As a newly hired freshman boys basketball coach at Stevenson in 2008, Brent Mork envisioned his future.
He saw himself as a head coach. And the place he most desired to lead is where he is now in charge.
“I told my wife [Kristi] I could see myself at Libertyville. I knew it was a job I wanted to go after,” Mork said.
On April 30, Libertyville athletic director Briant Kelly announced Mork as the boys basketball program’s new coach, replacing Scott Bogumil. The hire is expected to be made official at a school board meeting May 18. A driver’s education teacher at Stevenson, Mork will teach in the physical welfare department at Libertyville beginning in August.
Mork earned the job despite last coaching basketball during the 2011-12 season as a varsity assistant at Stevenson. Kelly said Mork’s experience at both the high school and college level (Mork was an assistant at Wisconsin-La Crosse and Lake Forest College) was attractive.
“His background in basketball at a few different levels is really good. He’s an approachable coach with a great demeanor,” Kelly said. “He stays in contact with people and studies the game of basketball. Being away gives you a different perspective on things.”
Mork, a Wisconsin native who played football and basketball at Menomonie High School in the western part of the state, graduated from high school in 2000. He did his undergraduate work at Wisconsin-Madison, where he first coached at the freshman level at nearby Verona High School. As a graduate student at Wisconsin-La Crosse, Mork served as an assistant for longtime Eagles coach Ken Koelbl.
In 2007-08, Mork moved to Lake Forest College. He sat on the bench next to Chris Conger, the Foresters’ all-time winningest coach. All this time, from Verona to La Crosse to Lake Forest, Mork listened more than he spoke.
“I worked with some really, really good coaches that have been successful,” Mork said. “You can pick and choose what you take and implement what you want. It’s a blended approach.”
That approach, Mork said, will be a combination of man-to-man defensive principles fused with an offense that relies heavily on ball movement.
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“It’s a player’s sport. But without fundamentally skilled players, it’s tough,” Mork said. “We’ll have motion concepts with good spacing and player movement. It will be up to the kids individually to push themselves and each other to be more skilled.”
From 2009-12, Mork was an assistant on the staff of Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose. Mork’s duties were wide-ranging. He ran the junior varsity program, he scouted opponents and he coached the guards. In 2011-12, he helped coach a freshman named Jalen Brunson, who would go on to become Lake County’s all-time leading scorer.
Ambrose said Libertyville can expect a team that will be prepared and will play to the level of its talent.
“He’ll be very organized. He’s very detailed oriented. Players will know what to expect,” Ambrose said. “They will know what he’s expecting and what he wants. They will always be ready.”
Mork said his sabbatical from basketball coaching was family related. He and Kristi have two young children and he needed to be home with them. During his time away he coached Stevenson’s girls golf team and Stephanie Miller, who won an AA state title in 2012.
Libertyville is Mork’s first basketball head coaching job. He said it’s a position he’s been preparing for his entire life.
“I’ve grown and developed more as a coach these last few years then if I had continued to coach. I’ve never stopped learning,” Mork said. “At Libertyville, you don’t have these freak athletes that come through on a yearly basis. You win with fundamentally sound players that buy into a team concept. This is not my program, it’s our program.”
Kerr is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter: @prepspioneer