Rock

Loy "Rock" Young (right) with Kevin Buisman
(Director of Athletics) and men's basketball coach
Matt Margenthaler (middle)

We received an email back in January from a gentleman named Jerry Young.

Jerry was born in Mankato and attended MSU’s Wilson Campus School where he played basketball and football for Wendell Jahnke in high school in the mid-1960's. 

An admitted gym rat in the 50’s & 60’s, he spent a lot of time hanging out wherever his dad happened to be. Jerry's father happened to be school legend Loy "Rock" Young.

Born in 1923 in Summer, Iowa, in the early 1940’s, Rock was a four-year basketball letterman at what was then known as Mankato State Teachers College. His playing career and time in Mankato was interrupted by World War II as he spent four years as a pilot in the Army Transport Command, including 13 months flying a C-47 from India to China over the Himalayan mountain range. More than 1,000 men and 600 planes were lost in that battle. A member of "The Greatest Generation," Rock earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster.

He returned from overseas to once again play in Mankato, helping the Indians to the NAIA finals in Kansas City, Mo., in 1947.  After graduating, he coached at two Minnesota high schools and was the head football coach at Dickinson State College before heading to Chadron State so he could coach basketball. One of the most successful coaches ever at Chadron, he was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1992. Rock left Chadron to join the physical education department and serve as an assistant football and basketball coach at his alma mater, where he worked with MSU icons Bill Morris and Bob Otto until his retirement in 1984.  He was inducted into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1983.

“Rock”  recently turned 90 and for the first time since retirement is back in Mankato - moving into Keystone Communities with his wife of 68 years, Janette.  

We had a chance to meet and visit with Rock prior to the men's basketball game vs. Southwest Minnesota State Feb. 23rd. And from that meeting, it became obvious that the passion for MSU flows strongly through him and his family.

A big thanks to Jerry for helping us all come together.

It's great to be a Maverick!