Passion helps make a successful coach

Heather Cory

Palo Verde coach Darwin Rost explains a play to Chaisson Prescott during a summer practice. Rost is the longest tenured coach in Las Vegas and is the president of the Southern Nevada Football Coaches Association.

By Sean Ammerman (contact)

Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008 | 2 a.m.

There was plenty of action in the high school football coaching job market in Southern Nevada this offseason.

No less than 12 large-school classification head coaching positions have changed in Clark County since November, more than a third of the 31 available jobs. But that’s not unusual, said Darwin Rost, president of the Southern Nevada Football Coaches Association.

“It was about average,” Rost said. “We usually have about a third of our coaches turn over per year. I think there should be more continuity.”

Rost, who is Southern Nevada’s most tenured coach going into his 12th season at Palo Verde, said many coaches are turned off by the hard work and stressful relationship with parents and boosters.

Knowing the sport well and having a winning team won’t always keep a coach at a school for long, he added.

“Coaching is something you really need to have a passion for,” Rost said. “You see a lot of guys going into administration because the pay is a little better.”

The division with the least tenured coaches in Clark County is the Southwest, where four coaches are entering their debut years. Mark Sauve is the veteran of the division with four years at Sierra Vista.

Lou Markouzis, who is going on his sixth season coaching at Liberty, said the pressure can be taxing.

“Every coach is affected by it in a different way,” Markouzis said. “If the team isn’t performing well, you take responsibility for it. That’s just part of the game.”

Of the newly appointed coaches, 10 will be first-time Southern Nevada head coaches.

Positions filled by coaches with head coaching experience include those at Durango, filled by Rancho’s Gary Maki, Desert Oasis, filled by Canyon Springs’ Chris Littmann, and Rancho, filled by Elvin Dick, who coached in California.

Rost said hiring less experienced coaches has been a trend in Clark County.

“In 1991, when we opened (Green Valley High, Cheyenne and Cimarron-Memorial), they went out and recruited head coaches to take those jobs,” Rost said. “Now there’s not a lot of appeal to taking a new job because you take a beating for the first couple years. So, instead they have been going to up-and-coming assistant coaches.”

Sean Ammerman is a reporter for the Home News. He can be reached at 990-2661 or sean.ammerman@hbcpub.com.