Moapa Valley flag football coach May dies of cancer

Moapa Valley flag football coach Brent May died Monday night after a battle with cancer. He was 45.

May was in his second season and continued to coach the Pirates for much of this season while fighting his illness.

"He is a valued member of the community," Moapa Valley principal Rod Adams said. "Brent is a homegrown boy. He's a graduate of Moapa Valley. I taught him back in the day. He went off to college and came back.

"He has touched a lot of people."

May, who played football and was a wrestler as a student at Moapa Valley, also coached freshman football at the school and was a wrestling coach before taking over the flag football team.

He had guided the flag football team to its best record in the program's history (9-8). The Pirates are in contention for their first postseason berth.

"If you want to see someone with a lot of courage, he's that guy," Virgin Valley flag football coach Joey Bowler said. "How many guys that are terminally ill stay there as long as they can to coach the girls?

"He was an adamant Pirate and a tremendous coach. He really turned that program around. We wanted to beat each other as bad as anything on the field, but we could be friends off the field."

Adams said the team decided Tuesday morning to play its scheduled game Tuesday against Desert Pines in May's honor.

A Gofundme page set up in support of May details him having beaten cancer several times. The page had helped to raise nearly $10,000 for May's medical expenses in five days.

Adams said May's checkup in the fall showed no signs of cancer, but that May had become ill again "a couple of weeks ago. They thought at first it was just a reaction to some medicine, but then it all happened very quickly."

May taught math at the high school for nearly two decades.

"He's been a great mentor," Adams said. "That's where he will really be missed. He just has a way of explaining things to the kids who struggle a little and getting them to understand it. He reaches the kids who were kind of the outliers and makes them feel important."

May is survived by his wife Amy and their two children, Garrett, 17, and Addy, 11.

Contact reporter Bartt Davis at bdavis@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5230.