The Final Season

This is the true story of Kent Stock, who in 1991 takes on what he perceives as the job of a lifetime as head coach of the Norway High School Tigers baseball team, which has won 19 state titles and has a baseball tradition in Iowa tantamount to that of the New York Yankees nationally. Stock joins the team in 1990 as assistant coach, excited to learn from the legendary Tigers coach Jim Van Scoyoc. The Tigers win the 1990 title, the twelfth under Van Scoyoc. Stock is unaware that he has been picked by the school's Principal Halberstorm to replace Van Scoyoc in order to facilitate a losing 1991 season. The principal is pushing a consolidation of Norway with the larger "Madison School District" (in real life, the Benton Community School District), but the town is opposed, centered mainly on not wanting to give up the successful baseball program. The principal only knows about Stock's experience as a girls' volleyball coach, unaware that Stock was a star player for his Division III college baseball team and is a student of the game. Several of the Tigers' returning stars refuse to go out for Coach Stock, who must win over the rest and convince them, the skeptical townspeople and himself that he can fill their former coach's shoes, all while dealing with the reality that this will be the team's final season due to the impending merger. With the support of a young female state auditor whose findings helped push through the merger, and a gadfly baseball writer from Des Moines who is following the team, Kent learns to motivate the team his own way. In May 1991, Norway High's baseball tradition ends on a triumphant but somber note as it wins its 20th state championship in its final season. A video clip of the actual Coach Stock thanking Van Scoyoc publicly for the opportunity opens the final scene. ==Cast==