Area Athletes, Coaches Keeping Things All In the Family : Athletics: Problems do come up when a parent coaches a son or daughter.

Heather and Heidi Holm will never forget that night two years ago.

That was the night the El Cajon Valley High girls’ basketball team lost to Santana, 85-19.

The game was miserable, and the postgame lecture even worse. Then there was the car ride home.

Unlike their teammates who could seek refuge before again facing their coach the following day at practice, Heather and Heidi had no choice but return home with their dad, El Cajon Valley Coach Robert Holm.

“I can still remember it,” Heather, a junior, said. “I did not want to go home. I asked our vice principal (James Finch), who’s really close to us, to take me home. We got through it, though. That, and the score, I will never forget.”

Having your parent as your coach can feel like a roller-coaster ride. There are long rides home after a loss or bad practice, ribbing from students or teammates and pressure to work harder. But there are benefits--sharing the thrill of victory, receiving extra coaching at home and forming the special bond from the dual role of coach and parent.

“You can share the emotions a little more,” said Torrey Pines football Coach Bob Davis, whose son, Chad, is the team’s quarterback. “You have a better understanding of what he’s going through and he of me. He’s not torn between parent and coach with his loyalties, which happens a great deal. It’s very difficult for a kid to give his loyalties to two people.

“There is no in-between with them. You’re either too easy on them or too hard. Coaches go out of their way so people can’t say they’re favoring (their son or daughter).

“I think I was (tougher) in the beginning. Once they’re established it tends to lessen.”

Davis, who moved from Palm Springs to take the coaching job at Torrey Pines this year, has coached both his sons.

Davis coached Chad, a junior at Torrey Pines, through little league baseball and basketball but this is the first year he is the head football coach for Chad’s team. When Chad was a freshman in Palm Springs, Davis stepped down from the top spot and became an assistant because Chad made the varsity team that year.

“All my life, he has been my coach. It’s just normal for me,” Chad said. “My brother (Richard) played under him, and I was around that. I think some people don’t like it, but a lot of people understand. He’s harder on me. There’s a little pressure to it.

“When we’re on the field, he’s my coach, and at home he’s my dad. Sometimes it’s hard because we’ll come home and maybe get into an argument. But 10 minutes later, it’s over, and the next day we’ll go to practice and he’s the coach.”

In addition to his father, Chad’s brother Richard, 28, joined the Torrey Pines staff as an assistant coach this year. Richard was a quarterback coach before joining the Torrey Pines staff but now coaches the defense.

“It’s hard to separate brother and player, there’s a learning process that goes on there too,” Bob Davis said.

Added Chad: “It’s hard for us (he and Richard), but not for everybody else.”

Chad said nobody has ever confronted him about playing under his father, but he speculates that people might whisper behind his back.

“I know people out there think I’m playing because I’m the coach’s son,” Chad said. “And if I wasn’t playing to my ability or what I’m capable of doing, they could say that. But I am, so it doesn’t bother me.”

The Davises also seem unbothered by the possibility football might become all-consuming. In fact, they often watch films at home.

“You take it home with you a lot,” Bob Davis said. “There’s not a lot of difference between coaching him and coaching anyone else. But sometimes you take it to the dinner table with you.”

The Pecks of Monte Vista--basketball Coach Zach and his son Jason, a sophomore--avoid the sport’s encroachment on their home life.

“We’ve done pretty good (about not bringing it home),” Zach Peck said. “If he brings it up we’ll talk about it. Sometimes the first half hour (after a game or practice) we’ll discuss basketball.

“I’ve done stupid things like tell him to go shoot free throws on a Saturday when I know he’d rather go fishing. I’d rather talk about the next time we were going fishing, too.”

Peck, who is coaching his son for the first time, said it was a big adjustment because he hadn’t expected Jason to play on the varsity team until next year. However, a shortage of guards gave Jason a chance on varsity, and he since has proved himself.

“It’s a little tough not being harder on him,” Zach Peck said. “There’s just a tendency to want to make sure he’s doing things right. I think you expect more and expect to see more improvement.”

Jason said that when he first started playing varsity it was strange to play under his dad but said it “doesn’t bug me any more.”

“I thought people would think I was playing because he was my dad,” Jason said. “Nobody’s ever said anything to me.

“Sometimes he’ll tell me to play harder or do something different (when they’re at home). Sometimes he tells me to go shoot free throws on a Saturday. I like basketball, and I’ve always played it but I’m not super-obsessed with it, and he knows it. He pushes me more in school work and to get my homework done than in basketball. When I first came to the school, the teachers made me sit up front because my dad told them to.”

Coach Peck said he commends the seniors on the team for making Jason’s transition to varsity and to him as coach easy.

“He’s been pretty fortunate,” Peck said. “He’s fairly quiet and not obtrusive at all. He’s in pretty good classes and the kids who play basketball with him know him. I owe a lot to the senior kids. I don’t think he’s ever been given him (a hard time).”

Like Chad Davis, Heather Holm has played varsity basketball since she was a freshman. She said at first people might have questioned her status, especially because she was a starter. However, any skepticism probably has vanished since Heather, now a junior, leads the Braves by averaging 20 points a game.

Both Heather and Heidi, a senior, enjoy playing under their dad and have a good rapport with him.

“I think he tends to look to us to be more positive when things are going bad,” Heidi said. “When the spirit is down, he wants us to initiate it.”

Heidi said she refused to take her dad’s advice once, but it backfired on her.

“One time I wouldn’t do what he said on the court, and it didn’t work,” Heidi said. “I found out the hard way that my dad knows best.”