OMAHA, Neb. — Dressed in a lightweight hoodie and an Ole Miss ball cap, one of college baseball’s biggest legends looked like a tourist this week as he traversed through the empty seats of Charles Schwab Field Omaha and took pictures.

Eddy Furniss started at the first-base line during Mississippi’s batting practice, worked his way through the center, then the left field seats, snapping and videotaping.

“Isn’t this fun?” he said.

“I don’t have any pictures of me in the College World Series. I just don’t. If you try to find film of me, I mean … it’s not on YouTube.”

Furniss doesn’t really care about that; it’s more of a statement of how quickly time flies by, and how cellphones can make a person feel old. It has been 30 years since Furniss won his first national championship for LSU at the Men’s College World Series, and now his son, Will, is in Omaha trying to do the same for Mississippi.

So, Eddy wants to remember everything.

Will is a first baseman, just like his dad was, and he’ll try to help keep the Rebels’ championship hopes alive today in an elimination against Troy (2 p.m. ET on ESPN). He’s a senior, and this is his first and last shot. The younger Furniss came to Oxford a year after Ole Miss won the national championship in 2022, playing for two squads that didn’t make the NCAA tournament at all and another that fell short in NCAA regionals last year.

But last week against Auburn, Furniss hit a go-ahead eighth-inning homer that broke a 2-2 tie to put Ole Miss in the Men’s College World Series. His dad proudly retweeted a video of the blast, among other Rebels MCWS posts.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s more happy to be here 1781468686 than he was as a player,” Will said. “At least that’s what it seems like to me. And I’m going to be the same way with hopefully my kid.”

Will has been to Omaha before, as a 13-year-old in 2017. His dad took him to the zoo, and they stood on the old grounds of Rosenblatt Stadium, where Eddy won two national championships with LSU in 1996 and ’97.

After, father and son drove two miles to the north and sat in the seats of the new stadium.

“It seemed a lot bigger then,” Will said. “As a little kid you think it’s like the Burj Khalifa.”

Will has watched old VHS tapes of his dad in Omaha — yes, the proof does exist. In the limited video he could find, he studied his dad’s swing.

The 1996 MCWS, Eddy said, was the first time he played with cameras in his face, and though it was distracting, it didn’t seem to affect him as he went on to have a legendary career. He would go on to become just the second LSU baseball player to have his number retired, and he still holds the SEC career record in home runs (80), RBIs (308) and doubles (87).

He was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the fourth round of 1998 MLB draft, and he spent five seasons in the minor leagues. He promised himself that if he couldn’t advance to the next level after two seasons, he wouldn’t go back.

Eddy went on to take his MCATs, went to medical school and became a doctor. Wilburn Edward Furniss II — Eddy is Wilburn Edward Furniss III — was one of the founding physicians of Nacogdoches Medical Center in Eastern Texas. He was a big baseball fan, and he built a batting cage for his son on their ranch when Eddy was about 5. He would hit between two to four buckets of baseballs a day until he went to college.

“I wanted to be a doctor like my dad,” Eddy said. “That’s all I wanted to do. And I just happened to be good at baseball. [But] it wasn’t my life. I didn’t eat, sleep, breathe it.”

Today, Eddy is a primary care family physician in Nacogdoches, and he said he does just about everything except deliver babies.

His dad also built Will his own batting cage in a horse barn, albeit much fancier than Eddy’s, with air conditioning. Will affectionately called his grandfather G-Daddy. He died in 2020.

“He lived his life to his fullest and he enjoyed every second of it,” Will said. “And he gets to watch this game from the best seat in the house.”

Will said he and his dad are very close. His teammates laugh about the time when there was an ice storm and Eddy wanted to communicate with his son via walkie-talkie in case things got dicey.

Eddy was more hands-off when it came to baseball. He said he never pressured his son to play, and he told Will it was going to be hard.

“I’m not going to make you do it,” Eddy said to Will. “I want you to want to do it.”

On Thursday, it was obvious that Eddy was glad his son did. Nearly every time Will took his swings, Eddy either beamed or took a picture. In many ways, it was familiar — the leg kick, hand action, and approach. They’re both lefties. And despite hitting that game winner in supers, Will doesn’t necessarily try to hit home runs, and neither did Eddy.

They figure that Will is more of a product of nature than nurture.

After Ole Miss won the Auburn super regional, Rebels coach Mike Bianco, who was an assistant at LSU during the ’96 and ’97 championships, took a photo with Eddy and Will. Eddy reminded him it had been three decades since they won the championship in 1996.

Bianco sent the picture to former LSU skipper Skip Bertman.

“Parents have those moments,” Bianco said, “but when you’re a guy like Eddy Furniss, it’s really neat for somebody to step away from being the star and all the accolades — and just be a proud dad.”

On Thursday, after batting practice, father and son planned to meet for lunch. Eddy has plenty of experience with what lies ahead, but he didn’t want to overwhelm him with advice.

“You know what?” he said. “I’ll just say, ‘Enjoy it, man. It’s so, so fun. It’s so cool. Soak it in.'”