-
Ryan McGee
Multiple Authors
OMAHA, Neb. — The Men’s College World Series has always relished its role as one of Earth’s greatest Father’s Day celebrations. This time around it felt a bit greater than usual. Because this time it was the day and game that set the stage for a Monday night winner-take-all national title matchup (7 p.m. ET on ESPN). The college baseball, ahem, Daddy of Them All.
“This is what you play for and work so hard for, to be in this game today and the game tomorrow night,” UNC head coach Scott Forbes said. “If you’re doing things right, over the course of a season you feel like a family. I see them as sons. I hope they feel that. Now we get to experience a championship game together.”
As North Carolina rebounded from a Saturday loss and beat Oklahoma 6-2 to even the best-of-three finals and force a decisive third game, the fathers of that UNC roster were using twice as much energy in the first-base concourse of Charles Schwab Field as their sons were in the dugout and field below. Down the third-base side, their Oklahoma counterparts did the same.
Down in the first base concourse. A lot of the men you see in this pic are the Dads of UNC baseball players. They are pacing their blue butts off as their boys try to close out Game 2. #MCWS pic.twitter.com/9Y5SsSvlyF
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) June 21, 2026
Normally, Father’s Day falls on Omaha’s opening weekend, when vibes are relatively calm and all eight teams are still alive in the bracket. This year, the schedule was pushed a week earlier, and dad’s big day landed on college baseball’s biggest day, when either Oklahoma would clinch the title or UNC would survive. The first last elimination game of the college baseball season. So, dads’ feel-good day was guaranteed to feel good only for half of the parents in attendance.
“I can’t decide if this is the best Father’s Day I’ve ever had or the most stressful,” Joel Johnson said laughing, as he walked back and forth with wife Jill. Their son is Olin Johnson, a Tar Heels reserve righty. “We just pace. All the dads do. See?”
Johnson motioned with his hand to all of the men around him, who were indeed strolling with purpose but also going nowhere, pausing to take in every pitch and then immediately going back to their Carolina blue Pops parade.
Those fathers were easy to spot. Not because they were dressed in blue. Everyone in their half of the ballpark was dressed in blue. They could be ID’d because of the big buttons that were pinned to that blue apparel: PAULSEN 44 OMAHA 2026.
We’re all with you Paulie 🥹
For Father’s Day, all of our Carolina Dads are wearing a 44 button to honor Erik’s late father. pic.twitter.com/j15NSRyq76
— Carolina Baseball (@DiamondHeels) June 21, 2026
It is an Omaha tradition that when teams leave for the ballpark each day, they are greeted by their families as they board their bus. On Sunday morning, when the Diamond Heels hit the Hilton lobby, the UNC dads wore those buttons to support first baseman Erik Paulsen Jr., who was experiencing his first Father’s Day without his father, NYPD officer Erik Sr., who died of cancer on July 4, 2025.
Paulsen knew that his mother, grandmother and siblings would be among those there for the family sendoff. He had no idea about the buttons.
“I saw one of the dads and I was like, ‘Oh man, thank you so much for doing that,'” Paulsen said after Sunday’s game, in which he went 3-for-5 with a double and a run scored, easily his best performance of the series. “Then he said, ‘Look around, Paulie.’ And that’s when I realized that every single one of the dads had a button on. I will never forget that, as long as I live.”
When asked about Paulsen after the win, Forbes had to pause and compose himself.
“Today’s a tough day for a lot of people, and I think it was a tough day for Erik. But it was a little less tough because he knew of [his father’s] presence,” the coach explained. “He knew he was with him, and he knows he has a lot of guys in there that are there for him, and it’s OK to get emotional. It’s OK to have some tears.”
It was reminiscent of the coach’s emotions even before the championship series began, when Forbes was asked about his father, Harvey, who is in Omaha for the ninth time, every time his son has been on a MCWS coaching staff. Forbes also was choked up during Friday’s pre-championship batting practice, talking about the man he has referred to as his second father, former longtime UNC head coach Mike Fox, who coached Forbes at tiny North Carolina Wesleyan and then brought him to Chapel Hill as a longtime assistant coach.
“When I see Scott, I don’t see this 50-something head coach,” Fox said Friday, himself catching a lump in his throat. “I see that kid who played for me at Wesleyan, who weighed nothing, taking these big loopy swings in the cage. It’s like your children. To a parent, they always look like children.”
On the Oklahoma side, coach Skip Johnson is never one to have to wrestle with his tear ducts, but he has always beamed with pride when he talks about his two sons. Tyler Johnson has followed in his father’s coaching cleats as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Dallas Baptist. After the Sooners dominated Saturday night, the elder Johnson was asked about home run-mashing catcher Deiten Lachance and immediately gave credit to his son for the heads-up on the slugger. Lachance played for Tyler at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas, before transferring to Oklahoma.
Lachance hits third in the lineup, just ahead of shortstop Jaxon Willits, who is the son of Reggie Willits, a former Sooners player and former big leaguer, who returned to Norman to become associate head coach. While all of the other dads were pacing in the concourse as they watched their sons, Reggie Willits was in the dugout with his kid, who went 1-for-4 with an RBI.
“It’s just like any parent sitting in the stands and they’re getting to watch their kids experience something they’ve dreamed about, only he’s got a better seat,” Jaxon said Friday, laughing. “We do try to keep everything kind of separate. Coach on the field, dad away from it. It’s not always possible, but we try to do our best.”
Everyone will try to do their best Monday night, when both teams and all those fathers and sons reunite on the field with a national championship on the line. But only after some time spent together and Omaha steaks consumed to close out one of Earth’s greatest Father’s Day celebrations.
“I know people throw around that term ‘family’ a lot when it comes to sports, and maybe people might be like, ‘I don’t know about that, y’all are just a baseball team,'” Johnson added before heading back to the hotel to begin his Game 3 preparation. “But you watch these guys. You watch Scott’s guys. You see our families here supporting us. It’s the truth. And we’re going to need them all Monday night.”
