Parham making positive moves in the desert
Walter Parham is making positive moves in the desert. The Copper Mountain head coach has had quite a journey when it comes to coaching basketball. Parham has saw a lot of places as he followed his coaching dream. ” I worked all over the country,” said the Fighting Cacti head coach. The experience was valuable and led to the Detroit native to want to get to the college level. The current Fighting Cacti head coach took a chance on himself and moved to the desert and took a volunteer assistant position at Copper Mountain to get his foot in the door. After being on the sideline as an assistant coach for a year and a half the door opened in the 2018-2019 season and Parham got his chance to takeover the program after a coaching change.
As the program shifted to a new leader and the interim tag was taken off, the one thing that Parham wanted to establish was the culture of the program. The new head coach mentioned the word FAMILY when describing his program. “Failure leads to success, Accountability, motivation, Introspection, liberation and yearning to get better,” describe Parham. This is part of the process at the Southern California college. As for recruiting, Copper Mountain’s location is not the ideal location for student athletes. “Our facilities are brand new as we are a new junior college,” said Parham. The 14/1 student to teacher ratio for small class numbers is ideal from an academic standpoint for student athletes. With numbers like that in the classroom it is a good chance that student athletes get the sources to move on to the four year level. “Our number one goal of our program is for guys to graduate and move them on to the next level,” added Parham. “On the court we want to compete, and win the conference and make the post season,” said the Fighting Cacti coach. This upcoming season is right around the corner and after going 14-14 the Fighting Cacti will look to improve. It will be their second season in the Inland Empire Conference as it is apparent that the Fighting Cacti will continue to build off the positive strides that coach Parham has brought to the program.
