By: Erin Madden
BEREA, Ohio - For a 10-day span in the middle of June, one city becomes the epicenter of the collegiate sports world as Omaha, Nebraska, hosts the NCAA Division I Baseball Championships, more commonly known as the Men's College World Series.
That 10-day span in the middle of June 2023 became a reunion of sorts for four Baldwin Wallace University alumni. How else can four sports information professionals with the same undergraduate background get together if not for a sporting event?
"It's good to see BW represented on the national stage like that," said Shamus McKnight '96, Senior Associate Communications Director for the University of Nebraska.
McKnight has been the mainstay at the College World Series, having been part of the media coordination team since 2006 and the official scorekeeper since 2013. His classmate Phil Pierce '96 has worked the World Series the past two years as part of his role as an Assistant Director for Championships and Alliances with the NCAA.
For Will Pantages '13 and Ryan Sosic '19, the trip to Omaha was the culmination of a magical baseball season for Wake Forest University. Pantages is the Senior Associate Athletic Director, Communications & Content, for the Demon Deacons while Sosic was an Assistant Director of Athletic Communications with one of his responsibilities being the primary baseball contact. Sosic has since moved over to the Mid-American Conference as its new Director of Communications.
How did all four end up working at the highest level of NCAA Division I baseball at their respective institutions? "Everything boils down to relationships," Pantages said, particularly relationships with longtime Director of Athletic Communications Kevin Ruple and current Director of Athletic Communications Jeff Miller '96.
With a couple of phone calls, Ruple helped McKnight land at Nebraska and also played a crucial role in getting Pierce his start at the University of Arkansas, where he worked for 17 years before eventually moving into his current role at the NCAA.
Both Pantages and Sosic have Miller to thank for their start at the Division I level. Miller connected Pantages with his first job at Southern Methodist University. Once Pantages moved on to the University of Florida, Miller called him years later on behalf of Sosic who was nearing graduation. Then Pantages took it upon himself to help Sosic eventually get from Florida to Wake Forest.
"Obviously he's at such a high level and it was great to just be around him every day and learn from such a professional," Sosic said. "That's kind of how I really learned, going from a DIII school to a Power 5 in a two month span and then going to another Power 5 school. Will was always willing to listen and he was a great leader and great person to work for, for sure."
Each alumnus served in a different capacity at the College World Series. McKnight and Pierce made sure that the event ran smoothly while Pantages and Sosic were running around just trying to keep up with Wake Forest's success in the program's first World Series appearance since 1955.
"The whole Omaha run was just unbelievable," Pantages reminisced. "It just coalesced in a different way. Ryan did an unbelievable job with our creative video team, capturing the moment and ensuring that the Wake Forest brand was in every media outlet and that our content on the Wake baseball social media platforms was as good as anybody's in the country. It was a really special, special run."
Being the primary contact for the No. 1 seeded Demon Deacons, Sosic was busy with previews and production meetings, game notes and game day content, post game media and press conferences. But he wouldn't trade the experience for the world.
"I was happy to be part of that group with that team and the staff and the student athletes, the coaches," Sosic said. "Just thinking back on it, it's honestly amazing."
Pierce's main World Series responsibilities lay with the media. He physically made the thousands of credentials issued for the two-week event, worked in-game with the event photographers and facilitated post-game media requests alongside the sports information personnel from the eight participating schools. Meanwhile, McKnight made the tough in-game decisions as the official scorekeeper.
"I am the person who determines hits and errors or earned runs and unearned runs, who makes sure that things are done properly in terms of the scorebook at least for Statcrew and game substitutions and pitching changes and batting changes," McKnight explained. "I have a rulebook in front of me so I can turn to it at any time."
It takes a lot of work from the various College World Series officials, the media and the university representatives themselves to make the whole event run smoothly. There is almost a certain reverence for Omaha that time of year and the city and the fans bring a palpable spark and energy that is unmatched.
"As one coach said, when teams break the huddle, baseball is probably the only sport where they typically yell a destination, '1-2-3 Omaha,'" McKnight said. "Everyone in the sport knows what Omaha means. It means you're in the World Series, you're one of the last eight teams standing, every year."
Pierce added, "If you are a fan of sport, that event should be on your bucket list. It is truly a spectacle. You have 17 games over a two week period in a 25,000 seat stadium and it's usually pretty full. Doesn't matter if the game is at 1 in the afternoon on a Tuesday or 7 o'clock on a Friday night, it's packed."
Beyond the common experience of the College World Series and the mutual profession, the four share a deep bond despite an almost 2.5 decade gap between graduation years, even among those who hadn't before met.
"I didn't know Shamus and Phil before we went to the World Series," Sosic said. "Will was obviously there with me and he introduced me to those guys. Right when they heard I was from BW, it was just an easy conversation and they were great to get to know."
For a pair of friends and classmates, though, the World Series is always a special time despite whatever may happen on the field or in the press box.
"It is always wonderful to be able to get there and see Shamus because we graduated together, we've been in it for 20-plus years together," Pierce said. "That's always a treat, to be able to just sit in the back of the press box when nothing's going on in between games or something and just have a 20-40-hour long conversation with Shamus about nothing. It might be about work, it might be about life, who knows? But getting to see him is always a treat."
Sports information departments at the Division l level are teeming with Baldwin Wallace alumni. Not only do you have the four who all worked at the College World Series but also John Bianco '88 at the University of Texas, Doug Tammaro '91 at Arizona State University, Jamie Hall '94 at Youngstown State University, Thomas Dick '95 at Texas A&M University and Gary Petit '06 at The Ohio State University.
"Here you have 20 years worth of students from Baldwin Wallace that are doing it in the field and they're doing it at a high level," Pierce said. "As a university, that's all we can really ask for, right? To be able to put people out there in the highest positions possible, to be able to excel to push that brand and that school name out there."
All of the success that McKnight, Pantages, Pierce and Sosic have enjoyed throughout their careers, though? They point it right back to BW.
"The sky's the limit for anything that a Baldwin Wallace grad wants to do," Pantages said. "We have different people who have found success across different walks of life, whether it's guys in the NFL or people in the Olympics or whatever that may be … Success is not an accident and I think you learn that at Baldwin Wallace. It's a great place to be and you learn these life-long lessons that prepare you for success in different walks of life."
McKnight added, "You can go anywhere from BW. If you put your mind to it and do the work and trust what you do, you can go far in places, whether in athletics or business or in the community. That's something that all of us are pretty proud of BW for doing."
