PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — Pam Reeves, the tennis coach who guided Parkersburg High School to seven West Virginia state championships over parts of three decades, died Sunday at age 53.
Six days after suffering a heart attack, Reeves died at Camden Clark Medical Center in Parkersburg where she was hospitalized through several surgeries. Doctors needed to place her in a medically induced coma with a ventilator to help with her breathing. On Sunday morning, she was taken off life support, according to her family.
“She had a knowledge of the sport and she seemed to get along with the youngsters really well,” said Mike Hayden, the retired assistant principal and athletics director at Parkersburg High who hired Reeves as tennis coach in the early 1990s.
“She had all the attributes that it took to be a head coach.”
Reeves left a legacy at PHS that will be “very hard to follow,” Hayden said. She led the boys teams to state championships in 2001, 2002 and 2003. The girls won titles in 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2010, while posting runner-up finishes in 2011 and 2012.
“She had a great relationship with her student athletes,” he said. “Tennis is really an individual sport, but her idea was that you were going to go ahead and play and try to contribute to that team overall.”
Off the court, Reeves set up the Vienna and City Park recreational summer leagues for young people and anchored the Jackson Park program for 35 years. She also taught volleyball at Hamilton and Jackson.
“She had an infectious smile about her and it always was very, very pleasant,” Hayden said.