The Mountain Valley girls’ basketball coach resigns.
By Kevin Mills
Staff Writer

When a parent told Greig Parr that he was “too positive”, he’d heard enough.

That was the impetus for Parr’s eventual decision to resign as the Mountain Valley girls’ basketball coach. He announced his decision at the school’s winter awards banquet last week.

“Being told that I was too positive, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Parr. “I refuse to live in a world of negativity.

“I’m a person who thrives on accentuating the positives and looking for the positives. At times, I was expected to coach like somebody else. I couldn’t do that. That wasn’t being genuine to Greig Parr.”

In four years with the Falcons, Parr went 51-21 in the regular season and 2-4 in the playoffs, including Mountain Valley’s first win in Augusta since 1991. His stint with the Falcons came after coaching both boys and girls in the middle school for 25 years.

“It really wasn’t any fun anymore for me,” said Parr. “Or the fun had been taken out of it. Because of other aspects, the fun had been taken out of it.”

Parr says he understood that criticism came with the territory as a coach, but in this day and age, he didn’t like the idea of living under a microscope in an environment where it is easy to be condemn for how you coach.

“It’s easier to criticize than to compliment,” said Parr. “It’s just taken the life out of it.”

After losing eight seniors from last year’s club that advanced the semifinals in Western B, Parr’s young club went 10-8 and was ranked sixth. Though the previous year was even more trying because of outside influences, this season was exacerbated by the loss of long-time assistant Willy Murphy, who did not return after coaching alongside Parr for years. It left a void that only made the job more difficult. Dave Gerrish was added as an assistant, but it wasn’t the same.

“It was a tough situation,” said Parr. “I admired his knowledge of the game. We didn’t have the bond like Willy and I had. I knew this year would be a very different year not having Willy around.”

When Parr was criticized early in the year for being “too positive”, it sparked the thought of resigning. He decided not to return back in January but made it known last week.

Parr says he may return to coaching at some point. He already misses the job and has been reminiscing about what a joy it was coaching at the middle school level.

Though the Falcons had some of their best records ever during his tenure, it isn’t the wins and losses that he remembers most. It is experiences like a triple-overtime game at Boothbay or that coveted win at Augusta or being part of an enjoyable time at Thomas College during a summer session there last year. He has been nominated twice for the Who’s Who among American teachers, both nominations came from former players.

“It’s things like that that make me feel good,” said Parr, a teaching veteran of 32 years. “It’s the little things. Those are the ones that make me feel like coaching.”

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