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McCook trio puts in early hours to prepare Jaycees Complex for B6 Area Tournament
McCOOK, Neb. -- The Nebraska American Legion Baseball B6 Area Tournament brought plenty of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ to the Jaycees Complex.
What fans didn’t expect was the reaction to come from the pristine field.
Baseball fans were treated to an impressive-looking diamond at McCook’s legion field. One that rivaled college and professional ballparks.
The group responsible for field preparations wasn’t a large contingent from Lincoln or Denver.
Instead, it was the work of three men: Dave Korte, Chris Conroy and Cameron Burkey.
“We have good teamwork,” Korte said. “We all work well together.”
Korte is in his second year managing the ball fields at the Jaycees Complex and Felling Complex. He applied for the position when he saw the job opening two years ago and said he enjoys the work environment.
“You’re up here by yourself.”
His two seasonal helpers, Burkey and Conroy, are in their third and fifth years, respectively. Both grew up and played baseball in McCook and both view the work as a way of giving back to the sport and community.
“It’s a chance for me to still be around a baseball field,” Burkey added, who also played collegiately for McCook Community College and the University of Nebraska-Kearney.
The three men have been busy all summer long with field maintenance, particularly in the month of June when fields were used “four or five nights a week,” according to Conroy, another former MCC player.
“On a normal day during June, we would work on each field for an hour or hour and a half,” he explained. “If it was a mowing day, it would probably be a little longer than that. On the baseball field, it takes probably two and a half hours to mow and then you mix in chalk and prep, so it’s probably three to four hours on that field.”
With the heat McCook has had this summer, the three usually arrive to the complex before dawn.
“We try to beat the heat if we can,” Conroy said. “5 a.m. has been our go-to start time.”
To keep things easy, each person works on a different aspect of field management. Korte does the sprinkler work, which includes the watering and chemicals.
“He keeps stuff green and looking good,” Conroy said about Korte.
Conroy calls his duties the “day-to-day stuff,” including dragging and working the mounds.
Burkey does the mowing. As Conroy puts it, “Cam’s the guy with the paintbrush and canvas.”
It wasn’t lost on the three that McCook would be hosting the B6 senior tournament in late July. They spent time, individually and collectively, pondering what they would do to give the baseball field a sharp look.
Burkey was the one who came up with the mowing pattern. It’s an idea, he said, that came partly from looking at “big league” ballfields and also from his own creative thinking.
“I didn’t expect it to pop as much as it did,” he admitted.
Conroy said the crew had acquired a new mower “about two or three years ago” that allows for intricate designs.
“We got one of those fancy Toro mowers with the rollers that a lot of the big league fields use,” he said. “It lays the grass so you can put in a cool sign.”
Still, a lot of the look was due to Burkey.
“For the past three weeks, it was just a matter of burning that design in and making it look good,” Conroy said. “Cam’s a wizard at that.”
It wasn’t until last week, just before the start of the B6 Area Tournament, that the three sat down and took in their work.
“Once we got that last bit of chalk down, Dave, Cameron and I just sat down and took a breather,” Conroy said. “Cameron said it was nice to see the finished product, and I felt the same way.”
They used a lift from Brett Schmidt at Weathercraft to get a good vantage point for a ‘finished’ photo.
And when the field was revealed to the public?
“We got a lot of positive feedback,” Burkey said.
With August just around the corner, Korte said the focus now is to give the field “time to heal” before McCook Community College begins its fall season.
Additionally, McCook Public Works Director Kyle Potthoff and the rest of the city crew will be around to do their work throughout the year.
August will also mean Korte’s two seasonal helpers will soon part ways.
Burkey will head back to the University of Nebraska-Kearney, where he’s majoring in elementary education and in his fourth year of college.
Conroy will begin another year of working as a paraprofessional for McCook Public School’s LIFT alternative education program and as a coach for the McCook Bison football team while he finishes up his teaching degree.
Both Burkey and Conroy indicated interest in helping out again next year.
If the trio remains intact in 2018, McCook residents and baseball fans can be certain the ball fields will remain excellent for all involved.