Varner blessed with great support in often lonely cancer battle

By Ken MacLeod

None of us have gone untouched by the viciously indiscriminate nature of cancer. It simply could not care less who you are, how you’ve lived your life or what you have left to do.

Still it is core rattling when it reaches out and ensnares someone like Scott Varner, the long-time and highly respected Northeastern State University men’s and women’s golf coach whose entire life is a model of fitness, rectitude, faith and good clean living.

Varner, 64, who is an icon to so many former players, coaches and friends, has spent this summer with his world turned upside down by an April diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a blood cancer affecting about 70,000 Americans annually, most diagnosed in their 60s.

He noticed a worrisome lump on his neck back in March that he first dismissed as a swollen lymph node. At the urging of friends, he went to see a dental surgeon who referred him to get a biopsy, eventually resulting in the devastating news.

Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is treatable with chemotherapy and monoclonal antibodies that is exactly the program that Varner has been following. This week he completed the fifth of six chemo treatments at the OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center in Oklahoma City, one of the nation’s premier cancer treatment centers. Each one is brutal in its side effects and knocks even the robust and strong Varner back for days. Because of the nature of the war on his immune system, he has spent the summer isolated from his teams and most of his family, traveling the miles from his Claremore home to Oklahoma City with the unflinching support of wife Monica.

Varner is a football coach at heart (he was the defensive line coach on the East Central State University national championship team in 1993 while founding the golf programs and nearly winning the 1995 NAIA national championship). His motto is Good, Better, Best, Never Let it Rest. And you can bet he’s doing that every day in his battle to get back to coaching by the spring season.

September is non-Hodgkins lymphoma awareness month and the NSU teams will be raising awareness for their coach and all those affected at a pair of upcoming tournaments. The NSU Women’s Classic is Sept. 14-15 on the Stone Creek Course at Page Belcher in Tulsa and the NSU Men’s Classic is Sept. 21-22 at Muskogee Golf Club. All teams will wear the green ribbons of the cancer awareness month which happen to match NSU green.

Former NSU athletic director and close friend of Varner Matt Cochran as well as former player and current Southwestern Oklahoma State golf coach Brad Fleetwood are leading the effort to honor Varner and Cochran is also intent on raising awareness of all blood related cancers. Readers can go to www.bloodcancerunited.org to learn about upcoming fund-raising walks scheduled Oct. 22 in Tulsa and Oct. 23 in Guthrie.

Fleetwood played at NSU from 2000 to 2004 and was a graduate assistant for three years following.

“Scott has his stamp all over this state and beyond,” Fleetwood said. “Whether it’s coaches, former players who have gone to become club professionals or successes in every type of business, his influence and legacy is incredible. It’s been a big blow to all of us who he means so much too. And you know he lived his personal life the way he preached to his kids. So it just shows how indiscriminate this disease is.”

David Bryan, the director of golf at The Patriot, played for Varner at ECU and still considers him a mentor.

“Coach is such a physical and spiritual specimen, it’s hard to even imagine this happening to hm,” Bryan said. “I love him and he’s always been fantastic to me.”

Varner wears a brave smile in the photos he shares on Facebook with his numerous supporters, but he’s had his dark moments in this test.

“You really come to grips with your own mortality,” he said Thursday. “It gets real in a hurry. You get to a point where you’re praying for survival. And once you’ve been through this, no matter how it comes out, life is going to be different forever. There’s no going back to normal. Hopefully there’s a new normal.”

After first noticing a sag under his jaw in March, the diagnosis took place over April and May and the first chemotherapy treatment was in early June. His sixth and final treatment will be Sept. 21. Three or four weeks after that he has a full PET scan after which he hopes for the news that the cancer is in full remission or if further treatments are needed.

Sometime after that he hopes to resume coaching but he has never stopped being the program’s chief administrator, lining up the tournaments, scheduling and everything else he can do while isolated. But Varner is a very social coach and yearns to be back with his players and in the heat of competition. Meanwhile he’s been buoyed by a flood of support, including from his nephew Cary Cozby, the director of golf at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, who had his own serious bout with cancer when he overcame colon cancer in 2004. Scott’s sister Rodette, who basically raised him after their parents divorced, is the mother of Cary’s wife Staci.

“Cary told me that sometimes when you’re reading and researching this you can go to a dark place where you’re seeing things that are not even real,” he said. “He said the world goes on around you while you’re fighting for your life and it’s a tough realization. He said keep your head down, take it one day at a time and do what your doctor tells you.”

“I just said it’s very similar to golf,” Cozby said. “Keep your head down, take it one shot at a time, one treatment at a time. That’s the approach my dad installed in my brothers and me and it worked for me in my situation. Scott is very disciplined, very faithful and a great leader and I know he’s handling this as well as anyone could.”

His doctor is the renowned cancer specialist Dr. Taha Al-Juhaish. Varner’s son Michael Varner, who works for Stryker, a leading medical technology company that works closely with Stephenson Cancer Center, was able to help with that introduction. A former NSU players and devoted son, Michael said Thursday after playing in the Oak Tree Pro-Scratch Invitational that it’s been tough to watch his father go through this.

“His whole career he’s always taken care of everybody and now to be in a more vulnerable position it’s been hard on him,” Michael said. “I mean here’s a guy who has never drank, never smoked, works out religiously and this just shows that it can happen to anybody. But I’m very proud of how he’s attacked this. He’s my hero and always will be.”

Michael played for his father from 2011 to 2014. Scott Varner graduated from Stillwater High School in 1979, played golf at North Texas and after his successes at ECU, took over the NSU programs in 1998. Both the men’s and women’s teams were long fixtures in the top 10 of the NCAA Division II level, with the women earning 22 trips to the national championship and the men 20 under his stewardship. He has coached 33 All Americans and 36 Academic All Americans.

And will coach more in the future. Varner said he would like to resume and continue coaching for several more years and go out on his own terms. He wants to spend time with family, including his two grandkids with a third on the way. Enjoy his favorite vacation spots including Horseshoe Bay, Texas. And to enjoy the huge network of former players who look up to him.

“I’m ready to whip this thing and have a life again,” Varner said.

We are all ready for the same, Coach.