Lifetime Achievement Award: Gerald Pentsil wins inaugural award to cap storied Eldorado career

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Monday, May 23, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Gerald Pentsil is browsing photos on his iPhone when he gets a text message from one of his former soccer players, asking the coach how he’s feeling.

It’s something that has been happening a lot since Valentine’s Day, when Pentsil suffered a heart attack. Through 28 seasons of coaching at Eldorado High School, he formed unbreakable bonds with generations of players and coaches.

“Not only was he my coach and my teacher, but you also feel he is your friend and he cares for you,” said David Ostler, who played for Pentsil in the mid-1990s and returned to be his assistant coach. “When he talks to you, he wants what is best for you. He’s been my mentor all these years. He’s kept the relationship open.”

In honor of his legacy of mentorship, Pentsil has been named the first recipient of the Hank Greenspun Lifetime Achievement Award. Like Greenspun, the founder of the Las Vegas Sun, Pentsil championed the fight of the underdog and put his life’s work into the community.

“He never gave up on you,” said Henry Pena, an Eldorado senior who was the last of three members from his family to play for Pentsil. “He was basically your second dad on and off the field. He put his trust in us. Just as he put his trust in us, we had to give him the same treatment.”

Pentsil coached Eldorado to the 2013 state championship, four regional titles and numerous league titles. He also coached the girls team for nearly 20 years. He doesn’t know how many games he’s won, partly because that’s a lot of games to keep track of, but also because his purpose was never to win games; it was to educate and develop players.

“I set out to do what I know how to do, which is teach kids to be better citizens,” Pentsil said. “I have been blessed to be able to coach soccer and be an educator in the Clark County School District.”

• • •

The referee blew his whistle three times to signal the end of the state championship game, with Eldorado beating Palo Verde 2-0 for the school’s first soccer championship. Pentsil's team had lost 1-0 to Carson in the 1994 championship game and had a few other deep playoff runs, but had never been the last ones standing.

“He put his hands in the air, and it was like no one else was around him,” said Ostler, whose wife, Rami, also played for Pentsil and returned to be an assistant. “I think it was a mix of relief — it finally happened when we had been so close before — and part of it was pure joy.”

The Sundevils finished with a 22-0-2 record and were ranked No. 28 in the final MaxPreps rankings. It was his best season, but not his crowning achievement. He was more concerned with developing players socially and helping give them the tools to succeed after high school.

“It wasn’t a matter of the love of the sport. It wasn’t a matter of the love of being a coach,” said David Wilson, Eldorado’s principal. “He loved the kids. He was truly changing the lives of the kids he was working with.”

The kids loved him back. He’s attended every Eldorado graduation since he arrived at the school, and is so active messaging former players and coaching colleagues over the past few months that his wife has to remind him to rest.

Pentsil has been invited to multiple weddings of former players, and when he was married seven years ago, a few players attended. Ostler, who will take over as head coach this year, named his fifth child after Pentsil.

“Kids would come up to me and say, ‘One day I am going to play for you,’ ” Pentsil said. “I lived in that same neighborhood. The kids knew me. I knew their family.”

• • •

When Pentsil arrived at Eldorado in 1987, the school was one of Southern Nevada’s best. But as the northeast Las Vegas area declined amid migration of wealthy residents to other parts of the valley, so has the school. The graduation rate is low, as are resources.

Pentsil was asked multiple times to leave for another school, one in a better neighborhood with better facilities and support. But Eldorado was home; he made the kids better students and players, and they made him a better teacher.

“You try to preach things like relationships and loyalty, (so you can’t) tell a kid you have to leave for what is considered a better school,” Pentsil said. “In high school sports, it is not about going to another school to win — at least for me it isn’t.”

But while Pentsil’s mindset and approach haven’t changed, his circumstances have. And that will lead to a bittersweet moment this year: He’s following his wife, a minister, to Tempe, Ariz., where she will lead a church.

“I believe the Lord always provides change in your life,” Pentsil said. “I will still be a Sundevil.”

And the coach will still have a presence in Southern Nevada. School officials intend to submit paperwork to the Clark County School District to name the soccer field in his honor. And when Eldorado plays its first game in nearly three decades without Pentsil on the sidelines, the veteran coach will surely be on his phone, messaging friends for scoring updates.