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Stevan A. (Coach) Brockman
Stevan A. Brockman was born on January 12, 1951 and raised 3 miles south of Joliet, Illinois on the original Route 66 highway. He was the third child of Howard and Patricia McCrory Brockman. He was...view moreStevan A. Brockman was born on January 12, 1951 and raised 3 miles south of Joliet, Illinois on the original Route 66 highway. He was the third child of Howard and Patricia McCrory Brockman. He was educated at Laraway Grade School for eight years, Joliet East High School for four years, Joliet Junior College for two years then transferred to the University of Illinois for two years graduating from the Agricultural College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agronomy in 1973. There are four diplomas on the office wall all having his first name spelled wrong. Will never know where his mother got that spelling, but he has never changed it all these years.
Although he did not grow up on a real farm setting, his entire life was spent working on some type of farm nurturing and raising crops or composting organic material all on a very large scale. He started out with his labors as did his two older brothers at the ripe old age of 8 years old working for the local Greek vegetable growers that blanketed the entire area around his home. Working on his hands and knees weeding small vegetable crops, harvesting green beans, peeling onions and the back-breaking work of picking asparagus filled most of his summer months. He was old enough to start handling hay and straw bales on a hayrack and shelling corn out of corn cribs at the age of 11 and then started driving tractors at age 14. At 15, he met Gorman O’Reilly working part-time until graduating from college in 1973 and then going to a full-time position the day of graduation.
He met Debbie O’Connor from Elwood, Illinois in 1973 and married in 1974. Because of his unusual work ethic of laboring seven days a week for decades, that particular decision has come back to haunt him and will forever since her passing. All that time worried about making enough to survive and not being with her very little of the time leans heavy on his mind every single day.
He spent 17 years with the Gorman O’Reilly farm operation and 27 years with the Fred Noorlag Compost Product’s composting operation. Was forced into early retirement in 2009 by Fred Noorlag’s grandchildren which propelled him into writing his first auto-biography, “I Was Compost When Compost Wasn’t Cool,” that was published in 2010. Worked at many other odd jobs including actually starting another compost operation in northern Illinois before being hired by the Joliet Junior College for 4 years after which he retired officially and began working for the Freistad Dairy Farm as needed.
His hope is that you will learn something out of this book that can be carried with you the rest of your life. It might only be a short little story or possibly getting to know one of the great individuals that was his pleasure to work with over these past 60-plus years. He said it before and will say it again, it should have been a wonderful life, just was never accomplished in this lifetime.view less
Books by Stevan A. (Coach) Brockman
It Should Have Been a Wonderful Life: I Am Sure It Will Happen Someday