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‘The Final Season’ coach: Build relationships
by Gregory R. Norfleet · Sports · August 17, 2017


Sean Astin stars as a 30-year-old Kent Stock in The Final Season movie, and the real state-championship-winning coach last week encouraged West Branch coaches to focus on relationships with their players.


In a talk entitled, “How do you want to be remembered?” the the 56-year-old on Aug. 8 told coaches he did not mean they should establish friendships, but he wanted them to get to know the players as people, and to encourage them.

“I see a lot of, ‘It’s all about me,’ kind of coaches,” Stock said. “I was like that.”

He stressed early in his talk that after 23 years in education, 16 years as a principal and 14 years as an athletic director, “I’m not an expert.”

Stock said he remembers coaching a volleyball team to a state championship title in front of 4,000 people in the Five Seasons Center.

“It was the highest of highs,” he said. “Then a mother came up and laid into me because her daughter did not play that much.”

Stock had aspired to play professional baseball, but that did not work out and he took it hard. But after prodding from his mother, he entered teaching and coaching.

“My parents never once tried to squelch my dreams,” he said. “But they did tell me to have a backup plan.”

While scouting the opposition for his Belle Plaine volleyball team, he met Norway Head Baseball Coach Jim Van Scoyoc. Van Scoyoc is a three-time state coach of the year winner, and also won a national coach of the year award.

That, and a three-hour conversation at Pizza Hut, led Van Scoyoc to hire Stock as his coaching assistant.

Van Scoyoc emphasized relationships, Stock said, and taught him how to do that.

“Don’t put athletes on a pedestal,” he said. “Let every kid think they’re the teacher’s pet. It does amazing things.”

But Norway was on a path to merge with Benton Community High School, and Van Scoyoc, who opposed the merger, left for an opportunity to coach pitchers for the Detroit Tigers’ minor-league team. Stock took over for that final season and helped lead the team to its 20th state championship.

Stock said he has been watching coaches since third grade, and called attention to West Branch Head Boys Basketball Coach Tom Burger and Head Football Coach Butch Pedersen, saying they served as examples to him when he crossed paths with them over his career.

“They’re my role models,” he said. “They were my mentors from afar.”

He also pointed out West Branch High School Marching Band Director Jack Frank, noting that he had served as his middle school principal in Marion.

The Ankeny native said he was a fan of St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Bob Gibson and one day hoped to play shortstop for the team. He once wrote fan mail to Gibson, who responded. That motivates him to respond to each piece of fan mail he receives, he said.

He told a story of once signing the cover of at DVD of The Final Season, which had been mailed to him. The woman sent him a follow-up email, saying she had been suffering from bone cancer but did not want to mentioned it prior to making her request.

“She wrote, ‘You have no idea what this means to me to get such a gracious response. Without knowing it, you showed me respect and honor,’” Stock said, adding that the e-mail brought tears to his eyes.

He now works at a bank that allows him the freedom to come and go for his 40 speaking engagements each year, which he has been doing for the past nine years. He said he gets asked about five times a week whether he misses coaching.

“That’s my new coaching job,” he said of motivational speaking.