Legacy growing up quickly

The uniform color and nickname and fight song are all secondary issues. The level of commitment isn't. High school football programs built from the first blade of grass tend to need more continuity than flavor.

What does it matter how shiny those helmets are if the faces under them annually change?

Dave Snyder has played this role before. He has opened schools, started programs, sent young and unprepared kids to the slaughter of a Friday night under the lights.

He also knows things don't have to remain gloomy forever.

"The hardest thing is to keep a group together for a period of four years, to keep them coming back, especially when you're opening a school and instead of a top crop of juniors and seniors, you're dealing with freshmen," Snyder said. "Generally speaking around here, kids go where they're supposed to or they go to Bishop Gorman.

"But I've been in the inner city my whole career. There are always issues. Keeping 30 to 35 kids together for a long time is no easy task. But I told this group of seniors a long time ago that if they stuck it out and got in the weight room and bought into what we were teaching, they would be champions. When you say that, you hope it comes around."

Legacy High isn't exactly at the end of the world. It just seems that way driving into the North Las Vegas darkness. But in its fourth year along Deer Springs Way exists a football team that has suddenly assumed a place among the city's finest.

Perfection is hard to master at any level but Legacy has thus far this season proved up to the task, winning its 11th straight Friday in a 31-14 Sunset Region playoff game against visiting Spring Valley.

It wasn't that much of a blowout. Legacy led just 17-14 with 8:25 left when its coaches called for a fake punt from its own 42, at which time I immediately wondered who from UNLV was moonlighting as a prep coach.

It's still a learning process for Legacy, all this winning. Sometimes, brain cramps from the sideline are part of it all. But when you have the best player on the field (running back Deshae Edwards, 27 carries, 143 yards) and a quarterback (Devin Wiedemann) whose only two completions go for touchdowns of 39 and 49 yards, your chances of beating an inferior opponent escalate.

Improvement is like a toddler. It has a mind of its own. You really can't gauge how quickly it might take substantial leaps forward. Legacy went 3-15 its first two seasons. It went 7-4 last year and made the playoffs. Baby steps became large strides.

But this season, with one particular win, the Longhorns made a leap the distance of the MGM Grand to Circus Circus.

They beat Palo Verde 7-6, handing the local power just its second loss in two years and first since last season's state final. Some wins simply make the pizza taste better afterward. Some make critical statements about how far a program has come from the sprouting of that first blade of grass.

"I've told the kids for these four years to be the best, we had to eventually beat the best and put up or shut up," said Snyder, who also started the football program at Canyon Springs. "Respect is earned. Up to this season, for the most part, we hadn't been able to stay with those types of teams. But now, all the hard work is reaping the benefits."

Legacy's undefeated run has allowed it to avoid a semifinal pairing against either Palo Verde or Bishop Gorman, meaning one of the two Goliaths will have been sent packing before the Longhorns would reach that part of the bracket.

First things first. Legacy next hosts a Cimarron-Memorial team it beat 30-29 in overtime last month, and I have a feeling any failed fake punts from your own territory when leading by just three in the fourth quarter won't eventually end in a lopsided victory.

It will take a better effort for the Longhorns to advance.

Focus, however, won't be a problem.

"This is what we planned for, what we worked for, what we thought would happen all along since our freshman season," senior lineman Brandon Paquin said. "Obviously, it has been a great year to this point. But we have what it takes to keep it going. It's all right there for us. We are good enough to win a state championship.

"The goal is 15-0."

In a program's fourth year, way out here into the North Las Vegas darkness, that's a pretty lofty aspiration.

Made more impressive by this: It could happen.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He also can be heard weeknights from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. on "The Sports Scribes" on KDWN-AM (720) and www.kdwn.com.