‘God’s truly amazing’: Pahrump’s “Pink Panther” earns new home in Vermont
Cayden Cowley still remembers the first goal he ever scored.
He was just seven years old, playing youth soccer for the local AYSO Sharks.
The moment was electric, the kind every kid dreams of as his parents Neil and Lacie coached alongside.
He ran in celebration, heart racing, smiling ear to ear. There was just one minor problem though.
“I scored on us,” Cowley said, laughing. “My dad was yelling at me, and I didn’t even realize it.”
It’s the kind of story that keeps Cowley calm as he recently fully committed to play at the University of Vermont.
A kid who’s loved the game even before he fully understood it quickly grew into one of the most feared goalkeepers in Nevada, a state award winner, and a college-bound athlete who never once thought college was in his future.
“I think it was last year when Andrew Norton and my father came together and were like, ‘No Cayden you seriously need to be playing soccer in college because you are freaking awesome.’”
A brief relocation
Following his early soccer years in Pahrump, his family moved to Aiken, South Carolina, where sports became a year-round lifestyle.
Football in the fall. Basketball in the winter. Soccer in the spring.
He joined the Bulls Soccer Club in Aiken, one of more than 120 teams across the state, traveling nearly every weekend for competition.
“That’s where I really found my passion for goalkeeping,” Cowley said. “I was always athletic, always competitive, but that’s where it clicked.”
Eventually, the family returned to Pahrump, where Cowley faced a crossroads familiar to many multi-sport athletes.
Staying athletic
Football and soccer season overlapped. Cowley loved both.
Somehow, he managed to do both. Then, just before his freshman year of high school, disaster struck.
“I think it was a week before school started, I broke my leg at my house playing basketball with Kayne Horibe and all the boys.”
He returned later that year, played sparingly in the last four games, and by all accounts looked like another athlete whose path might quietly fade.
Soccer wasn’t much of a priority at this point nor was enrolling in college.
“For most of my life, I thought I was going to enlist in the Marines, just like my dad,” Cowley said. “That was the plan. Always.”
That plan held strong through his freshman and sophomore years.
Will you play for me?
College was starting to feel a touch out of reach. Academics, as Cowley accounted, weren’t necessarily his strength. Tests, papers, assignments, never truly came easy.
Soccer was something Cowley did because he loved it, because his parents expected him to stay busy and because it gave him something to compete for.
Then his father made Cayden a simple offer. “I think I’m going to coach soccer,” he told his son. “If I do, will you play for me?”
Cowley didn’t hesitate. That decision overnight seemingly changed everything.
Under his father’s guidance and with the encouragement of coaches like Andrew Norton, Cowley began to take soccer seriously once more. Not just as a game, but as an opportunity.
By his junior year, Cayden was statistically one of the best goalkeepers in Nevada — ranked fifth in the state.
This year, he climbed to second, earning Nevada’s Goalkeeper of the Year honor, All-State recognition, and a spot on the state All-Star team.
The kid who once scored on his own team was now shutting everyone else down.
“I never thought I’d go anywhere for sports,” Cowley said. “I didn’t think I was college material. I was just this long, fast kid who liked to compete.”
Who are these guys?
Pahrump Valley boys soccer wasn’t supposed to be great last season, according to other clubs in the Las Vegas area. That was the narrative.
When Cowley and his teammates started winning this season, people noticed.
Defeating Cristo Rey St. Viator 2-1 in their season opener, a team that had last beat the Trojans 7-0 the the year before, the tone changed.
“That was the moment,” Cowley said. “People were like, ‘Wait… who is this?’”
They became the underdogs nobody wanted to play. Road games with hostile crowds and chippy matches with little to no calls their favor became the norm, but the Trojans leaned into it, feeding off the doubt and disrespect.
“We played for the logo on the front, not the name on the back,” Cowley said. “That town (Pahrump) taught us how to be men. Nothing comes easy.”
For Cowley, being a ‘Trojan’ became more than a mascot. It became home.
“Just one word comes to mind: family,” Cowley said. “This town raised me. Whether people see me as the goofy kid or the serious athlete, this place made me who I am.”
Look at him wearing pink
Around Pahrump, Cowley is better known by another nickname: The Pink Panther.
It started with a jersey, all pink and black. It was as unapologetically bright pink as can be. Paired with pink gloves, opponents quickly mocked the look.
But then came the saves.
“Critical save after critical save,” Cowley said. “People stopped laughing pretty quickly.”
The nickname stuck, passed down as a play on from his father’s moniker, the White Tiger.
Soon, it was everywhere. Pink Panther graffiti on his truck. Pink balloons after wins. Ask any athlete on campus who the Pink Panther is, and they’ll probably know.
“You don’t want him mad,” Cowley joked with a grin.
Cowley’s play is aggressively fearless and arguably sometimes a bit too fearless flying way out of the box.
Like the time he trucked an opposing player outside the box as a sophomore, earning a red card and walking off the field in his cleats and underwear, jersey handed off to a teammate.
But fear has an underlying way of changing games for the better. One opposing player later admitted he refused to enter the box after Cowley flattened him. “That’s when you know you’re doing something right,” Cowley said.
Emails and tears flow
After applying to multiple college soccer programs last week, the news all came in seemingly at once. Within 24 hours, Cowley had received offers from Garrett College in Maryland, Ottawa University in Kansas and Vermont State University, which also awarded him a $7,000 academic scholarship.
“I was sitting on the couch when I read it,” he said. “I started crying. I didn’t know I had that in me.”
The moment felt surreal to Cayden as he just recently committed fully to Vermont State University.
For a kid who never thought he was smart enough for college, Cowley was suddenly being recruited, valued not just as an athlete, but as a cornerstone for growing programs.
“They want me to help build something,” he said in reference to recent talks with the head coach of Vermont State University soccer program. “That’s crazy to me.”
Never forgetting his roots
Now, as signing day approaches, Cowley has officially set his sights on Vermont.
He’s proud, but better yet, Cowley is grateful and equally grounded. “God’s truly amazing, and I think the only words I have is grateful and proud of myself,” Cowley said.
Most of all, he’s thinking about his family. His parents, who pushed him. His dad, who doesn’t cry often but has teared up more than once recently with the news. His two younger sisters, Emma and Madeline, who he says cheer the loudest at games.
“They tell their friends, ‘My brother’s going to college to play soccer,’” Cowley said. “That means everything.”
From scoring on his own goal to guarding one with everything he has, Cowley’s journey is proof that belief can arrive late, but still arrive right on time.
And no matter where he decides to plays next, Pahrump will always be home.
Contact Jacob Powers at jpowers@pvtimes.com. Follow @jaypowers__ on X.
