Great Movie - PGStaff you know what I mean

coach270910,000+ posts

I might be the only one to not know about this movie but if I'm not everyone needs to see this movie - The Final Season.

I got home from football practice and was all set to watch the Marshall / Houston game on ESPN2. For some reason I went through the movie channels and saw it on Starz and hit info. I was going to watch the first couple of minutes while the pregame stuff was on but I never made it back to the game.

It tells the true story of Norway High School in Iowa which is about 15 miles from Perfect Game. This school was the epitome of small school Iowa baseball. They won 19 straight Class IA state championships. For some reason the school board had decided to merge (not consolidate) with Madison High School, a larger school down the road for financial reasons in 1991. Norway would cease to exist as a school and Madison would still be a school. I don't know for certain of the numbers but the impression I got this was a K-12 school with probably 300 kids total.

The community was outraged at the decision and one the leading voices against the merger was the head baseball coach Jim Van Scoyoc. They canned him the last season and hired a guy who they thought would fail miserably for the final season. They ended up winning the state title in their final season before the merger.

The closing final comments said Coach Van Scoyoc spent three years in the Tigers system as a coach but is now an instructor / evaluator at Perfect Game. When I read that the first thing I thought of was this place and PGStaff.

If I am the last one to see this movie then I apologize but I am so glad I got to see this movie. It really made an impact with me. I highly recommend everyone who loves high school baseball to watch this movie.

10/28/088:27 PM

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CaBB1,000+ posts

We saw this movie last year during the Arizona Senior Fall classis. We saw it with our son and some of his friends and really enjoyed it. Strangely enough the team my son was with was coached by Nathan Troskey. His grandfather was Hal Troskey, noted in the movie as hitting a huge homerun at one of the local bb fields.

Thanks for the reminder of this movie- I think we'll rent it soon.

10/28/088:32 PM

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biggerpapi5,000+ posts

Mediumpapi played in a PG tournament this fall that included a game in Norway, IA. Now I've been near the middle of nowhere before, but this is the first time I've actually been IN the middle of nowhere.

We pull into this tiny town and see this sign:

I guess as long as you can afford a nice sign, you can say whatever you want about yourself, right?

So he plays the game, it's a pretty nice field. Don't really see a school around. There's a gas station, a church and about 12 houses.

On the way back to civilization, my son blurts out, "I know this town! That's where they filmed 'The Final Season.' I got to play on the field where they filmed a movie!!"

In all seriousness, it was a very nice little town with a nice ball field. As far as I'm concerned, that's the best kind of tourist attraction you could have.

10/29/083:28 AM