Football Coach Larry Jarman Found His Way Through Rough Times by Taking to the Field
Twenty-three football seasons ago, Larry Jarman was struggling mightily.
In March of 1981, he lost his 15-year-old son in an automobile accident, and now, six months later, he was searching for the glue that would put his fractured life back together.
Wisely, he had sought counseling shortly after Sam’s death, and his time with Dr. Dennis Hawley had provided glimmers of sunlight as he forged through the dark clouds that engulfed him every day.
He vividly recalls the closing exchange of their final session. It was a watershed moment, one that would shake him into a new understanding of life and enable him to take the first tentative steps on his odyssey into an uncertain future.
“Dennis, where am I?” the grieving father asked his friend.
“Right before the half ended,” he recalls Hawley saying, “you got the heck knocked out of you. Now you’re in the locker room. You have to decide, ‘Am I going out in the second half…or am I going to watch from the sideline?’”
Hawley paused a moment to let his words sink in.
“You know that the next game you’ll play will be the Super Bowl,” he continued, “and you know who’ll be the first person you’ll meet on the 50-yard line?”
“Of course, I do,” Jarman replied.
“And what’s Sam going to ask you?” responded Hawley.
“He’ll ask me, did I stand and watch, or did I go out and play the second half?” he answered.
Then Hawley leaned over, looked Jarman squarely in the eye, and said, “What do you want to tell him?”
“Dennis,” he said, “you know darn well what I want to tell him.”
In March of 1981, he lost his 15-year-old son in an automobile accident, and now, six months later, he was searching for the glue that would put his fractured life back together.
Wisely, he had sought counseling shortly after Sam’s death, and his time with Dr. Dennis Hawley had provided glimmers of sunlight as he forged through the dark clouds that engulfed him every day.
He vividly recalls the closing exchange of their final session. It was a watershed moment, one that would shake him into a new understanding of life and enable him to take the first tentative steps on his odyssey into an uncertain future.
“Dennis, where am I?” the grieving father asked his friend.
“Right before the half ended,” he recalls Hawley saying, “you got the heck knocked out of you. Now you’re in the locker room. You have to decide, ‘Am I going out in the second half…or am I going to watch from the sideline?’”
Hawley paused a moment to let his words sink in.
“You know that the next game you’ll play will be the Super Bowl,” he continued, “and you know who’ll be the first person you’ll meet on the 50-yard line?”
“Of course, I do,” Jarman replied.
“And what’s Sam going to ask you?” responded Hawley.
“He’ll ask me, did I stand and watch, or did I go out and play the second half?” he answered.
Then Hawley leaned over, looked Jarman squarely in the eye, and said, “What do you want to tell him?”
“Dennis,” he said, “you know darn well what I want to tell him.”
A few days later, the telephone rang in Jarman’s office.
It was Petey Jacobs, Collegiate’s athletic director, who asked his friend – actually, his former student – to assist him with a fall baseball program he was conducting. Jarman readily accepted. He had experience coaching Little League baseball and ice hockey, and the prospect of an association with Collegiate where Sam had been a member of the Class of ’84 would be a tremendous boost to his spirits.
Early the following fall, the JV football team traveled to Norfolk Academy, moved the ball inside the 15 on three occasions, but failed to score. What the Cougars needed was a kicking game, reasoned Coach Joel Nuckols, but before they could develop a kicking game, they needed a kicking coach.
As a student at St. Christopher’s in the late ‘50s, Jarman had been a decent cornerback (under Coach Jacobs), but in a JV game with Miller School his freshman year, he was hit in the back while scrambling for a fumble, suffered a chipped vertebrae, and spent the next 10 weeks in a 30-pound plaster cast, then 10 months in a brace. His doctors declared that his playing career was over. His only hope was to become a kicker and avoid contact at all costs.
So he set about to learn the skill. When he returned to action, he shared place kicking duties and handled the punting. His last year, he was cleared to play again, but when he graduated and headed off to the University of North Carolina, he figured his football days were over.
Then, in the autumn of ’82, Nuckols asked his friend to return to the game he had loved so much as a youth.
So what if soccer-style kicking, by that time the norm, came into prominence after Jarman’s playing career was over? He’d taught himself to kick once before. He’d also taught himself to ice skate so he could coach youth hockey. Besides, learning new skills so he could teach them was a small price to pay for the chance to coach at Collegiate, to coach kids he knew, to coach some of Sam’s friends.
Almost as soon as he hung up the phone with Nuckols, he headed to Regency Square and found a book by Jan Stenerud, the Hall of Fame place kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs. He made a half-dozen 3x5 cards and stuck them in the hip pocket of his coaching shorts. They were his notes. The football field was now his classroom.
Jarman’s long association with Collegiate athletics, and his return from the sidelines, had begun.
“I was lost, and Petey and Joel saved me,” he said one day recently as he sat on the back steps of the athletic center and shared his story. “I didn’t even know what day of the week it was. I’m convinced to this day that they had a need, but they also wanted to help me heal. Just being with the kids and athletics…it was two or three hours a day that I looked forward to, that I could sort of forget what had happened.”
Many football seasons later, Jarman, who’s earned his living in the life insurance and investment business for 35 years, is still with us.
Coaching has been his outlet, his therapy, but it works both ways. His rapport with athletes and colleagues, his quiet passion for coaching, his abiding loyalty to Collegiate – and his special teams expertise – have been a huge resource for our program.
“Everything I’ve learned in my coaching career, Petey Jacobs taught me,” he says, “and, somehow, God has put the right words in my mouth when a kid needed talking to. How long will I keep going? As long as they’ll have me.”
In the early years, Jarman served as offensive coordinator and kicking coach with the JV and assisted with the varsity place kickers and punters. In the late ‘80’s, he shifted his focus to the varsity but continued to develop kickers throughout the program. He’s never stopped learning. He reads everything on kicking he can find. He picks coaches’ brains. He constantly studies the technique of snappers, holders, and kickers in games he watches in person and on television. He’s long since scrapped the index cards. He carries his notes in his head.
The list of Collegiate kickers who’ve excelled under his guidance is long. His first pupil was David Erickson. Using the knowledge Jarman taught him, he drilled a 32-yard field goal that helped the Cougars beat the Saints 10-7 in the final JV game of the ’82 season. Erickson still has the football. He displays it proudly in his real estate office in Steamboat Springs, CO. More recently, Andrew Slater and Chuck McFall ’98 became starters at the University of Richmond, and Noah Greenbaum ‘03, a freshman at the University of Virginia, is a recruited walk-on whom the Cavaliers’ coaches are watching closely.
Get to know Jarman, and you’ll learn that his influence stretches far beyond the X’s and O’s of special teams play.
“One of the things I’ve hopefully done well is motivate kids that need motivating,” he says. “The whole thing about coaching is taking a kid who’s mediocre and before he leaves help him become all he can be. It’s pride in seeing a kid do well.”
Larry Jarman’s protégés trust him. They respect his knowledge of the game and appreciate his interest in their success. Many stay in touch. All leave with memories of a friend who worked with them to bring out their best, to give them confidence in themselves.
To him, however, it’s all part of a greater plan.
“When tragedy hits,” he says, “God puts opportunities in front of you that He knows can help you overcome the pain. It’s then up to you to accept those opportunities, to give it everything you have, or not accept them and stand on the sidelines and watch.
"I lost my only son, but by coaching at Collegiate, I’ve gained a thousand.”
--Weldon Bradshaw
Back
It was Petey Jacobs, Collegiate’s athletic director, who asked his friend – actually, his former student – to assist him with a fall baseball program he was conducting. Jarman readily accepted. He had experience coaching Little League baseball and ice hockey, and the prospect of an association with Collegiate where Sam had been a member of the Class of ’84 would be a tremendous boost to his spirits.
Early the following fall, the JV football team traveled to Norfolk Academy, moved the ball inside the 15 on three occasions, but failed to score. What the Cougars needed was a kicking game, reasoned Coach Joel Nuckols, but before they could develop a kicking game, they needed a kicking coach.
As a student at St. Christopher’s in the late ‘50s, Jarman had been a decent cornerback (under Coach Jacobs), but in a JV game with Miller School his freshman year, he was hit in the back while scrambling for a fumble, suffered a chipped vertebrae, and spent the next 10 weeks in a 30-pound plaster cast, then 10 months in a brace. His doctors declared that his playing career was over. His only hope was to become a kicker and avoid contact at all costs.
So he set about to learn the skill. When he returned to action, he shared place kicking duties and handled the punting. His last year, he was cleared to play again, but when he graduated and headed off to the University of North Carolina, he figured his football days were over.
Then, in the autumn of ’82, Nuckols asked his friend to return to the game he had loved so much as a youth.
So what if soccer-style kicking, by that time the norm, came into prominence after Jarman’s playing career was over? He’d taught himself to kick once before. He’d also taught himself to ice skate so he could coach youth hockey. Besides, learning new skills so he could teach them was a small price to pay for the chance to coach at Collegiate, to coach kids he knew, to coach some of Sam’s friends.
Almost as soon as he hung up the phone with Nuckols, he headed to Regency Square and found a book by Jan Stenerud, the Hall of Fame place kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs. He made a half-dozen 3x5 cards and stuck them in the hip pocket of his coaching shorts. They were his notes. The football field was now his classroom.
Jarman’s long association with Collegiate athletics, and his return from the sidelines, had begun.
“I was lost, and Petey and Joel saved me,” he said one day recently as he sat on the back steps of the athletic center and shared his story. “I didn’t even know what day of the week it was. I’m convinced to this day that they had a need, but they also wanted to help me heal. Just being with the kids and athletics…it was two or three hours a day that I looked forward to, that I could sort of forget what had happened.”
Many football seasons later, Jarman, who’s earned his living in the life insurance and investment business for 35 years, is still with us.
Coaching has been his outlet, his therapy, but it works both ways. His rapport with athletes and colleagues, his quiet passion for coaching, his abiding loyalty to Collegiate – and his special teams expertise – have been a huge resource for our program.
“Everything I’ve learned in my coaching career, Petey Jacobs taught me,” he says, “and, somehow, God has put the right words in my mouth when a kid needed talking to. How long will I keep going? As long as they’ll have me.”
In the early years, Jarman served as offensive coordinator and kicking coach with the JV and assisted with the varsity place kickers and punters. In the late ‘80’s, he shifted his focus to the varsity but continued to develop kickers throughout the program. He’s never stopped learning. He reads everything on kicking he can find. He picks coaches’ brains. He constantly studies the technique of snappers, holders, and kickers in games he watches in person and on television. He’s long since scrapped the index cards. He carries his notes in his head.
The list of Collegiate kickers who’ve excelled under his guidance is long. His first pupil was David Erickson. Using the knowledge Jarman taught him, he drilled a 32-yard field goal that helped the Cougars beat the Saints 10-7 in the final JV game of the ’82 season. Erickson still has the football. He displays it proudly in his real estate office in Steamboat Springs, CO. More recently, Andrew Slater and Chuck McFall ’98 became starters at the University of Richmond, and Noah Greenbaum ‘03, a freshman at the University of Virginia, is a recruited walk-on whom the Cavaliers’ coaches are watching closely.
Get to know Jarman, and you’ll learn that his influence stretches far beyond the X’s and O’s of special teams play.
“One of the things I’ve hopefully done well is motivate kids that need motivating,” he says. “The whole thing about coaching is taking a kid who’s mediocre and before he leaves help him become all he can be. It’s pride in seeing a kid do well.”
Larry Jarman’s protégés trust him. They respect his knowledge of the game and appreciate his interest in their success. Many stay in touch. All leave with memories of a friend who worked with them to bring out their best, to give them confidence in themselves.
To him, however, it’s all part of a greater plan.
“When tragedy hits,” he says, “God puts opportunities in front of you that He knows can help you overcome the pain. It’s then up to you to accept those opportunities, to give it everything you have, or not accept them and stand on the sidelines and watch.
"I lost my only son, but by coaching at Collegiate, I’ve gained a thousand.”
--Weldon Bradshaw
Collegiate School | 103 N. Mooreland Road, Richmond, VA 23229 | P. 804.740.7077 | F. 804.741.9797 | webmaster@collegiate-va.org | Contact Us