High School Baseball, Softball: Former Moody star Pacheco finds coaching home at West Oso

Delilah Pacheco graduated from the University of Utah eyeing a potential career in social work.

But one of her former principals at Moody, Sandra Clement, reminded Pacheco about something that was also in the back of her mind, becoming a coach.

“She’s the one who said, ‘You were born to be a coach,’” Pacheco said. “I said, ‘I know, you are right.’”

Pacheco decided coaching would be her career and in less than three years is now a head softball coach at West Oso High School.

Pacheco worked as the head coach at John Paul II last season, and moved to West Oso last summer, looking to help jump start the Bears program that has struggled to make the playoffs.

Pacheco, 26, was an all-state player while at Moody, and went on to success at Blinn College and later was a solid performer at Utah.

Now she is teaching the game that she loves, and happy she made the move. She is also learning that coaching is more than the Xs and Os but building relationships and the administrative responsibilities.

“I’ve learned from a bunch of great coaches as a player and done travel ball and those kind of things,” Pacheco said. “Softball just comes natural to me. Coming from John Paul, you had to do a lot of paperwork on your own and that prepared me even more.”

Pacheco said a hurdle this season is working to build some experience for a team that has three returning starters, and the focus has been on fundamentals.

“I’ve been preaching to them just doing all the little things right,” Pacheco said. “We have a brand new team, we only have three returning starters and a bunch of them only played since their freshman year. It’s dressing the same every day, being unified, always praising each other up and try to do all those little things. Hopefully it comes together, and we get some wins out of it.”

SCHEDULE DISRUPTIONS

This past week’s cold, wintry weather mixed with power outages and water issues forced the cancellation of multiple softball tournaments in the area. The Calallen Classic and a tournament hosted by Robstown and Tuloso-Midway were canceled because of the weather.

Odem was planning a one-day modified schedule for Saturday.

OFF AND RUNNING

The high school baseball season officially starts Monday as District 29-5A is scheduled to start is 16-game gauntlet on Monday with three games.

District 29-5A teams will play games early in the week during tournament season and then begin to work in games throughout the season, including multiple games on spring break.

The District 29-5A softball season also starts next week, also with games on Monday.

Len Hayward is a USA Today Sports Network Region sports director and the Caller-Times sports editor. Support more coverage like this by checking out our subscription options and special offers at Caller.com/subscribe