Kozeal Hoping For Full Circle Omaha Moment With Razorbacks

Arkansas first baseman's hot start kindles dreams of ultimate homecoming

First baseman Cam Kozeal after hitting a homer against Central Arkansas. The Razorbacks won 9-2 / Nilsen Roman-Hogs on SI Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Most SEC Baseball fields, including Baum-Walker Stadium, rank among the top college ballparks. The history, pageantry and tradition are all unique to each.

If there was a parallel list of backyard field of dreams, Arkansas first baseman Cam Kozeal's childhood field might just top that list. Complete with the scoreboard and other memorabilia from Rosenblatt Stadium, it was the former home of the College World Series until 2010 where Matt Kozeal, Cam's dad, was a groundskeeper.

Home plate view of Kozeal Park in Sargent, Nebraska / Matt Kozeal

The story of a father building some sort of field for their children is hardly unique, but few can say that they have built a mecca of baseball bliss out in rural Nebraska.

To Cam and his six younger siblings, Carson, Drew, Aubree, David, Liz, and Matthew, whose upbringing was split between Omaha and Sargent, a rural town three hours west, there was no way of knowing the history of the scoreboard out in left field, it was just their childhood playground for chaos and shenanigans.

Four of the seven Kozeal siblings (left to right) Carson, Cam, Drew and Aubree Kozeal / Matt Kozeal

"I have so many videos of us just playing baseball and fighting,” Cam said. "Your little sister is running by in a princess dress and you're yelling at her to get out of the way, or your younger brother Drew is on a tricycle with the drag hooked up to the little tricycle dragging the field as you're playing. You have a Yankees jersey on and you're just hitting bombs like Jorge Posada."

Arkansas first baseman Cam Kozeal in a Yankees jersey growing up in Nebraska / Matt Kozeal

Cam's baseball upbringing started young. His wiffleball bat served more an attachment of his body and daily life as a child rather than a toy.

"I had a blue bat growing up and I had to sleep with it," Cam said. "If I didn't have it in my crib or even in my bag, I did not sleep because I need my bat."

Arkansas first baseman Cam Kozeal with his dad outside the Lincoln Memorial in the summer of 2008 with his wiffle ball bat / Matt Kozeal

It was all they did. Sun up to sun down, a change from the usual technology-laden world that overruns most childhoods. No video games, just wiffle ball as a family.

It's the same sense of purity that has served Cam throughout his baseball upbringing. He stayed away from travel ball, instead opting to just play for his high school team and some of the bigger area code events.

It's kept the same joy for Cam when describing his high school baseball days as his childhood on the farm, playing with his friends in the heat that "hotter than heck" with his buddies in the outfield with their shirt off.

"Our big thing was get better and be loyal to your high school program," Matt said. "[Be] loyal to your high school coach. I see so many kids playing travel baseball that are wasting everybody's time. It's more important you're getting better."

Being the eldest of seven, Cam is the first to leave the farm and his upbringing in Nebraska. Being away from home, he has a newfound appreciation for the work that his dad put in, something he wants to return to his kids one day.

"That's where you fall in love with baseball is just playing it for fun instead of playing it as a job or as a team,” Cam said. “The extra touches my dad made to make it fun. We had a Kozeal Park scoreboard, we had football fields, and we had the Rosenblatt scoreboard.  He put a lot of time and that's important to notice because that just shows how much he loves his kids.”

Left Field Scoreboard. It is a replica of the last out of Rosenblatt from my view in the home dugout pic.twitter.com/lSdh0Avz7Q

— Kozeal Park (@KozealPark) May 28, 2016

Even though Cam is six hours away from Omaha on the next step of his baseball journey with the Razorbacks, he hasn't lost the roots that brought him here. His pregame ritual consists of catching a fish every day at Lake Norm, the pond beyond the outfield fence at Baum-Walker.

"I'm the best fisherman in the world." Cam said with a massive smile on his face.

Cam, who played his freshman season at Vanderbilt, faced a tough decision in the offseason on what to do moving forward. He made 35 starts as a first-year player and hit .284 with five homers, but ultimately decided to transfer at the eleventh hour.

“It was heartbreaking for him and our family that he entered the transfer portal and left Vanderbilt,” Matt said. “He didn't enter the portal till like an hour left to go.”

When Cam first got to Arkansas, his struggles at the plate were mighty. He hit just .206 with nine strikeouts in 29 at-bats, according to unofficial stats kept by the media. Coming out of the fall, having seemingly lost a straight shoot-out with Nolan Souza for starting second baseman, Kozeal's place on the team was unclear.

Cam went back to what he knew, duck hunting and a little advice from dad. He went home to Nebraska over Christmas break just to decompress.

"You have about that month time period where you're still doing baseball and you're still working out because you have to,” Cam said. “That's what the game demands, but you're able to be around your family and go do things that you enjoy outside of baseball like shooting mallard ducks or shooting Canada geese.”

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A post shared by Camden Kozeal (@camden.kozeal)

Dad also had a great analogy to help calm Cam down. He sent his son video of him having success in high school. He also drew on coach Dave Van Horn's Kansas City roots, using two baseball legends who both started their careers in the city.

"I told him 'Good grief. You're swinging like Reggie Jackson and you need to swing like George Brett,'" Matt said. "I'm pretty sure that Coach Van Horn would prefer a George Brett swing over a Reggie Jackson swing."

Cam arrived back on campus a different hitter and began turning the corner in the final two weekends of spring scrimmages, forcing Van Horn to put Cam at first base to try and get his bat in the line-up. He's rewarded his new coach by putting up numbers that rival Brett.

In his first 14 starts. He's one of six Razorbacks entering the second weekend of SEC play hitting over .350 (.355) with two homers and 14 RBIs.

"I just call it [being] a baseball player," Van Horn said. "He’s got some feel out there. He’s a shortstop [in high school] like most all of our infielders that we have in the infield. When they get here, we just move them around. Most of the time they play shortstop. Tough kid, played other sports. We knew what we were recruiting and we’re just glad we got him here now."

Cam Kozeal on the bases against Central Arkansas at Baum-Walker Stadium on March 2. The Razorbacks won 9-2 / Nilsen Roman - Hogs on SI Images

There's an epilogue to this story that is yet to be written. Even though the pinnacle of the sport has moved 10 minutes down the road and the name of the ballpark isn't the same (Charles Schwab Field) as the one his dad used to work. Cam grew up a stone's throw away from the ultimate destination for college baseball, a place where the Razorbacks haven't been since 2022 and continue to look for the elusive title.

He's let his mind begin to ponder what it would be like for the ultimate personal and team reunion with the city that he, his family and college baseball all call home, hanging an OmaHogs banner above his TV in his living room.

"Every time we do the national anthem, I pick out a star and all I do is think about Omaha," Cam said. "[I] either envision myself in the stadium at Schwab or at Rosenblatt. Just go around the city and visualize memories throughout the city. It's very near and dear to my heart."

The Road to Omaha continues for Arkansas against South Carolina 6:30 p.m. Friday and will be streamed on SEC+.

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