During his lengthy coaching career at Carson High, Paul Croghan had success whether it was football, girls basketball or golf.
And, at 68 years young, Croghan is showing no signs of slowing down.
After retiring from Carson in 2003, Croghan and his wife moved to tiny Arnold, Nebraska. He is currently serving as an assistant coach for both the JV and varsity girls basketball teams, and he is also the golf coach.
"I love it," Croghan said. "It keeps me young.
"The pay scale is much better here than it was in Carson City. I make more as an assistant here than I did as a head coach in Carson City."
But he admitted that the teams don't have the numbers he had at Carson. In fact, Arnold is merging with a school 20 miles away for athletics only this year. The new team will be known as the South Lake Bobcats.
"This year we finished the season with six girls," Croghan said. "You can't really even practice. By merging with the other school, we'll have about 25 players for both teams, so we'll have some JV games."
Croghan, who also is doing some subsitute teaching in the Arnold area, said that the golf team is co-ed, because there aren't enough female golfers to have a team. Croghan himself is still playing golf regularly.
Croghan, whose daughter Holly, still lives in Carson City, said he keeps abreast of Carson High athletics through the internet.
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I've been a Giants fan nearly my whole life, and I applaud the recent moves that general manager Brian Sabean has been anle to pull off, especially the acquisitions of reserve infielder Mike Fontenot and veteran outfielder Jose Guillen this past week.
Manager Bruce Bochy said he didn't acquire Gillen to sit on the bench, which means that Aubrey Huff most likely will become the everyday first baseman. With Edgar Renteria on the DL for the third time this season, Fontenot will see action at either shortstop or second base.
Guillen has had some problems, but the Giants say that they got some good reports. That could mean two things. Either he really isn't that bad of a guy or the other teams want the Giants to have the headache of dealing with Guillen.
San Francisco also picked up two middle relievers, and that should help. San Francisco relievers have trouble throwing strikes at times, and Javier Lopez and Roman Ramirez will be an improvement.
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I was sorry to hear that former Nevada quarterback Jeff Rowe had announced his retirement from professional football.
Rowe, who played for both the Bengals and Seahawks, never got a chance to take a single snap in a regular-season game but did play in a number of preseason games.
Rowe was a class act, a joy to talk to during his days at Nevada. I remember his first year as a starter and his forays into the interview room after games. Early on, he talked like he had rocks in his mouth. You could barely understand him at times.
As the years went by, he became much more comfortable in front of the various media types.
He told me either his junior or senior year that he mumbled early on because he thought that was a way to get out of future interviews; that people wouldn't want to ask him any questions. I laughed when he told me that. I told him that he played the wrong position to try to employ that kind of strategy.