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UW-Platteville Coach played in 'The Final Season'
Oct 09, 2007
Press Release posted by UW-Platteville Permalink
Like most baseball fans, UW-Platteville Coach Eric Frese is anxious for the opening of "The Final Season," but the Pioneer second-year manager has a little more interest than most as the movie is about his senior year in high school.
"The Final Season" tells the real-life story of Norway, Iowa, whose school was closed after the 1990-91 school year and merged with Benton Community Schools. Despite losing its top player and its coach, Norway rallied to win its 20th and final Iowa state championship.
Frese, the starting centerfielder on the team, attended the premier Sunday in Cedar Rapids. The movie opens nation-wide this Friday (Oct. 12).
"When I first watched it, with it being filmed in my hometown and with everything that happened there, it was kind of surreal," Frese said. "It seems like a very good sports movie, good family entertainment. I'm anxious to see it a second time and get more of the movie feel."
Sunday's premier featured most of the Norway team and its coaches mixing with celebrities such as Iowa native Tom Arnold and film actors Powers Boothe and Danielle Savre. About 600 people saw the first screening of the film, which is earning very positive reviews.
"They did a great job of portraying a small-town, Midwest farm community, and they also did a good job portraying our baseball program and the success we had over the years," Frese said, "but of course it was Hollywood, so there are a lot of story lines that didn't actually happen or were changed a bit to make it a good movie. They actually hired real baseball players to do all the baseball scenes. Even the actors actually worked out religiously for months and then they were surrounded by all real baseball guys. They are real proud that none of the actors look out of place, like we've all seen in sports movies. So the baseball stuff is really good. They made it very realistic."
Although none of the original Norway players are mentioned by their real names, the gathering could still pick out who was who on the screen.
"They mixed and matched different things that happened with different characters," Frese said. "You see a lot of things up there that remind you of yourself or a teammate. That was kind of neat."
Frese is enjoying reliving his senior year, which will now be played out for the entire country to see.
"To go out on the note we did was special, and seeing the movie brought back a lot of good memories," Frese said. "The older I get and look back at the town and some of the statistics, I think it's pretty unbelievable. Seven of the nine guys went on to play college baseball, and three went on to play pro. I had 21 people in my graduating class. There were 101 in my school. The odds of us doing that are really unbelievable."
For more information:
http://www.finalseason.com/indexFlash.php?page=index
http://www.norwaybaseball.com/indexFlash.php?page=index
"The Final Season" tells the real-life story of Norway, Iowa, whose school was closed after the 1990-91 school year and merged with Benton Community Schools. Despite losing its top player and its coach, Norway rallied to win its 20th and final Iowa state championship.
Frese, the starting centerfielder on the team, attended the premier Sunday in Cedar Rapids. The movie opens nation-wide this Friday (Oct. 12).
"When I first watched it, with it being filmed in my hometown and with everything that happened there, it was kind of surreal," Frese said. "It seems like a very good sports movie, good family entertainment. I'm anxious to see it a second time and get more of the movie feel."
Sunday's premier featured most of the Norway team and its coaches mixing with celebrities such as Iowa native Tom Arnold and film actors Powers Boothe and Danielle Savre. About 600 people saw the first screening of the film, which is earning very positive reviews.
"They did a great job of portraying a small-town, Midwest farm community, and they also did a good job portraying our baseball program and the success we had over the years," Frese said, "but of course it was Hollywood, so there are a lot of story lines that didn't actually happen or were changed a bit to make it a good movie. They actually hired real baseball players to do all the baseball scenes. Even the actors actually worked out religiously for months and then they were surrounded by all real baseball guys. They are real proud that none of the actors look out of place, like we've all seen in sports movies. So the baseball stuff is really good. They made it very realistic."
Although none of the original Norway players are mentioned by their real names, the gathering could still pick out who was who on the screen.
"They mixed and matched different things that happened with different characters," Frese said. "You see a lot of things up there that remind you of yourself or a teammate. That was kind of neat."
Frese is enjoying reliving his senior year, which will now be played out for the entire country to see.
"To go out on the note we did was special, and seeing the movie brought back a lot of good memories," Frese said. "The older I get and look back at the town and some of the statistics, I think it's pretty unbelievable. Seven of the nine guys went on to play college baseball, and three went on to play pro. I had 21 people in my graduating class. There were 101 in my school. The odds of us doing that are really unbelievable."
For more information:
http://www.finalseason.com/indexFlash.php?page=index
http://www.norwaybaseball.com/indexFlash.php?page=index