How the ‘can dam’ at Goss Stadium garnered national attention during Corvallis Super Regional

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Oregon State baseball squad defeated Florida State in a dramatic Super Regional in Corvallis last weekend to advance to their eighth College World Series.

However, it was what was going on in the stands during the three-game series that garnered national attention. 

During all three games of the supers, a beer can wall, affectionally now known as the “can dam” could be seen piling up in the stands behind home plate. 

“We were on a mission. We were trying to keep our mojo alive. Get our Beavers to Omaha, that was the whole goal,” said Matt Bassitt, the creator of the “can dam.”

Bassitt and friends first created the wall during OSU’s first regional game against USC to support the Beavs. What they didn’t realize was that it would receive the support of millions more people.

While it wasn’t noticed on a national level at first, the legendary wall started to pick up steam when college baseball personality Stephen Schoch posted about it on social media. 

“It was a little surreal to see by the time I re-logged in. I think that post had almost two million views which is pretty nuts,” Bassitt said. 

However, one little problem came with all of the attention.

The NCAA caught wind of the shenanigans and in the middle of Game 2 on Saturday tried to shut it down.

But Bassitt had a plan for that.

“We played the rest of our game under protest. If you look back at the later innings of game two, our whole section was drinking waters and we stacked waters. In baseball, you play the game under protest. You may not agree with it, but you move on,” he said. 

That was not the end of the story though, as the Beavs headed into the deciding Game 3.

“A couple hours prior to the game I got a call from Oregon State, asking me to come to the stadium early, which I’m like, ‘Uh oh, am I getting kicked out?’” he said. 

Fortunately, it was quite the opposite.

“They said they talked to the NCAA and they said, ‘You are all in. Go build the dam. Let’s do this, let’s get to Omaha.’ And so, in that moment, we were like, ‘Let’s go.’ We were going to make sure the dam got built one way or the other, but it was way cooler knowing that Oregon State had our backs on it too,” Bassitt said. 

And now the “can dam” has Oregon State’s backs as well, as the idea has been turned into a shirt with a portion of the proceeds going to Oregon State’s NIL collective.

“There’s some cool momentum happening in Beaver Nation to help make sure we’re all doing collectively what we need to do to get us there, and if by golly we’ve got to drink some beer? By golly, I think we will,” Bassitt said.

The natural next question is will Bassitt be bringing his “can dam” to Omaha? The Bend resident says he will be in attendance for the Beavs first game on Friday, but then his schedule won’t permit him to return until Game 3 of the championship series. He says if the Beavers are in that game though, he’ll be there.