Eastern New Mexico University strength and conditioning coach Larry Varnado isn’t just teaching young adults how to be better athletes.
He’s teaching them how to be better people.
As football player and senior Kamal Cass puts it, “he is not just a coach. He is a positive role model.”
“I can recall a couple times I felt really down and felt like I wasn’t going to make it through school, and we came in here and sat down, and he said it may not feel like you’re going to make it now, but it will all be worth it in the end,” said Cass. “It is probably something everybody tells you, but when you hear it from your strength and conditioning coach, somebody who is regularly hard on us and pushes us, to hear it come from him, makes a difference.”
Not to mention, said Cass, every student-athlete knows Varnado only pushes them “because he loves us, and he wants the best out of us.”
“To know somebody cares about you like that is just a good feeling,” said Cass.
On a typical weekday, Varnado can be seen training athletes from 6 a.m. to noon, whether their sports are in season or not.
Varnado has been with Eastern for 10 years, having previously worked as the director for a residential treatment center for troubled youth in Clovis. He is a Clovis High School graduate and holds a bachelor’s degree in Health and Physical Education and a master’s in sports administration from Eastern.
“I’m kind of a day-to-day guy,” said Varnado, adding that he is not one to reflect on the past but to just keep moving forward. “I focus on the task at hand. That’s more important at that time.”
Varnado said he has watched people be denied opportunities before because of being judged from their past.
“You gotta take the good with the bad,” Varnado said of everyday life and people.
“I guess the biggest challenge of this job is to get people to push passed what their limits are, getting them to believe that they can push passed,” said Varnado. “Taking the kids and seeing their strides in their technique and their strength levels and just seeing them became an all-around better athlete (is the reward).”
Junior and baseball player Chris Padilla said Varnado has taught him to be a better person every day.
“You can always come in and talk to him if you have something with school or something else. He is always someone you can go to for information or advice,” said Padilla. “He taught me to work harder and don’t make excuses for yourself and find solutions to better yourself throughout your life.”
