Translator: Dan Meyer Reviewer: Ludovica Harley
I was blessed to have a movie made about my life titled "The Final Season."
Many of you have probably seen "The Final Season,"
but for those of you that haven't,
I'll be selling DVDs out of my truck in the parking lot.
(Laughter)
Yeah, I was lucky to have a great man, Sean Astin, play me in the movie.
Many of you know Sean.
He was Mikey in "The Goonies."
He was Samwise Gamgee in "Lord of the Rings."
But probably the movie that he's most famous for,
he was Rudy, he played Rudy.
When we filmed the movie in 2006, Sean was in town for six weeks.
Whenever we'd show up at a restaurant, he and I hanging out,
or, you know, show up on the movie set,
people out of the blue just start chanting,
"Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!"
So I often wonder if Sean shows up at a restaurant now,
if people start chanting, "Kent! Kent!"
(Laughter)
Doesn't have the same ring to it at all.
But, you know, I get asked all the time,
"How does a guy from Ankeny, Iowa, have a movie made about his life?"
I wish I could answer that question just like Sean did when he was playing Rudy.
He was in the tunnel, in uniform,
getting ready to take the Notre Dame field for the very first time.
The groundskeeper looks at him, and he said,
"Hey Rudy, are you ready for this, champ?"
He said, "I've been ready for this my whole life."
I wasn't ready to have a movie made about my life.
I was a kid in Ankeny, Iowa, who had a passion and a love.
That love was baseball.
My path in life was set;
I was going to be a professional baseball player
for the St. Louis Cardinals.
My mom and dad never once squelched that dream.
They never once said,
"Kent, you can't be a professional baseball player."
But what they did tell me is they said,
"Kent, you need to have an alternative plan."
That alternative plan has kicked in more times in my life.
My mom tells the story - when I was a baby,
she'd get me up from a nap, put me on the floor,
she said I always reached out and grabbed a ball,
and I'd roll it to her.
So my mom tells me, she said,
"Kent, when you're out there speaking,
you make sure you tell people I played catch with you first.
It wasn't your dad."
But it was my dad who was that first Little League coach.
My mom and dad supported that love.
They allowed me to chase that dream.
Well, going through elementary, junior high and high school,
I used to get very nervous around parent-teacher conference time.
I maybe focused too much on baseball and sports.
You know, I was the kid who loved recess.
I loved P.E.
I remember in fourth grade, one time,
my mom and dad get home from parent-teacher conferences,
and I'm waiting for them as they get home.
I said, "Mom, Dad, what did my teacher have to say about me?"
My dad looked at me, he says,
"Well son, your teacher said it might be a good idea
if you do a book report on something other than baseball."
(Laughter)
I became a teacher later in life.
I became a principal of a kindergarten through eighth grade building,
and I would tell my teachers every year,
I said, "Every one of you are going to have a Kent Stock in your classroom.
You're going to have a kid who has a passion
for one thing, and one thing only.
But you know what?
They're going to do 100 book reports over band, choir, computers, science,
100 book reports over one subject.
But you know what?
They're reading.
Eventually they'll diversify."
I know, I think in fifth grade I did a book report on football.
I did diversify a little bit.
But I kept chasing that dream to be a pro baseball player.
I get to my senior year in high school,
and I wasn't drafted to play professional baseball.
I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
I didn't focus on that alternative plan.
But that summer I received a call
from a baseball coach from Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa.
He called and he said,
"Kent, we've been watching you play baseball this summer."
He said, "I'd like to offer you a scholarship.
I'll give you $200 a year to play baseball at Waldorf."
I thought I was rich!
Two hundred dollars a year? And it was a junior college.
That kept my hope alive.
I'll go there for two years,
then I'll get drafted and play professional baseball.
Well, at the end of those two years, it was a given.
I wasn't drafted.
I wasn't going to be a professional baseball player.
And for the first time in my life I made a decision,
an educationally sound decision:
I'm going to transfer to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa,
to become a teacher and a coach.
Every mentor to me in my life, other than my parents,
were my teachers, they were my coaches.
So I thought, "There's no better way for me to pay them back
than to become a teacher and a coach myself."
Well, I transferred to Luther College,
and they didn't offer athletic scholarships.
And I transferred there not with the best attitude.
I transferred there
because my friends went there.
And that summer I transferred with that bad attitude
because, number one,
I'd lost my dream of being a pro baseball player;
and number two,
I'd lost my dad's best friend who was like a second dad to me.
He died of cancer.
So not the best attitude as I transferred to Luther College.
I made a lot of poor choices that first semester,
made a lot of bad decisions.
At the end of that semester, on Christmas break,
I'm home with mom and dad.
My mom gets a letter in the mail from Luther College.
To use a Rudy phrase,
my mom is five foot nothing, a hundred and nothing.
She grabs me by the arm,
and she sits me on the couch next to her,
and she starts pointing.
She said, "Kent, you have lost everything that you've ever loved.
You are academically ineligible to play baseball at Luther College."
I sat there, and I said to my mom, I said,
"I'm a failure.
I am so sorry."
But it was the next words out of her mouth
that were probably the most important words
that have ever been said to me.
She said, "Kent, you have a decision to make.
You can move back home with dad and me, and we'll help you find a job,
and that's okay.
Or you can get your butt back to Luther
and get your grades up
to become a teacher
and a coach."
And I would love to tell you
that I went back to Luther and graduated summa cum laude.
I did not.
But I did get my grades up
so that I could become a teacher and a coach.
I followed my passion,
I followed my love of baseball,
and it afforded me the opportunity to receive a college education.
Well, I needed that first job.
1985, graduated from Luther.
I needed to find that first teaching and coaching job.
I go to Belle Plaine, Iowa,
Belle Plaine High School,
to interview for the teaching position.
And I wanted to be a baseball coach.
I go through the interview.
At the end the superintendent says,
"Kent, I'd like to ask you some coaching questions."
I thought, "I'm going to nail this part of the interview."
We get done, and he said, "Kent, we'll call you in two days."
Two days later I'm back with mom and dad.
I get the call.
"Kent, how would you like to be our high school business education teacher?
And we also have some coaching.
How would you like to be our junior high girls volleyball coach?"
You talk about the door being slammed shut.
I wanted to be a baseball coach.
But I thought "You know, if I'm going to be -"
I had my mom and dad in the background saying,
"Take the job!
Move out of the house. You need to start making some money!"
So off I go.
I knew nothing about junior high volleyball.
I knew nothing about junior high girls.
But I thought,
"If I'm going to be a junior high volleyball coach,
I want to be the best that I can possibly be."
I went out and went to camps and clinics,
read books, watched videos,
reached out to the community of volleyball coaches in the state of Iowa.
They were more than happy to help out the new guy.
I had the most wonderful year as a junior high girls volleyball coach.
I didn't know that you go out for a sport just to be with your friends.
I didn't know that you do cheers in practice.
But it was a wonderful year
because I built a relationship with every kid on that team.
Well, at the end of the season, the superintendent says,
"Kent, I know you want to be the varsity baseball coach.
But I can't just fire him because you want the job.
I have another opportunity.
The varsity volleyball coach just resigned.
Would you take that position?"
I said, "Absolutely. I'd love to."
Being a mentor to high school boys,
high school girls, junior high boys and girls,
either way, it was fulfilling my passion of being a mentor and a role model.
Well, it was crazy, that year coaching volleyball.
Thirteen years I spent as a varsity girls volleyball.
We started to get pretty good.
We were ranked in the Top 10.
And in fall of '89,
we had a big match coming up against Norway Tigers volleyball team.
And so I thought,
being that great young coach that I thought I was,
I'm going to Norway High School and I'm going to watch that match,
get a scouting report,
and then, you know,
that'll give us the best chance to beat Norway.
I walked into the gym in Norway, Iowa,
and I started heading up the bleachers.
As I saw in the corner, I saw a man.
I knew who that man was.
It was a legendary baseball coach at Norway High School,
Jim Van Scoyoc.
A town of 586 people,
they had three former major league baseball players:
Hal Trotsky, Bruce Kim, Mike Boddicker.
I knew who he was.
I walk up the bleachers,
and I sit about from here to that speaker away.
As the volleyball match went on, I started sliding closer and -
He probably thought I was stalking him or something.
But I finally, with my stomach tied in knots,
my hands all sweaty, I reached out and I said,
"Coach Van Scoyoc, I'm Kent Stock from Belle Plaine."
We ended up talking that entire night - people we knew in common, baseball.
And during that conversation, he said,
his longtime assistant coach had just resigned.
He was looking for a new assistant coach.
Hmm ...
Finally with my hands all sweaty and so nervous, I reached out and I said,
"Coach Van Scoyoc,
would you ever accept an application from a guy from Belle Plaine?"
He said, "Absolutely!"
Powers Boothe plays him to a tee.
"Absolutely. Send a letter to my Athletic Director."
And I said, "Well, who's your Athletic Director?"
He goes, "Me, Jim Van Scoyoc."
(Laughter)
So I immediately went home that night,
sent off a letter of application the next day.
A week later he said, "I'm meeting you in Belle Plaine.
We're going to interview for the position."
That night at the end of the interview,
he said, "Kent, would you be my assistant coach?"
And I said, "Absolutely!"
I spent the summer of 1989 with Coach Van Scoyoc as his assistant coach.
That year we won Norway's 19th State Baseball Championship.
There was a lot of talk in the community
that they were going to merge Norway with Benton Community, a neighboring school.
And I asked coach, I said, "Is there any truth to this rumor?"
He goes, "Ahh, it'll never happen."
Well, that fall I'm back at Belle Plaine coaching volleyball.
He gives me a call.
He said, "Kent, It's a given. They're closing us down."
He told me on the phone that night that he was offered
to be the Class A Pitching Coach for the Detroit Tigers.
And he said, "Kent, will you take this team in their final season?"
I said, "Absolutely! I would love to!"
It was a magical year, 1991, coaching that team;
14 boys who we built relationships with.
The community surrounded us knowing that this was our final year.
And we made it to the State Championship game.
And we ended up winning the game 7 to 4,
to win Norway's 20th and final State Championship.
The next morning the headlines of the Des Moines Register,
not the sports section, main page,
it said, "Tinsel Town Ending for Norway."
How prophetic those words were.
Because it was October, I received a call,
says, "Hi Kent, this is Tony Wilson, movie producer from Des Moines."
Well, I hung up on him.
(Laughter)
I thought it was some of my coaching buddies playing a trick on me.
But he persevered. He called me back, and he said,
"Kent, I want to do a movie over your story."
I said, "This story isn't about me, Kent Stock.
This story is about the community of Norway, all 586 of them.
It's about the 14 boys on the team, not about me."
I eventually introduced Tony to Coach Van Scoyoc.
In 1992, we signed a movie contract selling Tony two years of our life story.
In 2006, we filmed the movie "The Final Season."
In 2007, the movie came out on 1,100 screens across the United States.
2008, it was out on DVD.
Something started happening in 2007 after the movie came out.
People started mailing me cards and letters in the mail.
They'd email me; they'd find my website. They'd find things, and they'd email me.
And I made a commitment back in '07
that I was going to respond to everybody that contacted me
because I remembered as a kid mailing things to the St. Louis Cardinals players,
and when they'd send something back to me, it made a huge impact on my life.
2009, I changed jobs and was learning a new position,
and I was swamped.
I went home one night and I said to my wife,
"Laurie, I can't do this anymore.
I'm too busy."
I want to share with you an email today that confirms why I reply to everybody.
In dialogue back and forth,
it was a lady in her mid-60s from Minneapolis.
It goes, "Please see that Kent gets this message."
She must think I have "people" that screen my emails.
(Laughter)
"I received a copy of "The Final Season" for Christmas.
My family honors my love of baseball,
but they had no idea really what the story was.
I grew up in Iowa, moved to Minnesota
to teach and raise my family from 1966 to today.
My daughters played softball here, but we did not follow Iowa baseball.
It was pure luck that they picked that DVD.
After I watched it again and again, I started asking my family in Iowa
what they knew about this little Norway baseball team.
But I digress.
The movie was great, the story was wonderful,
but hey, that's Iowa for you."
I quickly hit Reply saying, "Thank you for your kind words.
I'd be happy to sign your DVD. Mail it to this address"
I got her DVD cover in the mail,
I signed it, I mailed it back.
And then I received this email that confirms my commitment:
"Kent, I just picked up my mail, and the DVD cover is back already.
You have no idea what this means to me.
Once in a while something pure and good and right comes into my life.
This story and your gracious response to my request is just that.
You didn't know that I'm living with bone cancer.
I usually don't bring it up.
Some of my friends and colleagues don't even know.
But I wanted to let you know
because without even knowing this,
you gave respect and honor to my request
and I thank you for that.
Kent, you never know when you will have an impact on someone's life.
It's about how you play the game,
and the goal is to make it home safe."
I sat in my office with tears rolling down my cheeks,
thinking, "I almost missed that opportunity
because I was too busy.
I hope and pray that I'm never too busy to have an impact on someone's life."
My favorite scene of the movie
is when Sean Astin walked into that locker room
before that 20th and final State Championship game.
He said to the team, he goes,
"Today you're playing for everyone who's ever worn a Norway jersey,
and they're with you today.
So ask yourself one question:
How do you want to be remembered?"
I challenge each and every one of you
on a daily basis, every person you meet,
every interaction you have,
to think about: How do you want to be remembered?
I get asked all the time,
"Kent, how do you want to be remembered?"
It's my hope that I'm remembered
as a great husband, a great father,
and a servant to all.
Thank you.
(Applause)