PIRCH VOLUNTEERS TIME, TALENT TO TEACH GIRLS BASKETBALL SKILLS

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Garry Pirch, 36, finds gratification in subtle ways. For 11 years he has volunteered his time and talents to help young girls develop their basketball skills.

Pirch, a basketball coach and physical-education teacher at Nell Holcomb School since 1976, also coaches three girls basketball teams in the Kiwanis Church Basketball League.

Two local basketball standouts, the Jenny Foeste and the late Darla Pannier, were among the more than 200 players Pirch has coached.

Foeste was a starter on Cape Central's girls team. She made the state tournament final-four teams a couple of years ago. Pannier likely was the best girls basketball player ever from Southeast Missouri. Tragically, she was killed in a traffic accident in 1989.

"I have four girls playing for Cape Central and one of my former players plays this year for Notre Dame," Pirch said.

Although he acknowledged that coaching the likes of Foeste and Pannier was memorable, Pirch said he considers success a relative concept that often finds fruition in almost imperceptible ways. "The satisfaction mostly is just in seeing the girls progress and get better each year," he said. "But it always makes me feel good whenever they can do well."

Pirch said he also gains satisfaction just by being involved with basketball, a game he's loved his entire life.

After growing up in a small town near Kansas City, he went to Southeast Missouri State University, where he was recruited to play basketball. He was mostly a reserve forward for the Indians from 1972-76, but he said the limited playing time didn't cause his love of basketball to wane.

That's the only way he can dedicate himself to the hours of volunteer time he spends to coach young boys and girls in Cape Girardeau.

"I just love the game of basketball," he said. "I still play myself, and I've been around it all my life. It's kind of self-perpetuating the more you're involved, the more you enjoy it."

Pirch said he hopes he can instill some of that passion for the game in the girls he coaches.

"I guess when you get into sports at that age level its a way to prepare yourself for the game of life itself," he said. "The way I look at it, for a lot of kids, if they didn't have basketball out there, they wouldn't keep their grades up and would have a hard time staying out of trouble. So it really serves a lot of good purposes."

The Kiwanis league was started in 1978, Pirch said, as a way to give young girls the opportunity to learn basketball skills and also compete against other teams. The league is open to any church or school group that wants to play.

The Excelsior Optimist Club members donate their time to keep the scoreboard and clock and keep statistics. The Cape Girardeau Kiwanis club provides the bulk of the league's financial backing.

Games are played Saturday mornings between 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Pirch said. But the teams also practice twice a week.

"We're in a unique situation at Nell Holcomb in that we're not part of (a state organization that schedules interscholastic games), and there's not a set number of games that we can play," Pirch said.

"My feeling is that the girls are in the league to play, and we try to play as many games as possible, anywhere from 15 to 21 games in a year."

Cape Girardeau schools don't offer interscholastic basketball for students prior to the eighth grade, so the church league gives fifth- to seventh-graders three years of organized participation before they play competitively in junior high and high school. "That's a big advantage when you can go into Cape Central and already have played anywhere from 80 to 100 games," Pirch said.

The coach said the league's fifth- and sixth-grade players usually play on the "B" teams and the seventh- and eighth-graders play on the "A" teams. "Once in a while, we have a few sixth-graders who are good enough to play against the older girls," Pirch said. "But that's not too often."

The league continues to grow in the number of teams participating, he said. Last year 10 teams played in the 12-and-under age group and three played in the older girls league.

Pirch said 20 to 25 adults are involved with coaching the various teams. Most of the adults have children playing. Pirch hadn't until this year, when his daughter will start.

"I coach two teams in the younger age group and one in the older," he said. "It's about 27 girls altogether."

Pirch said that coaching more than two dozen young girls in a game that's difficult to master includes its share of frustration.

"I guess the biggest challenge to me is just to have the patience to know they're not going to be able to do everything they need to do right off the bat," he said. "They just have to work at it. Some come along really quickly, and, for other players, it takes a while."

Pirch said some of the area high-school girls coaches follow closely the progress of the church-league players.

"I know Cape Central's girls coach (Mark Ruark) pretty well," he said. "In the summertime I open the gym up for girls to play once a week and he's been over there quite a bit. His assistant comes over too, and they play and get to know some of the girls."

Pirch said he has no plans to soon give up his appetite for coaching basketball. "I'll probably stick with it until I retire from teaching," he said.

It remains to be seen, however, if even retirement will douse Pirch's coaching flame.