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Bob Hopkins was hard at work in the athletics director's office at Pahrump Valley High School Monday. So busy was he that the interview was short-circuited by his intensive schedule.

So we didn't get to ask him most of the questions we wanted to (and knew we would get the answers), which made it just that more frustrating, to the both of us.

But, when duty demands attention, there is no way to detour around the problem. Which is a lesson we should all be aware of and learn from, without any reluctance.

Hopkins, one of Nevada's best high school girls' basketball coaches, is also an assistant to Julie Floyd, the girls' golf coach who has brought five state Class 3-A championship trophies back to PVHS in the last 10 years. And in the spring, Hopkins will coach the Trojans' boys' golf team.

Let's be straight here.

Hopkins can do all of these jobs without any thing getting in the way of his handling the AD's duties. But with PVHS moving into Class 4-A, he shouldn't have to do the AD's job, since it is more important that he remain in those coaching assignments, for the good of the student-athletes he will direct.

So, we will direct the rest of this missive to the Nye County School District administration and board.

Make Larry Goins an offer he can't refuse and hire him as AD. Now at Sierra Vista High School in Las Vegas, Goins is the athletics director for that 4-A school, and from my experience of dealing with him there, he does a heckuva job.

It makes sense to offer the AD job to someone who knows his way around 4-A athletics and how to deal with rival ADs in Las Vegas.

And it is equally important in another way. Goins, who lives in Pahrump, is intimately involved with one of the key feeder programs in the valley -- the Pahrump Valley Junior Golf Founders Club and the Junior Golf Association.

His ideas have turned the PVJGA into one of the most successful programs of its kind anywhere in Nevada.

And think about how his involvement could affect Little League baseball and soon-to-be-in action fast-pitch softball ... Pop Warner football ... and athletics at Rosemary Clarke Middle School, which need a healthy dose of direction as well as creating a more intense feeder program in every sport offered at PVHS.

As for the football program, let us say this without any fear of argument.

It needs big-time help, just as football has ever since it was first played at PVHS in 1973. The Trojans have produced only 102 victories (and two of those didn't county because of the use of an ineligible player) and more than 200 losses (along with two ties).

Only three wins and a tie in the last 18 games (not including Thursday's battle at Boulder City) was the result of inattention and indifference during two key moments in the development of a program -- the off-season and summer each of the last two years.

The coach, whoever he may be, has to be solely focused on football, if there is to be a viable program. Soley focused meaning, football is his only responsibility.