[IMG:L]In the small town of Norway, Iowa, baseball meant everything for its community. In 1990, the local high school had won 19 State Championships in 22 years, but as they set out to make it an even 20, life threw them a curve ball–their school of 100 students was to be shut down and merged with a larger school in the neighboring town.
In the summer of 2006, Sean Astin, Rachael Leigh Cook and Tom Arnold packed up and went back in time to portray members of a small town on the brink of change. The Final Season is the story of Kent Stock, the last Norway High School baseball coach, who leads his team through one last victory as state officials are intent on shutting the school down for good. Through the journey to victory, it becomes clear what the impact of the school and its baseball team really had on the small town.
Although real life lacks both a soundtrack and a montage, The Final Season‘s back story is truly fascinating. On the surface, the movie may be about baseball, but set in the early 90s, it briefs its audience about the troubles small towns all across America were facing at the time. “That was the end of an era,” said Arnold. “When they started combining the schools it did suck the life out of a lot of small towns. It was a tough time.”
In Final Season Arnold plays a single parent of a troubled teenager, which to the Iowa native felt a little like time travel. “The character I worked on was close to me: a kid that didn’t grow up in the city and had to leave the small town to pursue his dreams. The irony is that I end up in the city, a single father with a son in trouble, like I was in trouble when I was a kid.” It was like art imitating life, with a side of baseball.
[IMG:R]Norway’s baseball history was well known to Arnold, who signed up to do the movie because it would bring him back home. “Growing up, we knew about them and about their success,” Arnold said. “We thought it was weird that they could beat these big schools and we really couldn’t figure it out, but after they consolidated with another school, my school [finally] won the state championship two years in a row.” Arnold’s personal gain unfortunately meant no happily ever after for the Norway kids. After bringing 20 trophies home to Norway High, the school they merged with never won a State Championship again.
When talking about Norway, both in describing the storyline of the movie and their working experience, there is one word that the cast uses frequently: family. A lot of the characters we learn about in the film were on hand to offer their help and perspective, the real Kent Stock included. “I had script approval, and it passed the Mom Test,” Stock notes. “Obviously when you make a movie based on a true story it’s not going be 100 percent [accurate], but I tell you–the baseball was pretty darn close.”
Being on location also has its benefits for the actors. “You don’t have to act it, it was there,” said Powers Boothe (Deadwood, 24) of the experience. For the character actor it was an opportunity to make it a family affair without any awkwardness. “They gave my daughter and my son a part in the movie and I think it was a great opportunity to have a familial experience. It wouldn’t have worked for me to have my family on any particular project and in this one it did. And I wasn’t the only one; Sean’s brother was in [the movie, too]. It worked for this because it was about family and community. Most of the boys who played on the team were from there.”
[IMG:L]Despite the closing of the high school, Norway’s economy thankfully did not dry up. They may have lost their baseball team, but the town is still there. “Like any stoic community they go on,” said Boothe. “They lost the heart of the community when they lost the ability to influence that school and be proud of it, but they’re still great folks.” According to Arnold the experience of shooting the film on location was so good that some crew members even decided to stay.
The film strives to be a charming underdog movie and reminds audiences that there once was a world without cell phones and video games where kids played competitive sports. And in that world not everybody was a winner, but at least every kid had a fair shot at victory. Boothe notes, “I think the movie is about something really good, and we don’t get an opportunity to make those films very often.”
