Character Spotlight: Coach Bobby Finstock

Posted by Chris Bovenzi | August 21, 2010

This is the first installment of our Character Spotlight Series. Here, we’ll profile and discuss people and characters that we feel deserve to be…. profiled and discussed. To lead off this series is none other then the mysterious Bobby Finstock. Enjoy!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(Click play for some reading experience enhancement courtesy of Mark Safan’s ‘Win in the End’ from the Teen Wolf soundtrack.)

Coach Bobby Finstock quietly, and without warning came into all our lives in 1985. He left the exact same way. Unintended or not, he’s become the Keyser Soze of the coaching world. You would think a guy that led a wolf-led team to a basketball championship wouldn’t be able to fade away quite so easily.

Think again.

Say what you want about the talent level of high school basketball in Nebraska, it was an amazing feat that Coach Finstock was able to guide the Beavers to such heights.

Sure, the wolf was far and away the best and most dynamic player in the area, but the job done by Finstock to deal with the circus-like distractions can’t be understated. He held his team together when it was on the brink of falling apart. His style and motivational methods might have been a little unorthodox, but boy were they effective.

Check out coach in action…

I wish I could say that after the championship Bobby rode off into the sunset, married a playmate, and made a killing doing coaching seminars – but I can’t. As it is, I know more about the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa then I do Bobby Finstock.

With regards to finding him, Google has been no help and the P.I. that I hired hasn’t caught a sniff of the guy. Like Soze, the man’s legend grows by the day.

Some questions just don’t have answers.

Every now and again, somebody will come along that completely transcends his or her particular craft. Coach Bobby Finstock was one of those people. He was more than a coach to his kids, more than a friend to them. He gave them life lessons I’m sure they carried with them throughout the years.

Wherever you are coach, I hope all is well. Not to mention I hope the IRS isn’t breathing down your neck anymore.