Bock accepts assistant A.D. job; Queck to lead BHS baseball program

The man that led the Bryant Hornets program to four State championships and five finals in seven years will no longer be coaching baseball at Bryant High School.

Kirk Bock has accepted an offer to become the assistant athletic director while continuing to coach as an assistant to Buck James, the new BHS football coach.

Travis Queck

Travis Queck, who has been Bock’s assistant for the last four years and coached on the staff as a volunteer in 2010 and 2011, has been named the new Hornets head baseball coach.

In 2016, Bock, 51, reached the milestone of 600 wins as a high school baseball coach while leading the Hornets to that fourth State title, his fifth including one at Harrison. He’s been named the Coach of the Year in the Central Conference and will still coach in the Arkansas High School Coaches Association All-Star game later this month.

At Bryant, he was 214-44 including 92-7 in the last three campaigns.

“I’ve always thought one year ahead for the last 27 years,” Bock said. “Now I have the opportunity to think about the next three to six years. I think, in the future, it’s going to put my family in a better position. I’m thinking more about them than I am me. I’ve thought about me from year to year for the last 27 years.”

“I went to him,” said Bryant athletic director Mike Lee. “He is the perfect person for this assistant athletic director job. His impact on a large scale, touching many different programs, I feel like is going to be felt.

“His responsibility in large part will be venue coverage in the afternoons and evenings,” he added. “More importantly for me is being able to collaborate daily with Coach Bock on what his eyes tell him. I just see a situation where his experience as a head coach, his experience as a practice and game organizer, is just going to be so helpful to our district coaches. I just think he is a most valuable resource in that respect. I’m excited to get a chance to work with him day to day.”

“Coach Lee came to me with this, told me he thought I could help with Bryant athletics as a whole and I decided, if he thought that, I could give it a try,” said Bock.

Lee stated, “He has elevated our baseball program to, in my judgment, the most elite baseball program in the state of Arkansas. And I would say, one of the elite high school baseball programs in the country. I don’t see everybody in the country and I’m sure there are tremendous programs out there but I would place the status and the structure of our baseball program with anybody in the country.

“That is a credit to Coach Bock, Coach Queck, (assistant) Coach (Stephen) Tharp and our players,” he added. “And, also, the parents of our baseball players. It really is a total effort in supporting not only baseball but Bryant athletics as a whole. Most notably, the credit has got to go to Coach Bock who engineered the rise of our baseball program.”

Bock noted, “I am so appreciative of the support we’ve had, not only from the school but the community and especially the BAA (Bryant Athletic Association youth program) for what they’ve done for our players. They were a big part of our success.”

Queck is a former Hornet, who graduated from BHS in 2005. He was a starter on the baseball team, which was led by Travis Wood (now with the Chicago Cubs) and reached the State finals in 2004 and the State semifinals in 2005. He also was a starter on defense for the Bryant football team that won a conference championship in 2004, going 10-2.

After serving as a volunteer, he went to White Hall and helped with football and basketball before returning to Bryant as a full-time assistant in 2013.

“I’m excited,” Queck said. “Coach Bock’s worked extremely hard to establish the program and I get to follow one of the best and continue what we’ve worked hard on over the past eight years.

“The expectations are going to stay the same,” he added. “The expectations are high in Bryant in general. It’s a baseball community. They expect great things and I expect great things.

“We’re not re-inventing the wheel,” Queck said. “A lot of what we’ve done has been really good and really successful. Until we find something better, there’s no need to change things up.”

Asked about what he’s learned working for Bock, Queck said, “The most important thing I’ve learned is the relationship with the kids and how to instruct them on details, the effort — the kids have to put in the effort out there. Then, obviously, going to clinics and talking to other coaches. You get all kinds of feedback about things that are working and not working. That’s a thing Coach Bock always stressed. It’s for us to continue to search for better ways to improve the program. And that’s been a very successful approach.”