Prep baseball coach Ebarb remembered for love of game, passion for Vegas kids

Rich Ebarb loved the College of Southern Nevada baseball program so much that he’d brag to friends that he was part of “Coyote Nation.”

When the Coyotes played earlier this summer at the Junior College World Series, Ebarb — a former CSN assistant coach — would send text messages of encouragement to his coaching friends.

“Every day, we’d get a text saying, ‘Proud of you guys,’” coach Nick Garritano said. “He’s a true CSN Coyote.”

Ebarb, who was an assistant coach on CSN’s national champion team in 2003 and won high school state titles on staff at Green Valley and Coronado, died abruptly on Wednesday. He was 57.

Ebarb retired from teaching two years ago, but continued coaching at Liberty High School in Henderson because he loved helping students, his wife, Lindsay Ebarb, said. 

“Baseball was just in his blood. He loved everything about it,” she said. “He loved the people and the competition and helping kids be successful.”

As word of his passing spread through the baseball community, Lindsay Ebarb has been flooded with phone calls detailing her husband’s kindness. Many of those notes came from players.

Those stories, Lindsay Ebarb said, reaffirmed what she long knew about her husband: He treated others with dignity.

“Everywhere we go, he’d run into a former player or someone he knows through baseball,” she said. “They said, ‘You changed my life.’ It’s so heartbreaking that he is gone.”

Ebarb graduated from Valley High School and returned to Las Vegas after college to become an educator. He coached in some of the city’s best programs — Green Valley in the 1990s, and modern-day Liberty — but arguably made a more significant mark working in the inner city.

He was the head coach at Chaparral, where he taught for more than a decade, and at Sunrise Mountain in east Las Vegas.

“Rich was a Chaparral guy,” said Todd Faranda, who coached with Ebarb at Chaparral to start a lifelong friendship. “Nobody loved baseball more than this guy. Everything he does is 1,000%, including loving the kids (he coached).”

Ebarb also worked as an associate scout for various MLB teams and served as a part-time professor at UNLV. The highlight of his career was a nearly 10-season run on staff at CSN.

To this day, he never missed an alumni event hosted by the program, Garritano said.

“Richard Ebarb made his mark in this community as an outstanding coach and role model for these young men,” said Garritano, who had a lengthy phone call with Ebarb on Wednesday night hours before he died.

Rich and Lindsay were married seven years, celebrating their anniversary last month in San Diego. He also loved being at the beach, she said.

Memories of Ebarb have been posted on social media today by the baseball community, singing his praises and outgoing personality. The Southern Nevada Officials Association — the group providing umpires — shared that Ebarb was one of the classiest coaches and always respectful.

“It’s a huge loss for Vegas baseball. He was well liked,” said Vince Kristosik, the association’s president.