By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

Winning Isn’t Everything

The Moapa Valley Empowerment High School varsity football team played an amazing game some 11 days ago, defeating the top-rated Class 3A Arizona champs 28-26 in the Sollenberger Classic at the University of Phoenix stadium.

It was a marvelous win by a spectacular group of players who were the predicted underdogs against the Show Low, AZ, Cougars. The Arizona players had an opportunity to tie the game in the final minute of play, but an incomplete pass ended their hopes and the MVHS Pirates came home triumphant.

This game is something those young Moapa Valley players will remember for the rest of their lives and rightfully so. Without a doubt, it will become part of MVHS football lore.

Now I’m not much of a football fan. I don’t follow the pros, the college teams or even our Pirates with any real regularity. But I must admit I was extremely proud of “our” team and when it won, I probably cheered just as loudly, just as proudly as if one of those football players had been a son.

For several days, just like nearly everyone else in Moapa Valley who knows anything about sports, I felt a little smug swagger every time I heard the words “football” and/or “Pirates.”

After a few days, however, and little reflection, I had an epiphany of sorts. I had to take myself to task about just what the game really should mean – to me, to Moapa Valley and, most of all, to the players.

There is so much emphasis on winning, being on the winning side, we often seem to forget that for one side, one team, one player to win, there has to be a loser. And while it’s great to win, it really isn’t everything. There’s something to be said for just doing the best job possible, win, lose or draw.

After thinking deeply about the game – and it is just a game — I decided I would have cheered just as loudly and just as proudly had our amazing players gone to Arizona, played their hearts out and came home on the losing side of 28-26. When all is said and done, it isn’t the winning that makes me proud, it was the journey to the win; the effort to get there, the perseverance to continue to the end.

The first high school football game played by Moapa Valley students is a case in point.

In 1931, many high schools in the country were just beginning to organize football teams. The current big urban bloc to the south, Las Vegas and the surrounding area, was no different.

The Las Vegas population was swelling with Hoover Dam workers and others on the periphery looking for any kind of employment during tough times. The state had just allowed gambling and Nevada was looking rosy, especially to those living in the Las Vegas Valley.

Everybody had kids who needed an education and the new Las Vegas High School was jumping with students. Some forward-looking educator in charge of the place apparently knew all about football and its value to the identity of a new school and its students so he formed a team.

There weren’t many opponents in 1931 and Las Vegas was forced to scour the desert looking for other teams to play. Eyes eventually landed on Moapa Valley and a challenge — a request really – was forthcoming.

Ninety-seven-year-old LaRue “Barney” Barnum was a senior in the Logandale High School in 1931 and he said when kids heard that Las Vegas wanted them to come and play a football game they just kind of looked at one another in wonder.

“A football game? Nobody out here even knew what a football looked like let alone understand how to play!” Barney said. “Well, Las Vegas insisted, ‘Ah, come on. It’ll be fun,’ so although we had a hard time scraping up enough kids to play, we took off south.

“They had told us they’d supply everything we’d need to play — uniforms, helmets — that sort of thing,” Barney said. “But when we got there it was pretty sad. Somebody just pointed down a hallway where there was pile of shabby stuff and told us to take what we needed.”

In short, Barney said the Moapa Valley team suited up as best they could with ill-fitting and grungy equipment and then went on to the field to face its opponent with all the ability and knowledge it had at its disposal – much as the MVHS Pirates must have done in Arizona.

And just like the Pirates did so many years later, Barney and his team played their hearts out. Unlike the victorious MVHS team, however, the 1931 team lost – badly.

Every time the Las Vegas team got the ball, it scored a touchdown; every time the Moapa Valley team got the ball, well, it didn’t; not even once. The final score was 70 something to nothing.

Having been around for several decades now, I’ve won some things and I’ve lost some things. I know all about traveling to a foreign territory, doing the best you possibly can against some pretty stiff odds and then coming home victorious or, too frequently, not.

Naturally, I’d pick winning over losing anytime.

But I have to admit, when I picture Barney and his crew battling with everything they’ve got against the odds, in spite of the eventual outcome, I get the urge to cheer just as loudly, just as proudly as if it was that 2011 MVHS Pirate team fighting the Show Low Cougars.

Winning may be the icing on the cake, but it sure isn’t everything.