Before Oklahoma ruled the WCWS, Omaha wore softball's crown - ESPN

The Oklahoma Sooners are back in Oklahoma City this week for the Women's College World Series and a possible four-peat. Around 13,000 fans will pack Devon Park. Social media will be buzzing about Jayda Coleman's wall-crashing catches and coach Patty Gasso's dugout maneuvers. It wasn't always this way. In 1975, the year the Sooners' program was born, Oklahoma was eliminated after just two games in front of a smattering of observers at a place called Dill Field in Omaha. There was no NIL or tailgating; the '75 national champions celebrated at a local pizza parlor and drank beer afterward on their own dime. Five decades later, the WCWS has morphed into a nationally televised event that draws 2 million viewers for the finals and showcases some of the best women's athletes in the country. This is the story of coach Connie Claussen and the 1975 Women's College World Series champions, the University of Nebraska at Omaha Maverettes.

IN THE 1970s they made championship trophies obnoxiously big, which is why Connie Claussen looks as if she's levitating near a skyscraper as her players hoisted her on their shoulders. It was 1975, and the University of Nebraska at Omaha had just won its first and only Women's College World Series, and they did it just a few miles away from campus.

Claussen, a curly-haired young coach with horn-rimmed glasses, extracted herself from the celebration shortly after this black-and-white photo was snapped. She had to call in the score to the local newspaper and TV stations.

An un-bylined story in the Omaha World-Herald the next day carried a headline that said UNO won the «Gals' CWS» title.

Claussen had begged so hard for media coverage for the fledgling event. In a to-hell-with-it moment a year later,