Admin: Replaced sidebar with newer template

2014-09-01T18:42:03Z

Replaced sidebar with newer template

New page

{{Infobox FBA biography
|name=Brock Horace Thiessen
|image=Brock_Thiessen.jpg
|caption=
|team=RT
|agent=MrInitialMan
|nickname1=The Crock
|nickname2=The Last Barnstormer
|species=European Badger
|gender=Male
|position=G
|number=15
|height_ft=5
|height_in=11
|weight_lb=172
|hand=Right
|nationality=Canadian
|birth_date = January 12, 1904
|birth_place=Hamilton, Ontario
|death_date = August 3, 2008
|death_place = Rocky Mountain House, Alberta
|career_start=1920
|career_end=1950
|coach_start=1979
|coach_end=1984
|team1=HAM
|years1=1920-1950
}}
[[Category:Deceased players]]
Brock Horace Thiessen was the first coach of the [[Rocky Mountain Royals]], a basketball historian, and the only player on the Hamilton Mariners to have played in both incarnations of the Great Lakes Basketball League.

==Hamilton Mariners==
He was signed in 1920 at the tender age of 16, when the Hamiltons were still a barnstorming team. Brock told T. Matt that the team once helped smuggle wine across the border in 1926--during Prohibition.

In 1927, they joined other teams to create the Great Lakes Basketball League, and the Hamilton Mariners won their first championship in 1928.

The Great Lakes Basketball League folded in 1931 due to the Great Depression. The teams that had made up the original GLBL struggled to survive as barnstormers, and Brock remembered a few times when all the ticket money from one game went to feed the players and coaches. The Hamilton Mariners lost most of their players when Canada entered WWII in 1939; Brock had the flu when he was called up, and ultimately never went overseas. He kept a plaque of players who fought in the war for the rest of his life, drawing a cross beside the names of the five players who didn't make it back.

In 1946, another Great Lakes Basketball League, but it wouldn't be until 1948 that this became a reality. Brock played for the team for another two seasons, leading his team to a championship in 1949 and retiring after the 1949-1950 season. He then became an assistant coach for the Mariners, then moving up to Head Coach in 1953. Several of his children moved to Alberta, so Brock Thiessen moved out there to be with them in 1960, ending his career with the Great Lakes Basketball League. In 1970 he settled in a quiet community in Rocky Mountain House.

==Rocky Mountain House Royals==
In 1974, he read an advertisement seeking a coach for a semi-professional team called the Rocky Mountain House Royals. After a couple weeks, he called the team, asking if anyone had accepted, only to learn that if the team didn't have a coach within the week, it would fold. The elderly badger accepted the position, explaining he had once been a professional player and coach in Ontario.

He drove the team hard, and the Rocky Mountain House Royals won a number of tournaments under his guidance--though he found a perennial headache in the person of jokester Bryn Mastiffson, who combined showboating and humour to entertain the crowd. Brock was able to put a lid on most of Bryn's antics, and Bryn began taking the game more seriously. The team did well for a number of years in semi-pro tournaments--then the Furry Basketball Association came calling, seeking an expansion team.

==Rocky Mountain Royals==
When the Royals went pro in 1979, Brock did his best to get the team ready for the big time--but the players were overwhelmed by the heightened level of play in the FBA, and Brock--once coach to the championship-winning Hamilton Mariners--found himself coaching what was rapidly becoming the laughingstock of the FBA. In his second year, he saw Bryn Mastiffson--the only star the Royals had--blow out his knee due to his showboating and decide to let his contract expire.

Brock regularly butted heads with head office, especially considering their weak drafts and unwillingness to make needed trades. When the team owner Allan Smith suggested that Brock retire in 1984, Brock did just that.

==Later Life==
Due to his difficulties and embarassments, Brock didn't enjoy talking about his time on the Royals, even though that's all reporters wanted to talk about. But when he turned 95, he met a coyote named T. Matt Latrans. Latrans told Brock he'd read about Brock's history with the [[Hamilton Mariners]] and asked if Brock would be willing to talk about it.

Brock was surprised that someone would be interested in such ancient history, but invited T. Matt into his apartment at a nursing home, saying, "Well, make yourself comfortable, and I'll prattle on and you can tell me when I get boring." The interview had to end because T. Matt ran short on time, but he suggested Brock write about his experiences--surely there'd be an audience.

With little better to do, Brock dusted off an old typewriter and began to write his memoirs.

His writings first appeared as a column in ''Furballer'' under the title '''Tales Of A Barnstormer''' (Latrans suggested the title), but it failed to catch on and the column was dropped. But writers and editors at the magazine encouraged Brock to keep writing the columns and publish them in a book.

Brock Thiessen did so; the series used the same title as his column.

In 2008, T. Matt had an extensive series of interviews with Brock for a special issue focusing on the history of the FBA and basketball in general. Shortly before the issue was to print, T. Matt called Brock to clarify something--only to learn from the receptionist at the nursing home that the elderly badger had died two days previously.

The magazine was dedicated to Brock's memory, calling him "The FBA's Last Barnstormer"

Brock Thiessen - Revision history

Admin: Replaced sidebar with newer template