OU softball embraces the 'all over' chaos as rock stars at Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic

CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. — As OU softball coach Patty Gasso finished meeting with her team following Saturday’s win over San Diego State at the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, Toby Baldwin readied the crowd.

“We’re going to sign for 20 minutes,” the OU Executive Associate Athletic Director told the masses, mostly of young softball players, waiting for a chance to interact with the Sooners.

Back in Norman, OU softball players are hometown heroes. Here, 1,200 miles away from Love’s Field, they are rock stars who swoop in for a weekend run before heading on to the next tour stop.

“It’s a little bit of anxiety because it’s just all over,” Gasso said. “It’s just chaos. It feels chaotic. You can’t control it. We have some people that are kind of walking around as security sort of, but there are just a lot of Sooners fan everywhere.”

For much of the 20 minutes, Gasso stayed tucked out of view of the horde, staying in the tent to talk to her assistants and support staff.

But finally, with a few minutes remaining, Gasso stepped out to sign a few autograph.

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“Gasso, Gasso, Gasso,” the group chanted.

Soon, the team was pulled away from the rope barrier to ready for the walk out.

A security guard got the team’s attention.

“Once we start walking, do not stop,” the guard said. “If you see your family, wave and keep moving. Walk and talk. Do. Not. Stop.”

In a lot of ways, the Mary Nutter is like a big youth softball tournament.

Teams mingle with family and friends between games, and pitchers and catchers navigate through fans beyond the outfield wall to get to their bullpen. Fans bring their folding chairs and scout out spots beyond the dugouts or behind the outfield fence. Dogs, big and small, hang out along the berms and in the outfield.

It’s different for two teams — UCLA and OU.

“It just shows the Sooner faithful, how much we travel and for our die-hard fans, how far they come to come see us,” Tiare Jennings said. “Then again, the little girls in every state, how they come to watch us. I think that’s who we do it for. We try to make a difference and use our platform to do something good for all those little girls who are watching.”

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And plenty of the fans at the park are Sooners fans.

The group that’s made their way to the Palm Springs area for the event continues to grow.

Saturday night after the Sooners’ win, a good number of them went to the nearby Westin Resort in Rancho Mirage for a gathering of the Trophy Club, OU’s softball booster group.

“There’s no other team that gets to stay at a place like this than our team, because of you,” Baldwin told the crowd. “Because of the Trophy Club and what we do with the Trophy Club, we get to do this stuff.

“There’s no program in the United States that gets treated like the University of Oklahoma and we do that because of you.”

Chris Leventis has lived in the San Diego area for about 40 years, moving to Southern California after finishing up at OU, where he served as Sooners’ basketball mascot Top Daug in 1984.

Leventis and his wife, Teri Sowul, have been coming to the Mary Nutter for nearly a decade.

Friday, they were decked out in OU gear as they arrived early to grab a spot.

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While there are reserved chair-back seats behind the plate at the fields, the rest is general admission.

All of the Sooners’ games were played on “Wrigley Field” — complete with a wall plastered with posters of  Wrigley-like bleachers and rooftops.

The field has several sets of portable bleachers down the left-field line and nine more in the outfield.

The other four fields in the complex have less seating.

But the crush of OU fans and others wanting to see the Sooners keeps OU playing on the primary field.

While many of the teams rotate which fields they play on, OU and UCLA were the only two teams to play all of their games on Wrigley Field this season.

“It’s always been big, they’ve always been popular,” Sowul said, noting, though, that it’s surged in recent years as OU has won back-to-back-to-back Women’s College World Series titles.

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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU softball gets rock-star treatment at Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic