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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

New assistants have head coaching experience

Three former head coaches at three different sized schools are the new assistant coaches for the Pecos Eagles football team this season.

Bubba Ross, Jeff Green and Ken Wallace are the newest coaches on Chris Henson’s staff, going into this Saturday’s opening scrimmage against the Seminole Indians. Ross comes from serving as head coach and athletic director at Sierra Blanca High School and Wallace held the same job at Brookshire-Royal High School in southeast Texas, while Green comes from out of state, having been a head coach last year in California.

Ross said coming to Pecos is a return to coaching 11-man football, after his time in Sierra Blanca with the Vaqueros.

“I spent the last four years in Sierra Blanca as athletic director and head football coach,” Ross said. “Before that I was in Van Horn and Fort Hancock, and before that I was a Sul Ross Lobo.”

“I’ve been doing six-man football, but it’s still the same running and the same tackling,” said Ross, who went to Sul Ross after attending San Antonio East Central High School, will be the linebackers coach for Pecos this year, as well as serving as assistant track coach for Derick Price, who takes over as head coach from Robbie Ortega this year.

Green has 15 years of coaching experience, all but one of that in California after graduating from Chaffee College and Cal State-San Bernardino. He’ll coach the offensive line and will take over from Fred Howard as head powerlifting coach for Pecos.

“My wife’s family is from the Permian Basin, and Pecos is where I want to raise my kids,” Green said, after moving here from Southern California.

He said the schools he’s been at in California have been larger than Pecos, with between 1,800 and 3,200 students. “The last school I was at had between 3,000 and 3,200 students, and there were four more schools in the city that were just as big. But we actually have more participation here. We had 3,200 kids and we have as many playing football here as we did out there.”

He said there are a few different rules between California and Texas. “We can block below the waist more here than we could in California, but football is football, and I’m just very impressed with the kids’ work ethic. The staff is very positive with the kids, and we’re establishing a relationship based on mutual respect.”

Wallace has a Permian Basin background, having gone to high school in Greenwood, and like Ross and Henson, went to college at Sul Ross. But he has spent the last few years coaching in southeast Texas, including 2006 at Brookshire Royal, which like Pecos is a Class 3A-sized school. He’ll coach the tight ends and wingbacks on offense, the strong safeties on defense and will be the head junior varsity coach for the Eagles this season.

“Chris and I went to college together, and we’ve both been calling each other when we get head coaching jobs. This time I was in transition,” he said. “It’s going to be a different role for me not being a head coach, but I’m going to get to coach a little more than I have for a while. When you’re the head coach and AD you don’t get as much of a chance to work with the kids.”

While he’s been coaching 500 miles away in recent years, Wallace said he does have some experience within the Eagles’ District 1-3A. “I did some student teaching in Monahans, and they pretty much have the same staff they did in 1992. Coach (Mickey) Owens is now the head coach instead of an assistant coach, and before I came here, I coached in the same district as coach (Rusty) Roark. His brother is head coach in Needville.”

All three coaches said they enjoyed their first week of workouts, and Wallace said that was a change from what he had heard about Pecos.

“Somewhere along the line Pecos got a bad stigma attached to them, that the kids mouthed off and were uncooperative. But that can’t be further from the truth,” he said. “So far it’s been a very enjoyable experience.”

“The kids show up and work hard,” Green said. “The biggest difference here is the coaches are all on-staff coaches, and we’re able to spend a lot of time outside of practice getting ready for the future.”

“The participation level of the kids has been great. We’re out here with about 130 kids, and I’ve never been in three digits ever before,” said Ross. “Also the number of coaches we have here is a lot different. Everywhere else, I’ve had to do a lot of different things, but here I’m able to concentrate on linebackers.”

Eagles improve at scrimmage after slow start

The Pecos Eagles volleyball team had their problems to start off Saturday against the Monahans Loboes. But coach Helen Kimbrough said things got better after that for the Eagles against Odessa High and Odessa Permian, in their lone preseason scrimmage prior to the start of the 2007 season.

Pecos opens regular season play at home Tuesday afternoon against the Wink Wildcats, after going to Monahans on Saturday to face the Loboes, Bronchos and Panthers in a trio of 40 minute scrimmages, and Kimbrough said her team struggled against Monahans, played much better against OHS, and then had mixed results to close things out against Permian.

“I don’t know about this Monahans stuff, but that’s something we’re going to have to change,” she said, after Pecos was slow to react to Monahans’ jump serves and quick sets. The Eagles had trouble both receiving the serves and passing serves they did handle to their setters, while Pecos’ blockers at times were unable to stop Monahans’ front line hitters during their 40-minute match.

“It’s not so much we can’t play with them. But they’ve got to react and they just stopped,” Kimbrough said. “I blame myself in part for this, because I’ve got to get these girls ready to do what they have to do at this level. And they’ve played all summer at that level, but it looked like they regressed.”

However, she said things were better in the second match against OHS.

“They were hitting the ball hard and were running their quick sets, but we were moving and blocking,” Kimbrough said. “I think if we had played Odessa High first we would have done better against Monahans. It was like night and day. We burst out as a team and started serving, setting and hitting.

“When we played Permian, we started out OK, but got a little tired after that mentally. But all the things that happened this weekend are fixable, and they will get fixed.”

Pecos will field a team made up of mostly juniors this season, after going 27-10 last season and advancing to the Region I-3A semifinals, where they lost to Canyon, which turned around and ended Monahans run of four straight regional titles. The Loboes also have gone undefeated in District 2-3A play for the past five seasons, and will again be favored to win the 2-3A title in 2007.

“I haven’t had my players as long as she (coach Patty Dominguez) has at Monahans. They’ve been at it since seventh grade,” Kimbrough said. “I’m not saying our girls haven’t been taught things by the other coaches, but they’ve got to learn to play quicker, and that’s what I’m trying to do with them right now.”

Pecos’ regular season will open about 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday against Wink, after the junior varsity and freshmen teams open up against the Wildcats at 4 p.m. The Eagles will then head for the Panhandle on Thursday, and will open play on Friday against Dumas and Perryton at the Canyon Invitational.

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Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
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