u2019t have a ticket to the game inside, you can come down and go to Fan Fest.<\/p>\n

Some of the other things that we do besides the Readers Become Leaders program that we talked about is we have a grant program. Since the \u201970s, we\u2019ve given over $8 million to community fields and baseball and softball programs in the community.<\/p>\n

So again, we\u2019re trying to leave a legacy at home.<\/p>\n

What do people need to know besides the clear bags, the scooters, the cashless\u2026<\/b> Is there anything new?<\/b><\/p>\n

I think the biggest thing as far as access is definitely those road closures that will take place during the game days because there still is obviously the ride share programs to get down here.<\/p>\n

Metro has adjusted some of their normal routes to come down here at more frequent times.<\/p>\n

So that stuff\u2019s all on our website. But also if you go to Metro\u2019s, the scooters are around, the bikes, those E bikes and everything. So there\u2019s plenty of different ways to get around down here.<\/p>\n

What do you envision for the College World Series going forward?<\/b><\/p>\n

Because there has to be this balance of the dynamics of the love of the sport, the rich history of the sport and then still going forward into the future.<\/b><\/p>\n

How do you balance that?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes, and we have the contract here in Omaha until 2036.<\/p>\n

But our organization did a strategic plan this year looking at what do we talk about next?<\/p>\n

Like, when do we go look for an extension to this agreement, and what do we need to do to ensure that it doesn\u2019t look to go somewhere else?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen that happen with the Olympic Swim Trials, that there are communities that are willing to get these things.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s still a work in progress. We definitely are looking at fan experience and even student athlete experience upgrades so that we can basically make sure there\u2019s no doubt that people don\u2019t want to leave here.<\/p>\n

I remember many years ago I was fortunate to be able to tour the facilities here when things were changing. And it was amazing\u2026the use of technology that hadn\u2019t been even considered before.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes. So we have and we\u2019re looking at a technology upgrade next year. It\u2019ll actually start in the fall when the CWS ends, and we\u2019ll have new video boards. The original one is kind of at its end of life\u2026 that technology.<\/p>\n

Yes.<\/b><\/p>\n

And we are going to get the long-awaited secondary board that is in left field that people have wanted and then some ribbon panels on the fascia. So being able to do a lot more stuff in the game, a lot of more sponsorship activities. We\u2019re hoping and we\u2019re always just trying to find the best way to make it accessible.<\/p>\n

And we actually just had a media availability this morning. This is the first year we\u2019ve worked with Autism Action Partnership. We will have bags at our guest services. So if you have a need, they have the noise canceling headphones, fidget spinners, those kinds of things for anybody\u00a0 neurodivergent, because we want to make it accessible for everyone knowing that the stadium is a big, loud, scary place. We\u2019re trying to help families feel like they can bring everybody,<\/p>\n

That\u2019s fantastic.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s great. We\u2019ve been talking to them for about two years, and we were able to bring that to fruition. We\u2019re interested to see how well it does.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Omaha, Nebraska.com here with\u00a0\u2026 Amy Hornocker, Executive Director, College World Series Inc. You\u2019ve been now doing this for a couple years. Yes. And you have the one for the 75th year of hosting it. Yes. Tell us about it, please. It\u2019s the 75th anniversary of the College World Series in Omaha. The event has been … Continue reading CWS Interview: Amy Hornocker, Executive Director – College World Series<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,36],"tags":[546,321,319],"class_list":["post-7984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-omaha","category-omaha-event","category-omaha-interview","tag-amy-hornocker","tag-college-world-series","tag-cws"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7984"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8048,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7984\/revisions\/8048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}