Ben Brock has been a mainstay on the mid-Michigan sports scene for decades now.

And that’s a good thing.

As a prepster Brock was a standout student-athlete at Shepherd High School up through his graduation in 1996. Upon graduating high school and starting college Brock joined the football coaching staff at his alma mater in 1997 before moving on to coach at Grayling High School upon graduating college and starting his professional career in education.

After one year as an assistant football coach at Grayling one Ben Brock took over the varsity football program and led the Vikings to tons of success between 2003 and 2009. During this time frame Grayling went 47-24 and advanced to the playoffs five times, winning a district title in 2005.

Brock then stepped away from coaching for the next eight years as he took an administrative job with the Port Huron Schools. In 2016 he re-appeared on the mid-Michigan map though as he took over the head-coaching reins at Carson City and led the Eagles to a record of 5-4. From there he returned to his alma mater, yet again, as an administrator and head football coach in 2018 and helped lead the Jays to their first playoff appearance in 14 years in 2019.

A couple years back Brock stepped down at Shepherd to take over as the Principal at St. Louis High School and he’s been there ever since.

Now, the long-time administrator and coach, has tossed his hat back into the coaching ring as Brock will lead the St. Louis football program this fall. Brock is the fourth head varsity football coach in the last six years at St. Louis and takes over for Rob McDaniel who led the Sharks to a record of 3-6 last fall.

Historically-speaking St. Louis’ football program has struggled over the years as it’s only made the playoffs twice in program history. Moreover, winning seasons have been a rarity. Despite these facts Brock and his staff are determined to turn it around and turn the Sharks into a formidable foe going forward.

And if there’s someone who knows how to do it, it’s Brock, whose enthusiasm for the sport of football is unbelievable.

“It really ends up being a belief-system and you get there through work ethic and through being consistent in the weight room,” Brock said. “We do everything with a sense of urgency and it all starts in the weight room. Everyone waits until it’s exactly 7 o’clock then we go in and attack it. We have four days of lifting and we document, with paper and pencil, exactly what our lifts are. Then we move on and come out (to the football field) for a specific workout. We want to be first and that’s what we’re stressing because it’s to our advantage. “

Numbers-wise the Sharks have seen a serious upturn in terms of their roster numbers too. Two years ago there was no JV team at St. Louis, yet there was one last season. Now there are about 45 student-athletes on the roster which is significantly up from a season ago.

The fact that Brock and his staff are super detail-oriented speaks well of the way forward also in that they hope to bring some stability and consistency to the program.

“It’s also the game-planning and that’s something we’ve been doing since taking over last winter,” Brock added. “We’ve been doing morning sessions with our quarterbacks and receivers where we film them and show them where they can get better right there on the spot. These kids are starving for it. They want to understand the game and then learn how to win. We feel like we have a pretty good recipe for that.

“Our mantra is ‘be good now’ because we don’t have time and we don’t want to wait. We want to be good now. We’re challenging them every day.”

The Sharks open the 2025 season at rival Ithaca on Aug. 28 before hosting Saginaw Valley Lutheran for their home-opener on Sept. 5.