Palo Verde mourns coach, friend

It was growing late Sunday evening, and the bulletin board wasn't finished. Darwin Rost hadn't yet attached all the newspaper clippings and combine numbers and statistics and other important information about the upcoming opponent's top players.

He was missing his best friend.

"This was our routine every Sunday during the season," Rost said. "Just the two of us. The other coaches would leave by 3 p.m., and he and I would stay and work on our offensive and defensive packets for the week. I'd get the bulletin board updated, and he would have his defensive game plan all set.

"It would get to be about 6, and we'd have our other halves calling us and yelling at us to get home for dinner, that we should have been there an hour ago. ... So we'd get everything finished and packed up and leave together.

"I miss him to death."

Rost is head football coach at Palo Verde High and one of the most successful in state history with a record of 104-36. He has made a habit of developing championship-caliber teams and has another this season, one that takes a 7-1 record into its game against Faith Lutheran on Friday.

Rost is like most prep football coaches, a leader of impressionable young men, which means there are daily life lessons to be taught beyond the proper way to attack a two-deep zone.

But who in times of tragedy can console the person in charge of comforting everyone else?

Palo Verde's family lost Dave Castro on Saturday, when the longtime local coach and fourth-year defensive coordinator for the Panthers was found dead at his home from cardiac arrest. He was 54.

Rost first met Castro in 1986, when there might have been a dozen or so schools in the valley and coaches knew those from opposing staffs nearly as well as their own. They hung out together, bonded, dreamed about winning state championships and creating legacies.

It was in late December 2004 when Rost lost another close friend, Palo Verde boys basketball coach Phil Clarke, who at 53 succumbed to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In 2005 Castro joined the school's football staff.

"Dave just stepped right into that role I had shared with Phil," Rost said. "He became my best friend, like a brother to me. We both lost our fathers within a few weeks of each other in 2006 when we were in the state playoffs. We went through all that together. We taught in the same department. We coached our sons together.

"I told the team that we talk all the time about the football gods. Well, now we have our own watching over us, 24-7. Dave is up there watching, and the kids need to remember to make good choices in life, to be good people, to live how he would have wanted them to."

Rost and Castro also coached the school's junior varsity team, and in its game against Arbor View on Thursday, a certain sophomore fullback/linebacker rushed for two touchdowns and played the game of his young life. Jake Castro tore it up in a 33-6 win, with Rost and Jake's father watching and coaching from the press box high atop the field.

"Jake broke a couple tackles on one play and went 35 yards for a touchdown by outrunning everyone," Rost said. "And I look over to Dave, and he has the biggest grin on his face. ... He was trying to remain calm and keep coaching and getting ready to call the defensive plays, but he was at that moment the proudest father you could ever see watching Jake."

There is a desk in the back of the Palo Verde football coaching office, a place where Dave Castro would pile all sorts of papers and DVDs and scouting reports. It was there each Sunday morning where he and defensive assistants would sit and watch film of the next opponent.

But this week, some 24 hours after the news of Castro's passing rocked Palo Verde and counselors were dispatched to help teenagers cope with the death of their coach and mentor and friend, assistants stood around that office and stared at the desk in the back.

Rost approached, began clearing off some of those papers and told his staff to pull up chairs like always, pop in the DVD and begin breaking down film.

"Dave would want us as prepared to play as always," Rost said. "He'd want us to be getting ready for the next game.

"This is a huge loss for us. There is a huge void right now."

It was growing late Sunday evening, and many had begun gathering on Palo Verde High's football field for a candlelight service in memory of Dave Castro.

In an office on campus, Darwin Rost was still struggling to update a bulletin board for his team's upcoming game. He missed his best friend to death.

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