Club News: A Fitting Farewell to Coach Eve Suarez, and Her Son Christian, With the Tampa Mustangs

This past weekend, Tampa Mustangs Eve played its final tournament under the leadership of Coach Eve Suarez, who formed coached the 03 Mustangs team for the past 5 ½ years.

She will continue to coach at Jefferson High in Tampa, Florida, where she has been at the helm for over a decade, but she has decided to be on the other side of the fence to watch her youngest daughter, Kathy (age 17), play with her fellow Mustang teammates next year.

Here’s a Facebook tribute put up by her team to honor their coach:

Coach Eve said today:

“I want to have a year where I’m a parent and have time to be with my daughter as a mom, Eve told Extra Inning Softball today. “It came at the right time now, but it will be challenge to just sit back and watch her play without being the coach anymore!”

“When I see the growth of my daughter—she has passed me in her abilities—I want to scream in excitement when she makes a good play,” the coach laughs. “I haven’t been able to cheer for her as her coach to be fair to all the girls who’d wander, ‘Hey, why isn’t she cheering for me like she does her daughter?’ Now I can take a picture of Kathy and video her which I haven’t been able to do when on the field.”

If Kathy, a junior who plays for the Puerto Rican Jr. National Team, has surpassed her mom, that’s saying something.

Coach Eve was born in New York and grew up in Puerto Rico which allowed her play third days for 11 years internationally after she graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in 1995.

Among her list of impressive accomplishments:

• 3 Central-American Games
• 2 Pan-American Games
• 2 World Series ( Puerto Rican National Team
• 1 Olympic Games (1996 in Atlanta for Team Puerto Rico)

But she didn’t stop giving back to the game when her own playing career concluded; in addition to her long tenure at the high school level (she’s a Spanish teacher, too), she has been the head coach for Little League softball teams in Citrus Park and West Tampa, Florida, as well as an assistant coach for the Lady Bandits, New Tampa Predators, and NLS Elite ’03 travel ball teams.

Along with Kathy, she has two older children: Doris (age 28), who played softball at Metropolitan University in Puerto Rico and is now an elementary teacher at a private school in Tampa, and Christian (22), who is always seen on the field actively coaching, active in his wheel chair due to cerebral palsy, but as impactful as any coach with his cheering, support and even

Christian has been in the dugout with his Mom, Dad (Coach Raymond Garcia) and the team for nearly every game all over the country for the past 5 1/2 years.  Says another Mustangs coach: “He puts his heart and soul into coaching the girls up, holding them accountable and being their biggest fan.”

This past weekend, Coach Christian was given the honor of making the last pitching change ever for Tampa Mustangs Eve—something he had never done.

Explained his mother, “Christian has been my backup, he’s always cheering for the girls and they know and listen to him. I couldn’t miss the chance to let him make him one more change on the field.”

Here’s video of this touching moment:

Kudos to a great run with the Mustangs and Coach Eve’s impact on so many young athletes.

T.J. Goelz, a national championship-winning 18U coach in the Mustangs program, sums up what many feel about Coach Eve and her contributions to the sport.

“Coach Eve has done a tremendous job for her players and the Mustang organization,” he says. “She has represented us with class and dignity at all times and has been a great role model for our young players. I have enjoyed observing her passion and commitment to her players and to the game, and we all wish her the very best.”