WISCONSIN — The list of reasons is lengthy. Why was Rosholt’s Jack Brooks one of the most successful high school baseball coaches in the state of Wisconsin?
Well, if you had to pick one, it would be this: He got it.
He cared more about you as a human than whether you could throw an 80-mile-an-hour fastball. He treated the most talented kid on the team the same as the 28th. And, yeah, the roster was sometimes that big because he pretty much never cut anyone. He understood the importance of belonging, especially for kids. Especially at that age. So if you wanted to be part of something, then you were welcomed on the team.
Jack knew, because he experienced the other side.
“It had been mentioned when he went into the Baseball Hall of Fame for Wisconsin, that a coach had told him he was too short and that he couldn’t play on the team,” said John Kemmeter, a former sportswriter for the Portage County Gazette who covered Jack’s teams for just over 10 years. “So I think that kind of maybe drove him.”
Jack also understood that kids develop at different ages. So even if you looked hopeless as a freshman, you were never told to try something else. He saw potential in everyone, and was bound and determined to bring that to the surface.
“Kudos to him for making the baseball program feel like it was open to everyone,” said Wendy Cychosz, whose husband, and son, played for Brooks. “It wasn’t open just to the kids with talent. It was meant for everyone because he was going to make a player out of you. He was going to find your qualities, and he was going to make you be an asset on the team at some level.”
He was revered, but nobody ever bothered with titles.
“I don’t know that anyone truly calls him coach, or coach Brooks,’’ said Cychosz. “He’s just Jack.”
And that included his players.
“It was unusual,’’ said Kemmeter. “You go to practice sometimes where a 15-, 16- year-old kid is like ‘Hey, Jack.’ You kind of think maybe it’s a disrespectful thing, but that’s just the way it was. Everybody in Rosholt just called him Jack.”
Saturday, this village of roughly 500 residents about 20 miles northeast of Stevens Point will honor Jack with a celebration of life ceremony at the baseball field named in his honor. Jack passed away on Aug. 22 after a battle with cancer. He was 73.
The great irony here is Jack never seemed destined to become a guy who would be inducted into the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He played only four games of organized baseball as a young teen. He never played in high school or college. Jack took over the Rosholt baseball program when the school couldn’t find anyone else. He was an insurance agent.
But Jack said he’d do it. And by the time he finished up 37 years later, he compiled a 567-169 record, the sixth-highest victory total among spring baseball coaches in state history. He brought Rosholt to the WIAA State Tournament four times, finishing second twice.
In league play, his teams were the baddest dudes on the block, winning 21 conference titles. During a seven-year stretch, they won 90 consecutive conference games. And if you know baseball, when one bad bounce can turn any day into a disaster, that win streak was otherworldly.
Many coaches win, a lot. And Jack wanted to win, make no mistake. But it was all the little things he did for his players, to lift them up and make them feel good about themselves. That’s what people talk about.
“We’re in an era where you don’t take headshots anymore, but that was something that kind of went on in the 90s,” said Kemmeter. “I’d be out there, and it was just kind of side thing, and he’d be like, ‘Hey, you want to take headshots of the kids? I know you might not use them. I don’t care. It just makes them feel good. Like they’re important. That they’re getting their picture taken for the paper.’”
“And I think any little thing that he could do to help the players feel better, he did," Kemmeter continued.
He also understood the game, and what was important.
“Jack was a believer in kids knowing multiple positions,” said Cychosz. “And I think true success came for him because he would have everybody throwing. Like, you need pitchers. Even before the pitch count came into effect, he would have ample pitchers because he knew that sometimes you just have to get out of an inning.”
Jack also made a scrapbook for every team he coached. Newspaper articles, pictures, post-season accolades, the works. Because every team was special to him. Every player.
“It just kind of boiled down to how he treated people and how he treated kids,” said Kemmeter. “And that he actually loved Rosholt. He loved being around there, and he loved the people of Rosholt.”
And the people of Rosholt loved Jack.
Story idea? You can reach Mike Woods at 920-246-6321 or at: michael.t.woods1@charter.com.
