There is a crisis in Pahrump sports. A lot of anger and finger pointing surrounds the girls soccer team and the loss of Pam Larmouth as head coach. It needs to stop.
The Pahrump Valley girls soccer team has a rich history, having won two state championships in the last five years. They made it to the top due to the hard work of the players and the strong coaching they received. In those championship years the players and coaches were all on the same page.
Now there is a new coach and she deserves the respect of the current players and parents. She needs the backing and support, regardless of what is going on.
Now is the time to rally around the flag.
I checked around and there are no other coaches available. The coach is Sarah Kent.
I talked to Jod Friesz and I have talked to Joe Sladek. They are both in agreement and believe the team has to decide what happens next. They both feel the girls need to lead and come together as a team.
Kent has been chosen so the team has a decision to make and they need to make it quickly. The team needs to decide if they want be winners or not. It’s time to pull together as a team and get things done. There is no blaming, there is no pointing of fingers.
As Yoda from Star Wars once said, [Luke:] “I can’t believe it.” [Yoda:] “That is why you fail.”
The team needs to believe in itself.
The negativity has to be swept away and everyone, players and parents alike, have to all find some common ground or the season is lost.
Now is not the time to complain about who the coach should be or could have been. That is all in the past.
The team has talent. The team can win games, these are facts and now is the time to go out and get some more wins.
There are plenty of teams throughout history that have come from behind to have successful seasons.
Look at what the 2014 San Francisco Giants did, they finished in second place and went on to win the World Series. Then there have been six teams in NFL history to get into the playoffs as wild cards and then win the Super Bowl.
My point being is that the girls don’t need to finish at the top to go all the way.
And they don’t have to go all the way to be considered winners, either. All they have to do is put their best foot forward.
I think the best part of playing a sport is learning how to lose. Once you can lose with dignity, then you work on winning with dignity.
Some of the best winners in high school sports have been the losers and some of the worst losers have been the winners.
In the first case, I used to see an Adelson team come in every year and play our girls and boys in soccer and not one time did I ever see a player or coach from that team ever have a fit over losing a game 10-0.
Then in basketball the coach of Clark would come in knowing he would win big against our boys and did, but for some reason he had a problem controlling his temper. I saw him one year. He was winning the game, big and still managed to get thrown out of the game. What does that teach our players?
Let’s face it, it’s tough to find good quality coaches to teach our kids anything, and so when we do finally get a coach who is willing to sacrifice their time, then I say give them a chance.
We won’t win all the games. That is a given.
The hard part about losing is to learn something from the losses so the losses become less frequent. The coaches and players that can do that are winners in my mind.
To improve over time is a goal that all coaches should aspire to and you don’t need to win all the time to do that.
Our Trojans football team is doing just that. We have three wins and two losses. Each game the Trojans have played, the coaches have seen improvement regardless if the game was a win or a loss.
Girls soccer, you can do it. As Larry the Cable Guy says, “Git-r-done.”