This summer, Kenai’s Coral Seymour Memorial Park will once again ring out with the crack of baseball bats and the cheers of crowds as the Peninsula Oilers baseball team returns after taking a summer off. The collegiate summer baseball club celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2024, when it also decided to suspend the 2025 season to sort out finances.
Now, Diana Tice says the team is out of debt and ready for the new season. She’s the team’s executive assistant and has been affiliated with the club for 25 years. Last summer marked only the second time in the club’s history the team didn’t play. The club ended its last in debt to multiple businesses around the central Kenai Peninsula.
“There was no money to fund another season without incurring more debt,” she said.
To get out of the hole, Tice says they started small. First, selling two vehicles. But she says relinquishing their home base is what sealed the deal.
“Basically, the sale of the building was the big catalyst that allows us to bring the Oilers back,” she said.
The Oilers’ office space and bingo hall is a familiar staple of Old Town Kenai – the pale building is adorned with cherry red script, perched near the bluff and filled with memorabilia showcasing the team’s history. A line of Oilers baseball caps lines a shelf above Tice’s desk, along with a collection of rookie cards of former Oilers players who have gone on to play minor or major league baseball.
For now, the sort-of team museum isn’t going anywhere. Even though the building sold – for less than the [WEB: $750,000] list price – the new owner is letting the club keep its administrative space and pull-tab room.
But the building will no longer house visiting teams.
Under a new, one-season agreement with the City of Kenai, visitors will stay in the now-vacant Challenger Learning Center, which closed abruptly last year due to financial hardship. And in the future, Tice says they’ve considered the newly reopened dorms at Kenai Peninsula College.
Dave Dawson says the team’s summer roster is about three-quarters full. He’s the incoming head coach.
“The guys that are really excited about the opportunities are the type of guys that we want on our team, and those are the guys we're trying to get,” Dawson said. “As opposed to just some of the guys that get placed and come up there and they don't really know what to expect.”
Right now, Dawson’s finishing out his season as head coach of the baseball team at Arkansas Tech University. But he’s no stranger to Alaska, or to the Oilers. As a kid, he lived in the Glennallen area with his family. He previously served as an assistant coach for the Oilers. And he spent last summer in Fairbanks with the Goldpanners.
When all is said and done, the Oilers will bring on around two dozen players for the season. Dawson says they’re trying to get the right mix of skill levels. He says the hardest part is getting players from all over the country to bond and play well with people they’ve never met before.
“We're going to play an aggressive style,” he said. “We're going to put pressure on the defense. We're going to play, play a style that I think a lot of the older fans are more familiar with. We're not going to just sit there and try to hit home runs and strike out a lot. We're going to try to put pressure on the defense and play a hard-nosed style of baseball.”
Dawson says he’s anticipating a few challenges this season. One of those is the team’s scheduling – they’ll play longer road trips and more consecutive games than the rest of the league. But he says that’s how his players like it.
For now, Tice, the team’s executive assistant, says the Oilers are ramping up for their return and trying to plan for the future.
The club is still looking for billet families to host players this season. She’s planning more fundraisers as revenue shifts away from gaming. And they’re working with the City of Kenai to possibly rezone the field to allow them to possibly host things like vendor markets and concerts. For the Oilers, she says the stakes are existential.
“This has to start paying for itself,” she said. “That’s the reality.”
For players and attendees alike, Tice and Dawson say the fun of summer baseball in Alaska isn’t a hard sell.
“If you've never been to our ballpark, just show up and cheer for the home team,” Tice said. “Enjoy a hot dog and a cold beer and hopefully it's not too windy.”
For his part, Dawson says he wants to win.
“I want to win a championship,” he said. “I want to bring good baseball back to the area and get the fans excited and, you know, pack it out and just have a great summer.”
The Oilers’ 2026 home opener is Wednesday, June 10 at 6:30 p.m.
