A water retention pond affectionately dubbed by players as Lake Norm sits next to Baum-Walker Stadium in Fayetteville, where the Razorbacks play ball. It holds largemouth bass and was a factor in Kozeal's recruitment. (Courtesy of Cam Kozeal)
April 10, 2025
By Lynn Burkhead, OSG Senior Digital Editor
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Query most college baseball players, and it’s a good bet that their thoughts concerning centerfield as they stand in the batter’s box typically include the combination of a hard swing, a baseball launched into orbit, and watching it sail over the fence.
Such thoughts are certainly present for University of Arkansas first baseman Cam Kozeal who’s at the top of the Hogs’ stat sheet thanks to 43 hits, 9 doubles, 7 homeruns (including a grand slam), 37 RBIs, and a slugging percentage of .709 as this gets written. Those numbers that not only lead his No. 1 ranked Arkansas Razorbacks, but are also good enough to be No. 3 in individual SEC stats by only a few percentage points. He was named SEC player of the week a few days ago.
But truth be told, Kozeal’s thoughts about what lies beyond the 400-foot-away fence at Baum-Walker Stadium in Fayetteville aren’t always about baseball. Sometimes they are about the big largemouth bass that swim in a water retention pond affectionately dubbed by players as Lake Norm.
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Lake Norm, shown here, was a key reason Kozeal chose Arkansas for his next stop in college baseball. (Courtesy of Cam Kozeal) Name, Image, Likeness For Kozeal, who grew up playing all manner of sports for Millard South High School in Omaha, Nebraska, Lake Norm is an integral part of why he’s at Arkansas and why he’s the recipient of one of the most unique NIL (Name, Image, Likeness–deals that allow college athletes to make money for endorsements, social media posts, appearances, autographs, and other activities using their name, image, or likeness) deals anywhere in America. What’s his NIL deal? It’s a contract with Two Rivers Fly Shop in Norfork, Ark.
Kozeal will likely sign other, bigger contracts in his lifetime since he dreams of making “The Show” someday and playing Major League Baseball. But he’ll remember this contract because his other dreams center around fishing, including that drainage pond not far behind deep center in Fayetteville.
In fact, it’s a key to his time in Fayetteville after Kozeal originally signed to play for Vanderbilt University in Nashville. After a stellar freshman season for the Commodores—Kozeal actually singled in his first collegiate at bat for the 2014 and 2019 NCAA National Champions, along with being named SEC Freshman of the Week early in the 2024 season thanks to his smashing of 14 hits in a single week of play—the Music City wasn’t enough to keep Kozeal from growing restless and wanting to be closer to home so his family could see him play more often.
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“After my freshman year at Vanderbilt, I went into the transfer portal to find another opportunity,” Kozeal said.
And that’s when the University of Arkansas came to the forefront of Kozeal’s mind once again.
"When you're looking for someone to represent you, you want someone that has high character," said shop boss Dru Zametto. "He loves fly fishing and fishing that pond behind the stadium and I think he's a great fit for us." (Courtesy of Cam Kozeal) “The (coaching staff), I was very familiar with them,” he said. “They were a close second when I came out of high school. Arkansas has a lot of great players, mature players, and having good fishing nearby helps.”
Especially when there’s a Lake Norm, named after retired Razorbacks baseball legend Norm DeBriyn who coached Arkansas for 33 years, calling your name from just beyond the fence. In fact, it’s perhaps the only time in NCAA history that a fishing hole served as the primary recruitment factor luring in one of the sport’s best collegiate players.
“Lake Norm actually did help get me to Arkansas,” chuckled Kozeal. “It’s something that is kind of crazy that I look back on. Coach (Nate) Thompson, he sent me a dozen photos of guys catching fish out of that pond. I saw that, and when you send fish photos to a kid who likes to fish, there’s a real emotional pull there.”
Baseball X Fly Fishing Please note, Kozeal’s interest in fishing—and in fly fishing in particular—isn’t just some warm fuzzy anecdote to his playing time at Arkansas. There’s real on-the-field business to attend to as Kozeal and Coach Dave Van Horn's squad try and secure the Hogs first baseball NCAA National Championship (the Razorbacks were runner-up in 1979 and 2018, and have advanced to the College World Series in Omaha 11 times).
But then again, you’re not playing baseball every waking minute during NCAA competition, even in the heart of the season. While weekend showdowns loom with LSU, Tennessee, and Texas, when there are a few hours off, Kozeal is going to be on the water, and Lake Norm is a good place to find him.
“I actually brought a kayak with me to Arkansas,” said Kozeal, who says his biggest fish is a 9-pound largemouth from a Nebraska farm pond. “I paddled around on it and used a long stick because I wanted to get a feel for how deep it was. It’s pretty shallow on one end, but there are two deeper holes on the other end. Two weeks ago, I thought maybe a drone would be good, so I flew the drone over it to get a look.”
That drew a friendly reminder from UA officials that flying a drone around isn’t allowed on the Razorbacks’ campus. Kozeal intended no foul and was only hoping to figure out how to catch a largemouth bigger than the 6.5-pounder he caught there a few months ago. Is there a 10-pounder swimming in his centerfield fishing hole? Kozeal aims to find out.
While his Lake Norm lunker came on a Senko soft plastic bait, Kozeal enjoys using a fly rod the most since first being attracted to the sport many years ago despite living in Nebraska–not exactly a hotbed of fly-fishing opportunities.
Fly Fishing in Nebraska? Since he was a young boy, Cam Kozeal has loved his family, the sports of football and baseball, and fishing. With several great bass waters at his disposal while he was growing up in Omaha, those passions continue to steer Kozeal’s path as he has become a full-fledged college baseball star player at the University of Arkansas. (Courtesy of Cam Kozeal) In fact, his favorite fly-fishing spots are two bass ponds near the family’s Nebraska farmland, as well as at Louisville State Recreation Area in Nebraska . The latter is a beautiful place with five sandpit lakes comprising nearly 50 acres of water, and yes, there’s an irony that one of the nation’s best college baseball players loves to fish at a spot named Louisville.
“That state park is right outside of Omaha, and my dad and I have caught some huge fish there,” Kozeal said.
Known for fly fishing or not, it was in Nebraska that Kozeal’s passion for the sport began, even if there aren’t many fly shops nearby.
“Yeah, there aren’t many, if any fly shops in Nebraska,” Kozeal said, noting that his own personal fly shop is at the home of his grandfather Mick, a serious fly angler who reads Fly Fisherman and ties all of his own flies including for trout, bass, and bluegills.
“I’d say that Nebraska isn’t known for fly fishing, or beautiful streams, or trout,” he added. “But I learned to love the sport on a farm pond where you can fish with a popper and catch 100 bluegills and have the time of your life. There’s also streamers for bass fishing, and in some places in my home state, they do have some cold streams and do stock trout.”
Grandpa Mick While catching great largemouth bass has been a passion for Arkansas baseball star Cam Kozeal, he also loves to fly fish for trout thanks to his Grandpa Mick who ties flies and fueled Cam’s passion for the sport. Now near the top of the SEC hitting charts, the Razorback 1st baseman is discovering just how good the fly fishing is in Arkansas, leading him to sign one of the nation’s most unique NIL stories. (Courtesy of Cam Kozeal) All of that helped develop Kozeal’s interest in the sport. And besides, who needs a fly shop when there’s Grandpa Mick and his fly tying desk and collection of fly rods?
“If I want flies, I’ve got Grandpa Mick to go too, because he ties them up for me,” Kozeal said. “He ties anything and everything and he’s very good at it. We go duck hunting and goose hunting in the fall and get plenty of beautiful feathers off the birds we shoot. It’s pretty cool to get those birds, have my grandpa use those feathers, and then use those flies that he creates to catch fish. It’s the circle of life, I guess.”
While Kozeal—who admits that loving fly fishing and baseball can make the springtime schedule a bit hectic—enjoys catching big bass, he also has a growing love for catching trout on a fly. In fact, just before this story was written, Kozeal had a rare in-season day off the diamond, and he disappeared into the communications blackhole of an Ozarks tailwater trout stream for an afternoon and evening of trying to catch some of the rainbows and browns that the region is famous for.
“That was very fun,” he said. “The river I went too is about an hour away from where I live in Fayetteville. There were just trout everywhere.”
Kozeal was guided to the spot over the phone by legendary Arkansas sportswriter and fly-fishing fanatic Clay Henry, who gave the young baseball star some guidance on where to go, what to look for, and what flies to use.
Kozeal has 43 hits, 9 doubles, 7 homeruns (including a grand slam), 37 RBIs, and a slugging percentage of .709 as of April 8. (Courtesy of Oliver Grigg/University of Arkansas Athletics Department) The Clay Henry Connection If Henry’s name seems familiar to sports fans around the Ozarks region and the beautiful Boston Mountains, it should because he created the Hawgs Illustrated magazine back in 1992. Now semi-retired, the 70-year old writer was convinced to come back part-time as the Features Editor for the Hawgs Sports Network.
As a voter in the annual Heisman Trophy selection process, Henry has been inducted into the Arkansas Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. With a newsman's nose for a good story, Henry has written several pieces about the top-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks baseball squad this season, including the red-hot play of Kozeal and his angling adventures at Lake Norm .
Henry’s real passion for many years though has been fly fishing, an on-the-water love that he shows through his volunteering once a week to work at Two Rivers Fly Shop. Aside from those shop duties, he also loves tying midge patterns for his own personal use, for the fly shop’s bins, and even for local guides who call for a late night sale on his front porch long after and before shop hours.
The veteran sportswriter recently spun the tale about how Kozeal got to Fayetteville, and he pens occasional fly-fishing columns like the incredible tribute he wrote to his late friend and fly-fishing mentor David Knowles .
A fan of any and all things Razorbacks, Henry has met a lot of ballplayers and says that Kozeal is already near the top of that list with a story that is straight out of a movie. Combine Field of Dreams, A River Runs Through It, and The Natural, and you’ve got the idea.
"Cam grew up going to the family corn farm near Kearney, Neb. and his dad built a 'Field of Dreams' in a corn field so that the kids could play wiffle ball on," said Henry. "I've done lots and lots of feature stories down through the years, and you know when you sit down sometimes that the story is going to be a good one and that they are people of high character."
Kozeal's Fly-Fishing NIL Deal Kozeal's NIL deal scored him a complete fly-fishing setup that includes an Orvis Helios fly rod, Simms waders, and much more. (Courtesy of Cam Kozeal) Henry’s part-time fly shop boss and good friend Dru Zametto, apparently agrees and used such thoughts to fuel a NIL deal that is apparently the only one of its kind involving elite level college baseball, a fly shop, and a package of high-end fly rods, reels, lines, waders, wading boots, and apparel.
"He's a really great young man, he's so enthusiastic," said Zametto, the owner of Two Rivers. "We learned that he was a fly fisherman because Clay is all over the Razorback stuff around here. He's been watching Cam and was really excited when he came to Arkansas after playing at Vanderbilt."
Zametto realized through her conversations with her part-time volunteer shop help that there was a chance to strike an unusual NIL deal that would help out her shop sitting just above the region's famed trout water, as well as help out a budding college baseball star who loves to fly fish.
"When you're looking for someone to represent you, you want someone that has high character," said Zametto. "He loves fly fishing and fishing that pond behind the stadium and I think he's a great fit for us. He agreed to the NIL idea enthusiastically and I couldn't have been more thrilled because of his character, his passion about fly fishing, for sporting my shop's merchandise, and the influence he may have on people who will support him and the fly shop.”
While Zametto stressed that no money is being exchanged through this unique NIL contract, Kozeal did get a complete fly-fishing setup that includes an Orvis Helios fly rod , Simms waders , and much more after the contract was inked a couple of weeks ago.
Whatever happens, there's always a stretch of good water somewhere nearby, sometimes only a few yards beyond the centerfield fence. (Courtesy of Oliver Grigg/University of Arkansas Athletics Department) "When the season is over, he'll come and sign some autographs and make an appearance or two," said Zametto. "And I'd bet that he and Clay are going to go fishing a time or two."
And possibly, they’ll do so with a NCAA baseball championship ring on Kozeal's hand, the lofty goal that he and his Razorback teammates are aiming at during a season where they're the best in the land so far.
And either way, there's always fly fishing for Kozeal to turn to in his hometown of Omaha. And in northwestern Arkansas, there's always a stretch of good water somewhere nearby, sometimes only a few yards beyond the centerfield fence.
Listen to a Hog Pond podcast with Kozeal here!
