Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Every spring for decades, they shone down on the finest college baseball players in the country at Omaha's Diamond on the Hill.
By spring, prep athletes at Omaha Northwest High School will have a chance to play under them as well.
Some of the lights from Rosenblatt Stadium have been donated by the Omaha Zoo Foundation to the Omaha Public Schools.
The foundation paid for the 70 light fixtures to be moved to an OPS storage location. OPS, with private money, plans to install the lights at Northwest by the spring baseball season.
"The zoo foundation has been tremendous to us," said Bob Danenhauer, OPS athletic director.
OPS chose Northwest because, of the district's three high schools with their own baseball fields, the field at Burke High already has lights and Bryan High's booster club didn't have the money to install the lights, Danenhauer said.
Northwest's booster club raised about $110,000 to eventually move the lights out of storage and install them at the high school's field. The club also plans to buy poles and brackets for the donated light fixtures, Danenhauer said.
The Huskies hope to play about 10 spring baseball games under the lights and about half of their 30 or 40 summer American Legion games there as well.
About a fifth of the money — $22,000 — was raised at a July golf outing in Ashland put on by alumni of the high school at 8204 Crown Point Ave.
"We hope this is a chance to show that we're behind the program, we're behind the school and we're very supportive of Northwest," said Bill Olson, a former Northwest baseball coach who helped organize the fundraising event.
Olson, a member of the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame, coached Northwest teams that won six state baseball titles from 1972 to 1997.
"All we want to do is give kids an opportunity to play and have a chance to learn the game of baseball," he said.
Northwest will also get a scoreboard from Rosenblatt. The City of Omaha donated the inning-by-inning right-field scoreboard to OPS earlier this year, along with Rosenblatt's video board.
OPS officials want to install the video board at Burke High School in time for the 2012 Nebraska state track and field championships in the spring.
Burke's current scoreboard will go to Central High School, which will give its scoreboard to Norris Middle School, 2235 S. 46th St.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1074, jonathon.braden@owh.com
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