Palo Verde’s Rost lets general do the talking

Rob Miech

Palo Verde High football coach Darwin Rost stands in front of items collected over the years as he’s coached the team. He picked up his 100th win at Palo Verde last Friday night.

By Rob Miech (contact)

Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Before Palo Verde High takes to the football field with its World War II-era offense on Friday nights, it uses some rousing words from that time period for inspiration.

Coach Darwin Rost relishes every moment Gen. George S. Patton, via actor George C. Scott, speaks to the Panthers about battle and courage and winning.

For 6 minutes, 19 seconds, Scott bellows before a huge 48-star American flag.

The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans! An Army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps and fights as a team! Individual stuff is a bunch of crap … I actually pity those poor bastards we’re going to go up against. By God, I do!

Any wonder that Rost, who has won two state championships, tallied his 100th victory at Palo Verde last week?

“When he talks about how he pities those guys they’re going to go up against, I always smile,” said Rost, 48. “That’s the confidence Patton had going into war and that’s the confidence we have going into every game.”

When Rost and a couple of his coaches rented a cottage in Southern California for some relaxation in the summer of 2000, they watched Ronnie Lott’s induction speech at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Ohio.

Lott talked about how his high school coach played that “Patton” speech by Scott before every game.

“If that doesn’t put goose bumps on you,” Rost said. “I’ve always been a huge fan of Ronnie Lott. I loved the way he played and that was so cool. It’s neat how our kids can relate to that.”

Rost relates to Patton and World War II, and the archaic double-wing offense because of Iowa.

He was raised on an 80-acre farm in Hartley, Iowa, in the northwest corner of the state. Weekends and afternoons after school he helped his father, Darold, tend to dozens of cows and pigs.

“There were long summers on that farm,” Darwin Rost said.

Darold switched to crops because of dwindling returns on livestock, planting corn and soybeans in the spring and harvesting in the fall.

At Hartley High, Darwin was the homecoming king as a senior when he dropped a late interception that would have sealed a victory over rival Sanborn.

“Then they scored and won the game,” Rost said. “I never forgot that play. If I catch it, we win.”

He became the first member of his family to earn a college degree, from Dakota State an hour and a half drive away in Madison, S.D. He landed in Las Vegas in 1986.

Rost was the defensive coordinator when Eldorado won the state title in 1991, and he started Palo Verde’s program in 1996. Twelve seasons later he was at 100 wins.

The Panthers won a state championship in 2004 with the double-wing scheme that was pioneered by Don Markham.

Markham’s Bloomington (Calif.) High team set a national record by scoring 880 points in 1994.

Rost first saw Markham’s double-wing system in 2000 in Barstow, Calif., among 10,000 fans watching a state championship game.

“I fell in love with it the first time I saw it,” Rost said.

The double-wing features every offensive player in a tight formation, and it relies on a host of misdirection runs, counters and options to confuse defenses.

Bloomington never punted. Markham’s wife filmed each of his games. Three months later, Rost and a few assistants spent an entire day with Markham to learn the basics of the system.

That spring, Markham came to Las Vegas to teach every nuance of the double-wing to Rost, his assistants and the Panthers in a two-day camp.

“It was a neat experience to watch him talk to the kids,” Rost said. “We put it in that summer, went 9-4 and won a regional championship.”

Rost has spent time with Markham on his ranch, whose long Evergreen-lined driveway leads to a sprawling estate with 25 horses and a guesthouse on a hill that overlooks San Bernardino.

“You’d never know a coach lives there,” Rost said. “You’d think it’s for a mayor or governor. He is so neat, so down to earth. He is old school and instills great values. Kids love playing for him.”

Oregon has a Don Markham Rule – the game ends once a team leads by 45 points.

“The double-wing works if it’s run right,” Markham said. “A lot of people take it and use it, and never say where they got it, but he has always been gracious to say he got it from me. I appreciate that.”

Markham, 69, started the football program at American Sports University, the nation’s first and only four-year university devoted to sports management, in San Bernardino, Calif.

Because he lacks standout tight ends, Markham runs more of a double-slot than a true double-wing.

“Kids only see that spread stuff on TV so they rebel a little bit,” Markham said. “Sometimes it’s hard to get them to buy in. Until you’re successful, then they will buy in.”

During one dinner in Las Vegas, Markham chowed through a steak and some shrimp as a coaching friend of Rost’s laid out a passing option from the double-wing.

Markham rose, meandered behind the coach to study the napkin and snatched it, folding it and slipping it into a pocket as he returned to his surf and turf.

“The coach said it always worked, so I had to have it,” Markham said.

Rost has produced two DVDs on the double-wing and he’s a featured speaker at Nike clinics, yet he’s just as thirsty for new ideas.

Monday morning, he rang UNR assistant coach Ken Wilson, who recruits Las Vegas for the Wolf Pack, for spacing distances out of Nevada’s acclaimed “Pistol” offense.

“He walked into a meeting with their offensive guys, with his cell phone, to get me the information,” Rost said. “It’s something I want to try to get in before the playoffs.”

By then, the younger Panthers will have Patton down pat.