Bleachers' Brew #98 His Field of Dreams

(This appears in the Monday March 10, 2008 edition of the Business Mirror.)

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 funnies 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 1983 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 longtime 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 2 hours and 45 minutes of them). With Stock as an assistant coach that 1989-90 season, the Tigers won their 19^th 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 20^th 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 pre-game 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 afterwards as the school quietly closed down.

Kent Stock is now the Principal for Oak Ridge School in Marion, Iowa.

The Norway Tigers’ glorious final season in 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 to Staci Griesbach of Sony Pictures for facilitating it.