Omaha admission line akin to Assembly Hall

OMAHA, Neb. — The line stretched longer than the eye could see.

When IU fans sitting in the general admission section made their way to TD Ameritrade Park Saturday for IU’s first game of the College World Series, they were welcomed by a familiar sight they usually see outside Assembly Hall.

Fans sitting in general admission are allowed to line up for their spot outside the park several hours before the game starts.

For sophomore JoJo Daghe, the line looked a lot like the line for the student section general admission to IU basketball games.

“We waited a lot of nights when it was freezing before games,” she said. “I’m used to this.”

The first IU fans spotted in the line were Joe and Danna Creager from Carrollton, Ky. Joe graduated from IU in 2004 and is originally from Ft. Wayne.

He said being nestled in with Lousiville and Kentucky fans has made his life as an IU fan challenging at times.

“It’s a little crazy,” he said. “I’m a teacher and all of my students are either U of L or UK fans. All the U of L people were asking me if I was coming to this and telling me that U of L was going to win. But I know we’re going to take this one.”

Joe and Danna lined up at 2 p.m. local time — five hours before the start of the IU game.

Unfortunately, the two didn’t have anything to do for their five-hour wait except people watch, but they said they enjoyed that.

They decided to make the trip Wednesday and arrived at Omaha at 11 a.m. on Saturday, spending Friday night in Des Moines, Iowa.

Daghe and her party of eight could not come close to seeing the Creagers.

The line snaked back for hundreds of feet as people lined the sidewalk and sat against the fence outside the ballpark waiting for their opportunity to get in and see their team.
Daghe stood near the end of the line. Someone else in her party asked how far up the line went, as they couldn’t even see half of it.

All they could see in the straight line in front of them was people, not an entrance.
“It’s crazy,” Daghe said. “Someone said it’s like 200 people, and then all of a sudden, it’s like all these people.“

Daghe and her immediate family and friends left Indiana at 4 a.m. Saturday, arriving around noon local time to Omaha.

They were just in time to make it in line.

“It was kind of a late decision,” Daghe said. “We just decided that we really wanted to see it, and then it happened.”

With his spot secured in the front of the line, Joe Creager had the chance to evaluate the fans walking past him.

He thought he saw more Hoosier crimson than Cardinal red. Danna said that everywhere they had been, people had greeted them with “Go Hoosiers!”
That’s exactly what made Daghe decide she had to come.

“I was really excited just to be here because I’ve heard people say how awesome it is,” she said. “It definitely hasn’t let me down.”