OMAHA - Brian O'Connor's past is off-limits during this homecoming.

No questions about the Virginia baseball coach's childhood across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Nothing about his playing career at Creighton, which included a trip to the 1991 College World Series.

He wants the Cavaliers' debut here - which begins tonight against LSU and his old boss at Notre Dame, Paul Mainieri - to be all about them.

"He's made the point that he's here for the team. This isn't about him," Cavaliers freshman pitcher Danny Hultzen said.

Hultzen, who looks like he'd get carded while buying a ticket to an R-rated movie, will start against the Tigers tonight. And if you think the CWS regulars and five-time national champions will eat the kid up, consider that the lefty who turned down a pro contract after being drafted in the 10th round a year ago is 9-1 with a 2.09 earned-run average.

He's also typical of the types on a roster that includes just four juniors and two seniors. O'Connor's club may be youthful, but it's tough beyond its years. The Cavs won the UC Irvine regional, beating the host and top-ranked Anteaters twice, then twice staved off elimination in their super regional at Mississippi to reach Omaha for the first time.

"Some people might say, 'Coach, is this the reward for all of the hard work?'" said O'Connor, who had watched his first five Virginia teams have their seasons end in NCAA regionals. "The reward has been throughout these first six years. You are not just rewarded for taking a team to Omaha. I am just as proud of the five previous teams that we have had here as this team. It just so happens that this club had the right chemistry, the right makeup, the right talent."

For Cavaliers fans that watched the football and men's basketball teams have their first losing seasons since 1976-77, it couldn't have happened at a better time.

And to think, in 2001 Virginia hired an outside consulting firm to get input on restructuring the school's nonrevenue-producing sports. The recommendation on baseball was to consider making it nonscholarship, which essentially would have made it a club activity. Instead, the school went the opposite direction and built a new stadium.

One year after it opened, O'Connor arrived after serving nine seasons as Mainieri's pitching coach and recruiting coordinator.

"I had numerous conversations with the athletic director that they were committed to it. Once I knew that, I really felt like it was a gold mine," O'Connor said. "It's not LSU, because we don't get 10,000 people to games and we haven't won national championships. But to be a first-time coach at an ACC school, the No. 1 public education in the country, great high school baseball in the state - all those ingredients for your first head-coaching job were a dream.

"I thought it was one of those sleeping giants."

Which leads to one of those hometown stories that O'Connor sheepishly allows himself to tell.

Near the main entrance to Rosenblatt Stadium stands the signature, bronzed "Road To Omaha" stature featuring four players in celebration. The one furthest right has a facial expression that was inspired by a photo the statue's sculptor borrowed from a close friend - O'Connor's father. The photo was a picture of O'Connor in a Creighton uniform.

So, it's possible there also was some magic working in O'Connor's sleeping giant.

"It is what it is," he said. "I just know our players are going to be ready to play."

Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.