So that's why we have a baseball team

There may have been some people scratching their heads when the folks at Western Nevada Community College began talking a few years ago about starting a baseball team.

Will anyone really care about a junior college baseball team? Won't it be a glorified high school team? How can it possibly benefit the college?

But every success story needs its naysayers. And the WNCC Wildcats are an astonishing success. The celebration in the team's honor today is well-deserved and we hope many people show up to celebrate with them. Even if the Wildcats hadn't won their first two games in the junior college world series before succumbing to two perennially powerful schools, their success would have been remarkable.

The improbable run in only the Wildcats second year earned the team many fans who previously hadn't paid much attention to baseball or the college. And a winning team draws plenty of attention to a school even outside the boundaries of the city where it's located. It's a little like the branding process we've heard so much about recently in Northern Nevada. In this case, that brand is, "we're winners," and that extends beyond the baseball team to the college as a whole.

And don't forget that it comes at a bargain price as the team gets no funding from the state's general fund. Costs such as travel expenses and coaches' salaries must be raised from private donations.

But above all we should celebrate that this is a very good team (some of its players may end up in the Major Leagues) and it's largely made up of players from Nevada.

Way to go Wildcats!