From a young age, Moline’s Brock Luna always wanted to play baseball.
“I just realized this is what I wanted to do. I tried football, I tried basketball. I really just tried everything, but I know I wanted to be a baseball player by the age of 8,” Luna said. “Just being a baseball player is who I am. I like to consider myself a great person, but whenever I have a simple conversation with somebody, it’s about baseball.”
Brock is now right where he wants to be playing for the Maroons varsity team, however, he’s been doing it without his biggest fan by his side.
“I was having a really good year as a sophomore with the JV and then things to a turn for the worst when my mom got really sick,” Luna said. “I wouldn’t say it set me back a bit but it took a big hit on me in my mental health and my game. She got really sick and passed away that summer. Baseball has always been that great escape for me. There was a lot going through my mind. Not having her there in the bleachers. I knew every time I stepped foot out here, it was that break for me from what was going on at home. Draw my mind away from it all. She was there for me everyday I came home and always talked to me before baseball practice and it’s not easy for anyone when you lose a parent, grandparent, pet, anything, so I just always have a good time with these guys because I’m not going to let something like that take a hit on me and take away what I love.”
What helped Brock get through the heartbreak was getting right back on that field.
“What pushes me is just these guys. I was going through a really rough time and I know the biggest thing was not to give up and roll over,” Luna said. “My teammates pushed me and the coaches took me under their wing. It was a rough time but this field just brought me back.”
“We all tried our hardest to keep him better mentally and I think with all the struggles he’s gone through in his life,” Brock’s best friend on the team, Brock Dzekunskas, said. “He’s done a positive thing with it and not a negative thing.”
And that positive thing was to take what his mom would always tell him and continue to chase his dreams.
“She always told me to just focus and do the little things right,” Luna said. “I have a tattoo right here in her handwriting that says little things and I also have it on my glove. She always told me to do the little things right and the bigger things will take care of themselves so I always follow that on and off the field to be the best person I can be. Also be the best teammate. A huge credit goes to her for that because as unlucky as it my seem, I like to consider myself lucky for knowing her for 16 years because my whole life I feel like she was teaching me a huge lesson and was setting me up for something big in my life.”
That something big was playing at the next level and his mom having the best seat in the house.
“The main goal was to always play college baseball and I’m wearing the shirt to show my commitment to Central College, which is a school in Pella, Iowa,” Luna said. “A school I reached out to last summer and they reached out back so as I hit that big goal she was up there smiling at me so I really dedicate that to her. “
