Del Brock does not enjoy the spotlight. He’d rather shine it on those he feels deserve it more.

Good luck trying to tell that to local groups that keep sending accolades his way.

Two weeks to the day after taking home the CRMC Foundation’s H.C. Arnold Humanitarian Award, Brock will be inducted into the Cullman County Sports Hall of Fame. He and 11 other honorees making up the 17th class will officially be installed during a banquet Saturday at the Civic Center.

“I don’t know if I deserve it or not. A lot of people have done more in athletics than I have in Cullman County,” Brock said. “But I’m honored I was nominated this time. It does mean a lot to me. I was very surprised because it was several years ago when I coached.”

It’s actually been 38 years since Brock left the coaching business and 61 since the start of his high school playing days. Before graduating from Cullman in 1959, he lettered as a running back for three seasons and second baseman/outfielder for two.

Brock’s athletic career continued at Harding University, where he was awarded a four-year football scholarship and lettered the same length in track and field as a sprinter and quarter-miler. He later earned his master’s at Alabama and remains an avid Crimson Tide fan.

Ask Brock about early sporting memories with the Bearcats, and he’ll give a quite literal answer.

“5:30 practices stands out a little bit,” he said with a laugh. “I remember that.”

Brock began coaching at Austin High in 1964 as a football assistant and the head honcho of the track and field program. In 1966, he took on junior high football assistant duties at Cullman Middle School and was promoted to the high school after only a year.

On the Bearcats’ big campus, he served as head coach for cross country — his 1972 and 1973 boys squads won state titles — and track and field, as well as an assistant under legend Oliver Woodard for football, which was the 1972 Class 3A state runner-up. Each stint spanned seven years.

Brock was dually named athletic director and varsity football coach in 1974. Cullman was regional champ three seasons and runner-up another during his tenure, which ended in 1978.

The ‘Cats roster Brock’s last year included tight end Mark Britton, the current face of Cullman football and the program’s winningest coach in gridiron history. Britton and Woodard both precede Brock as local hall of fame inductees.

“Cullman’s lucky to have him,” Brock said of Britton. “He’s done a wonderful, wonderful job. I worked with some wonderful people. I loved the teaching. I loved the men I worked with, the assistant coaches who were so important. I loved Cullman High School and follow their teams today. I’m happy about what’s going on with baseball and everything else.”

Brock had good reason for leaving the Bearcats. His dad’s commercial egg business, Brock Miracle Egg, had gotten so big that he needed the help. Nothing sounded better to the elder Brock, Barney, than working with his son.

So just what was the miracle in Brock Miracle Egg?

According to Del, it stemmed from his parents starting the Childhaven orphanage after the family moved to Cullman in 1950. When he eventually chose to try his luck in the egg industry, Barney carried with him the belief that life was a miracle.

“He’s been gone a long time, but he was a great influence on me,” Del said of his father. “He was a great athlete. And the main thing, he was one of the finest Christian men I’ve ever known. That means so much to me. That’s so important for all of us.”

The younger Brock recently received Cullman Regional Medical Center’s Humanitarian Award for his work on the hospital board and its foundation’s board as well. He’s now retired and spends his days “playing with the sweetest granddaughter (Arden) you ever saw.”

Brock would also be remiss to accept any honor without first recognizing his wife, Sheila. The two are nearing their 52nd wedding anniversary in July.

“I would never have have accomplished 1/10th the things if it had not been for her,” he said. “She is the love of my life. She’s helped me so much.”