Longtime coach likes a challenge

      Larry Hathhorn, teacher and cross country coach at Shiloh Christian School, hasn't quite mastered the concept of retirement.
      "The key thing of mine is I got to do something I wanted to my whole life, and still do. I retired from Clark County School District five years ago and still had the desire to teach," said Hathhorn, who has spent more than 30 years in the profession, teaching in rural schools across Nevada.
      Beginning in 1963, he has taught everything from a self-contained eighth-grade class in Ely, where he did it all -- everything from physical education to science to a three-student advanced physics class at Indian Springs High School. He even taught school in the small town of Battle Mountain, which had a graduating class of three girls.
      "It sounds real Wild West," he said about the names of the places he's worked. "I've been to every town that has a high school in the state of Nevada."
      After his wife died, Hathhorn, 61, retired from the district in 1994, leaving Indian Springs High School. It was a school where he had spent 21 years of his life, teaching and coaching football, basketball, track and cross country. Last year, the school created the Larry Hathhorn Award, which is presented to the top athlete each year.
      "The situation changed, so I decided to move in a different environment. Ask anyone in Indian Springs if they ever thought I would live in Las Vegas and the answer is an emphatic no," he said. "Until recently, I was a small town boy."
      Not fully ready to give retirement a shot, Trinity Christian School became his next stop, until he came aboard with the Shiloh Christian School staff in the summer, under the prompting of Gail Haase, Shiloh's secondary education principal.
      "I got him gradually," Haase said.
      She said at first Hathhorn committed to teaching two classes, then it was four and then all of a sudden he was creating cross country and track programs.
      In its first season, the cross country team is small with only eight runners on the junior high girls' team and two on the high school boys' team; however, Haase said, "He works just as hard with a couple of kids as opposed to a large team. Larger schools have four or five coaches. Larry just runs all over the field."
      It was in the third grade that Hathhorn realized he wanted to be a coach.
      "I didn't want to teach, because that didn't look like much fun, but I found out that it goes hand in hand," said the Montana native.
      He coached grade-school pupils in basketball when he was still in high school, and over the years, coached Little League and Pop Warner football. At Indian Springs High School he was the athletic director and dean for a while, but he said: "I liked the classroom and the field better than the administration.
      "There's no easy solution, no magic pill," he said about his coaching strategy. "Out-work the other guy. If he's working hard, you work harder, unless you like second place. The same seems to apply in life."
      Off the field, Hathhorn, who has two master's degrees -- one in science from Arizona State University and one in history from the University of Idaho -- teaches science, geography and Nevada history. However, he closes the book when it comes time to teach his history class.
      "He's our Nevada state expert because he's lived it," said Lois Cadwallader, Shiloh's elementary education principal. "He doesn't get it from a book. He brings a lot of personal experience to the subject and enthusiasm."
      For now, Hathhorn plans to keep working right through his retirement years.
      "I still enjoy the classroom and the athletic field. When I stop enjoying it, it's time to quit," he said.