Hardball

"Her view that individual awards are not what our team is about seems truly idealistic and, in our view, a naive way of viewing the team," they wrote. "Most of the girls on the team have been playing softball for many, many years with good, solid coaching from volunteers within and outside of the Pearland community, and they are not naive. They know they need to stand out in a crowd if they hope to get a scholarship."

The Mishlans' letter wasn't Nelson's only ammunition. Nuber stood accused of dancing on the bus with her players and of urging bus drivers to go fast over speed bumps. On the trip home from the championship game, her players had stuck their heads out the bus' trap door -- making the parents driving behind them fear they'd be decapitated by low-hanging limbs or bridges.

The biggest complaint of all seemed to be that, on the bus trip to the championship game, Nuber had allowed the girls to watch Boomerang, an R-rated Eddie Murphy movie. A memo from principal Greg Smith painstakingly inventories the film's curse words: the word "dick" was used five times, "fuck" six times, "pussy" 11 times, and so on.

Nuber could see her annual evaluation sitting on Nelson's desk. On its last page, he recommended that she not return as head softball coach.

Maybe Pearland High didn't discriminate against Nuber. Maybe no coach could have lived up to its standards.mmmmmmmmm The league's other softball coaches side firmly with Nuber. Rhonda Foster coaches at Dobie High School, which won the '95 state championship. According to Foster, coaches commonly suffer the slings and arrows of zealous parents. "What they don't understand is that it's actually harder to coach talented players. They got attitudes and egos," she says. "The parents don't realize how tough it is to hold them together as a team."

Foster and other coaches belittle the parents' complaints about awards, saying that Nuber's behavior was well within the bounds of professional conduct. "I don't know what this awards stuff is in Pearland," says Foster. "You have a bunch of busybodies there."

James McClanahan, the softball coach at Elkins High, says that he doesn't give any individual awards to his team, and has never suffered repercussions. He readily admits that Nuber benefited from the talented kids on her team, but he praises her abilities as a coach. "She, as the coach, molded that team," he says. "You can't give her credit for scoring the runs, but you can't take away the fact that she is responsible for molding the team that won."

Another coach, who asked to remain anonymous, was shocked to hear Nuber had been fired. "Ninety-nine percent of coaches lose their jobs when they don't win," she says. "You think winning a championship at state level is job security."

That coach belittles Nuber's transgressions. "We all show videos we maybe shouldn't," she said. "We all fail to fill out some forms. When you start looking in files, you'll find that."

On examination, the issue of the Eddie Murphy video seems especially trivial. During the same time period, the Pearland High School library offered three R-rated films for checkout. A Pearland ISD spokesperson says that the school wasn't aware of the rating, and has now yanked the videos.

A letter from Chronicle softball reporter Jerome Soloman negates the accusation that Nuber failed in her press relations. "Obviously she has permanently etched my phone number into her automatic redial," Solomon wrote Nelson, "because besides sending weekly faxes of the team's latest statistics to me at both my home and at the office, I was guaranteed a day-after-the-game telephone call from Coach Nuber touting the exploits of her squad. No other coach is more aggressive, willing or accessible than Coach Nuber."

At 9:10 on Monday morning, the vacation Bible schoolers at First Baptist Church pledge allegiance to the American flag, the Christian flag and the Bible. Assistant pastor Rod Compton then announces a surprise for the church kids: a visit from the championship girls' softball team.

Eight of the 14 Lady Oilers burst through the sanctuary door and run down the aisle -- fresh-faced, upbeat, hometown heroines with ponytails swinging behind them. The Bible schoolers applaud.

Lea Mishlan acts as the team spokesperson, telling the kids how hard the Lady Oilers worked to accomplish their goal. Many of them, she says, played together in Pixie leagues, practicing long hours for years.