Written By: Andy Chaves
Jeff, Katie, and I each have a creative streak for storytelling and a nerd streak for video production. But of all the stories to tell and all the nerdy storytellers out there to tell them, how did all the stars in the universe line up for the three of us to come together and produce the story of the 1986-87 Omaha Lancers? Well, it started with lunch.
Actually, that’s a lie. It started many years before that, at Time Warner Cable in Lincoln, Nebraska. Jeff and I began working together there in 2006 and Katie joined the party in 2011. We’ve worked on countless video projects together under the guidance of our mentor and fearless leader, Jamie Wenz. We produced stories about Huskers, high school, and professional sports, in addition to lifestyles features, promotions, internal communication projects, and ad campaigns, just to very-generally name a few. We don’t need to go over all the projects we did there, but let’s just say we were quite the team that complemented each other very well. All good things must come to an end though, and the three of us no longer work together in a full-time setting.
So, about that lunch.
By 2014 Katie was working in Kansas City. One day that summer Katie was coming up to Lincoln/Omaha to work on a Storm Chasers live broadcast for TWC, and the three of us decided to meet up for lunch at the Shen Café in Lincoln, just like old times. Jeff and I arrived first—Katie never arrives first—and in that time we got to talking about the 30 for 30 that was on ESPN the night before. It was certainly an interesting story—as they all are—but we both felt that the production fell short in telling that story. We went back and forth about what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we both would’ve done differently.
Then, Jeff said it: “Andy, we can do this.” The seed was planted. All we needed was a story.
Nebraska is littered with great sport stories. Husker football is the obvious one, but also the College World Series, the historic Ak-Sar-Ben horse track, and legendary athletes like "Wahoo Sam" Crawford, Bob Gibson, and Gale Sayers, just to name a few. But we’ve all heard of those and in the video production world if you’re going to tell a story, tell a story that hasn’t been told yet.
Being a hockey fan, I instantly thought of the Omaha Lancers and their trying first season: 0 wins, 48 losses. Theirs is a story that hasn’t been told. Jeff loved it. Katie showed up for lunch a little while later and she loved it. The three of us instantly began discussing angles and ideas based on what we already knew and what we thought would be interesting to our audience. We knew we had a compelling story on our hands, but at the time we didn’t know just how compelling it would be.
We knew it would be a challenge. We each have children, spouses, and full time jobs—obviously these are our priorities—and in the time we started on this journey, we have each bought new houses and each added a child to our respective families! But this is a story we want to tell and a story that we believe people need to hear. It is the very definition of a passion project for us.
It has taken longer than we anticipated however. We each have our priorities, but we decided as a team four years ago to pursue this project, and we will continue to do so.
This is an amazing story and we are extremely thankful for all the cooperation from all the people we have spoken to along the way. We thank them for putting their trust in us to share their story with the world and we can’t wait to complete this project!