Fighting the Battle of His Life, Brock Inspires His Troops : Baseball: Arizona State players try to keep winning at College World Series because they believe game keeps alive their coach, who has cancer.

The lucky lawn chair returned to the corner of the Arizona State dugout Monday night, but its normal occupant, Sun Devil Coach Jim Brock, did not.

Brock, the team’s inspirational leader during Arizona State’s postseason run, was back at his hotel, fighting yet another round of what he calls “the battle of my life,” while the emotion-charged Sun Devils suffered a 4-3, 11-inning loss to Oklahoma.

The 57-year-old coach who has won two national championships (1977 and ‘81) and 1,099 games and has made 13 College World Series appearances, was diagnosed with liver cancer after the 1993 Series.

He underwent surgery to remove 80% of his liver and several inches of his colon last July, and spent much of this season coping with the fevers, chills and listlessness caused by chemotherapy.

Once a robust, outspoken man known for his ferocity--both on and off the field--Brock has lost some 40 pounds in the last month and was suffering from jaundice when the Sun Devils arrived for this year’s Series.

He spent the entire Mideast Regional in Knoxville, Tenn., and Saturday’s Series-opening victory over Miami in the lawn chair in the dugout while assistant coaches Bill Kinneberg and John Pierson handled the team.

Fellow coaches, shocked at how frail Brock looked, worried that he might not live through this week, and Brock, who brought several close friends with him on the trip, gave them a good scare Monday.

Overcome by 88-degree heat and feeling nauseous from new medication, Brock decided in the Rosenblatt Stadium parking lot that he couldn’t make it through the game.

Brock’s daughter, Cathi, drove him back to Arizona State’s hotel while the lawn chair, which a Sun Devil booster brought from Knoxville to Omaha, remained in the dugout, serving as a monument of sorts to Brock’s spirit.

“We thought if we left it there, a little bit of him would be there,” said Arizona State second baseman Todd Delnoce, a fifth-year senior from Foothill High School. “For some reason it didn’t work.”

Sun Devil sports information director Mark Brand said Brock, who has had 64 former players, including Reggie Jackson and Barry Bonds, make the major leagues, was “resting comfortably at his hotel and watching the game,” on television Monday night. The Sun Devils will play Miami tonight in an elimination game.

“His absence scared us a bit and inspired us a lot,” Delnoce said.

A tour of this year’s Series field reveals an assortment of motivational stories: Cal State Fullerton has its usual we-don’t-get-any-respect chip on its shoulder. Georgia Tech, making its first Series appearance, is trying to prove it belongs among college baseball’s elite. Florida State is shooting for its first national title after 12 fruitless trips to Omaha.

Then there’s Arizona State, which wants to keep winning so its coach can keep living. Several Sun Devil players believe baseball has sustained Brock and are concerned that the end of his 23rd season will stifle Brock’s will to live.

“That’s the thought in a lot of guys’ heads,” Delnoce said. “Once the season is over it’s going to be harder for him to fight.”

Delnoce, a former three-sport standout at Foothill, is probably closer to Brock than any other Sun Devil player. He sat out most of this season because of torn knee ligaments, but instead of undergoing season-ending surgery, he elected to let the knee heal and hope for the best. The former walk-on returned to the starting lineup at the regionals.

Brock’s intensity, his hard-driving work ethic, is what makes it so difficult for opposing coaches to fathom Brock managing from a lawn chair. It’s like General Patton commanding his troops from a La-Z-Boy.

“He’s been a fierce, vicious competitor and has represented his university with every ounce of fiber in his body ,” Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido said. “No one has put more into his job than Jim Brock.”

Garrido and Brock were the central figures in one of college baseball’s most heated rivalries in the early 1980s. Brock had one of the nation’s premier programs; Garrido, who won his first national title in 1979, was trying to move in on Brock’s turf.

The rivalry peaked in 1982, when Fullerton upset top-ranked and defending national champion Arizona State in the regionals at Tempe, Ariz. A Brock quote, that Fullerton “was just a bunch of guys named Joe,” made its way to Garrido.

Garrido had batting practice jerseys, each with the name “Joe” on back, made for his players, and when he brought the lineup card out for a game against the Sun Devils, he used “Joe” as a first name for each Titan player.

Brock’s remarks fired up the Titans.

“It was nothing personal between Jim and I,” Garrido said. “We were just trying to get to their level and fighting to do the job. If anything, I was jealous because they were so good.”

Since being diagnosed with cancer, Brock said he has grown much closer to his family. In recent interviews, he seemed surprised that so many people, some whom he thought were enemies, have expressed concern for his health. He expressed regret over some of his inflammatory comments.

“I’m kind of an enigma,” Brock said last Friday during practice. “I can be kind of funny, kind of entertaining, and people can hang on my every word. But I can also turn people off in a big way. I have to live with both sides of that.”

Brock also wished he wouldn’t have placed so much emphasis on his career over the years.

“It’s almost like this year I’ve been able to sit back and see the forest,” Brock said. “In the past, all I saw were the trees.”

Sitting in a lawn chair during college baseball’s showcase event might not be Brock’s idea of coaching.

But you can’t beat the view.