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Iowa 1990-91
Some of
us yearn for a simpler and more innocent time. When
things seemed to fit right into a Norman Rockwell
painting. When comic books were still referred to as
funniest and kids pulled them off the racks inside
general merchandise stores with Lucky Strike signs in
the background. When right was might and not the other
way around. When baseball evoked poets and where one
lived out their dreams and its gods held people’s
imaginations longer than the flight of mammoth home runs
to stands.
And it
was in small town
America
where one’s field of dreams was first nurtured.
Kent
Stock grew up in
Ankeny, Iowa,
and when you talked about high-school baseball in the
Hawkeye State, you began and ended the stories with the
team from the small town of Norway which was 20 miles
away. The Norway Tigers won 18 state championships in 23
years and routinely beat schools several times the size
of its school’s measly student population of a hundred.
Norway
is a small farming community with a population of 586
people. Kids hung out at the convenience store where
they drank sodas and whiled the time away talking. It’s
a place where everyone literally knows everybody.
The town
wasn’t known for producing corn but baseball players.
Mike Boddicker, who was a pitcher on Earl Weaver’s 1984
World Series Champion Baltimore Orioles team, learned
the rudiments of the game from Norway’s legendary coach
Jim Van Scoyoc, just as generation after generation of
Norway boys did. Norway primarily played two
sports—baseball and basketball. They took to the diamond
during spring, summer and fall, and played hoops during
the winter to keep in shape. “We played sandlot games
all the time,” recounted Boddicker. “You learned in a
hurry to field a groundball and hit a baseball.”
The
baseball team was their pride and joy. It was the big
show. No, it was the only show.
“I
always wanted my parents to move from Belle Plaine to
Norway, where they played ball during the spring, summer
and fall,” remembered Stock. “I always admired [Tigers
coach] Jim Van Scoyoc for all his accomplishments,
including National Coach of the Year and their stellar
win-loss record.”
Stock’s
family never did move and so went his dream of playing
for the Tigers. After college, he went back to Belle
Plain after to teach. But he never outgrew his passion
for sports and when the opportunity to coach the girls’
volleyball team presented itself (since the baseball
team already had a coach), he grabbed it without
hesitation. Little did the young and impressionistic
teacher know back then that volleyball stint would be
his opening to fulfilling a lifelong dream of
associating himself with
Norway baseball.
“The
first time I met Jim Van Scoyoc I was scouting a
volleyball game he was at,” recalled Stock about the
chance encounter. “I positioned myself close to him and
finally mustered enough guts to introduce myself. In our
conversation, he stated his long-time assistant coach
[for the baseball team] had resigned and he was looking
for a replacement. I asked him if he would accept an
application from a guy from Belle Plaine. He told me to
send an application to his athletic director. I asked
who that may be and he said, ‘Jim Van Scoyoc!’ I mailed
it the next day. Two nights later, Norway beat my Belle
Plaine team in a district volleyball match. Not only
was I disappointed in losing the match, I was convinced
Jim Van Scoyoc wouldn’t hire a losing coach.”
But Van
Scoyoc did (after a three-hour interview, where the
coach spoke for two hours and 45 minutes of them). With
Stock as an assistant coach that 1989-90 season, the
Tigers won their 19th State title but any celebration
had to be tempered by the fact that the small town’s
high school was going to merge with nearby Benton
Community.
Norway’s
townsfolk tried to lobby to maintain the status quo but
their high school was simply too small to remain as an
independent district. With the writing on the wall and
their dynasty all but over, Van Scoyoc accepted a job as
a pitching coach in the Detroit Tigers’ farm system.
Upon Van
Scoyoc’s recommendation (and the fact that there was no
one interested in a one-year coaching job), the Norway
School board appointed Stock as the team’s final coach.
Despite not being a native, the players and the town
quickly embraced Stock with open arms.
“Once I
committed to becoming the head coach at Norway,” said
Stock to this writer, “I realized this wasn’t just any
high-school baseball coaching position. Ken Fuson, a
reporter from the Des Moines Register, contacted me and
wanted to hang out with the team and do a feature
article of our last season. He not only attended our
practices, but he was at most of our games. There I
was, a 29-year-old head coach of a team that had won 19
state championships in 24 years. I had the pressure of
this being their final season, and now I had a Des
Moines Register reporter in my back pocket following and
recording my every move. Ken and I became friends and
he turned out a great four-page spread on the town of
Norway
and the history of the baseball program. Being the head
coach was more than just coaching the team, but dealing
with all the outside distractions that could easily take
away from my main goal—winning Norway’s 20th state
championship.”
The
opposition quickly found out that despite the loss of
its seniors and the fact that it was the Tigers’ final
season, they had found new impact players and were far
from demoralized. The turning point for Norway was its
game versus Cedar Rapids Jefferson.
Jefferson was ranked first in the largest class, yet
Norway
beat them, 1-0, and they entered the state tournament
playoffs brimming with confidence.
The
pregame talk locker room had none of those cheesy
speeches. Said Stock, “I can still remember sitting in
the locker room before the state championship game. The
locker room was very quiet. There was no pep talk that
I could give that would describe how big this game was
and the importance of going out as champions. I told
the team….Everyone who has ever worn a Norway Jersey is
with you today. Let’s win this for them and the great
town of Norway!”
Norway
beat South Clay Gillett grove, 7-4, for their 20th state
title in a 32-12 season closing on of amateur baseball’s
most incredible stories.
There
was no big celebration afterward as the school quietly
closed down.
(Kent
Stock is now the principal at Oak Ridge School in
Marion, Iowa. The Norway Tigers’ glorious final season
is chronicled in the movie The Final Season, starring
Sean Astin, Powers Boothe, Rachael Leigh Cook and Tom
Arnold. Thanks to coach Kent Stock for the exclusive
interview and Staci Griesbach of Sony Pictures for
facilitating it.) |
