Petersburg High School’s varsity boys’ basketball coach, Rick Brock, is the Division 2A Coach of the Year. The Alaska Association of Basketball Coaches, or AABC. in late March named him for the honor at the state high school basketball tournament in Anchorage. Last week, Brock returned to Anchorage to collect that award.
Brock took three of his seniors with him — Viking basketball players Rik Cumps, Kieran Cabral, and Hunter Conn, who were elected to the state all-star team.
The award honors outstanding high school basketball coaches across Alaska. But Brock hands all the credit to his players, who won the state championship this year.
“I’m humbled by it,” said Brock. “It really is a team award — it’s a reflection of how well the team did. Typically, it goes to the coach of a team that does extremely well. So yeah, to me — it’s a team award.”
But this isn’t the first time Brock has received the honor. He’s been “Coach of the Year” a couple of times throughout his 36-year long career coaching basketball in Wrangell, and then in Petersburg. He said he feels “incredibly blessed” to have spent all those years mentoring who he calls “fantastic players in fantastic communities.”
“One of the benefits of being in a small community like this is that you get a chance to spend some time with these kids as they’re in middle school, and then when they become young men, and then men,” said Brock. “A lot of them are still around in the community, then [I’ve] had a chance to coach even some of the sons of players that I’ve had. So you still have that relationship that you built, and I get a chance to see what great successful people they are — great husbands or partners, or whatever they are, and just what quality additions to the community they become.”
The Coach of the Year awards were presented on April 5th at Grace Christian School in Anchorage. The following day, a group of senior all-star basketball players from across the state played the last games of their high school careers and then turned in their uniforms.
