Larry McFarlin has coached high school football in East Texas for four decades. Honey Grove head coach Shane Fletcher jokes his defensive coordinator is as old as Moses, but McFarlin insists he’s the youngest on staff. His motor wears the other coaches out. 

His body has aged with time. But in his mind, McFarlin is still the senior from Bonham High School who played Mike linebacker at 126 pounds. His team went 8–2 that season, he’ll have you know. All these years later, he sees in every kid what his high school coach, Jake Swann, saw in him.

“He wasn’t supposed to give me a chance,” McFarlin said. “There’s not a kid in that room that can’t play for us.”

McFarlin is a lifetime overachiever, swiping chance after chance for himself that no one thought was his to take. He became a collegiate pole vaulter, then a professional bull rider from 1986-90. 

Doctors didn’t give McFarlin a chance in March 2023 when he was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer that had spread to his lungs and liver. He’s experienced pain and hardship. But he sits in the coaches’ office with a liver pump hidden under his ‘Brotherhood’ shirt and insists he’s never had a bad day. A bad day is a mindset.

“Sometimes I just want to have a bad day,” Fletcher said. “You think about what he’s going through, and it’s impossible. You can’t feel sorry for yourself around him.”

After the colonoscopy, McFarlin met his Chemotherapy doctor at a local Sherman hospital. 

“I’m fixing to give you my life,” McFarlin told her. “How good are you on a scale of 1-10 at what you do?”

The doctor was confused, so McFarlin explained the reason for the question. When he was a head coach at Howe and Bonham interviewing his prospective staff, his first question was how many games the team would win next year.

“I had some coaches say one or two (wins),” McFarlin said. “We never got to question No. 2.”

So he asked the doctor again: On a scale of 1-10, how good was she at saving lives?

Mr. McFarlin, your cancer is terminal, she said. You won’t survive this disease.

McFarlin rose, shook her hand, and walked out the door. He’s at UT Southwestern now.

But by the summer, his weight had dwindled to 115 pounds as chemotherapy zapped his body’s strength. McFarlin described himself as the "Tin Man" from Wizard of Oz. His doctor asked if he wanted to back off the treatment. McFarlin said no. Turn it up. He needed to kick this.

As McFarlin was fighting for his life, Honey Grove ISD superintendent Todd Morrison approached Fletcher about organizing a fundraiser for McFarlin’s medical bills. In June, the community gathered in the team’s fieldhouse for an afternoon of cornhole, crawfish and a silent auction that raised $36,000 in three hours. Former players from McFarlin’s stints at nearby Denison, Bonham, Paris North Lamar and Howe over the past 40 years also came.

One of those players performed in the live band that Friday and called McFarlin over during a set break. He’d been a senior at Bonham in 2005, McFarlin’s last year at the school. Before McFarlin left, he’d cut his purple game shirt into 22 two-inch squares to give to each senior. That day, he’d told the boys they’d face hard times. When they thought they wouldn’t overcome the challenges, pull the Purple Pride out. 

Now, the player opened his billfold and pulled out that purple square he’d received 18 years prior. This helped me get through some hard times, he said. McFarlin was going through some hard times now. The player tore his square in half and handed one side to McFarlin.

You’ll make it through. Here’s some Purple Pride, he said, echoing McFarlin’s advice. 

The aggressive chemotherapy reduced McFarlin’s colon cancer to an operational size. But by then, the 2023 season had kicked off, and McFarlin refused to miss a game. He scheduled the surgery for a Tuesday on the bye week, where he had sections of his colon, galbladder and appendix removed. McFarlin spent four days in the hospital and was game planning at the school by Friday. The following week, he coached from the sidelines with six arthroscopic holes in his stomach. 

McFarlin’s defense forced nine shutouts in 12 games and didn’t surrender a touchdown until week seven. A deeply spiritual man, McFarlin likens his unit to Matthew 18:20, which says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them,” (NIV). If two or three defenders are on the ball carrier, the Warriors will find a way. McFarlin tells his secondary coach the defensive backs only need to cover for 1.7 seconds. By then, the quarterback should be picking himself off the turf.

Senior linebacker Kendal Wolfe says McFarlin’s attitude at practice permeates through the team. When Wolfe runs sprints in practice, he’ll look to his side and see McFarlin keeping pace.

“That’s a tough dude,” Wolfe said. “You come out here (to practice), that just motivates you. However much you’re feeling down or however much you’re hurting, he’s going through twice as much and doing the same thing you are.”

But McFarlin insists the athletes have impacted him far more than he’s impacted them. They gave him a football season, a brotherhood to fight for.

“I’ve been blessed more in the last 15 months than I have in the past 15 years,” McFarlin said.

Wolfe and fellow linebacker Levi Beavers ordered their senior class rings this past spring. When the jewelry came in, they approached McFarlin and told him to look inside the ring. 

One ring had ‘The Right Cat in the Hat - Coach Mac’ etched on the band, a favorite saying of McFarlin’s, meaning the player needs a tough mindset under the helmet. The other was inscribed ‘Raise the Bar - Coach Mac.’ McFarlin incrementally raises a barbell in the fieldhouse after every victory.

Those rings are why McFarlin doesn’t miss a practice through chemotherapy and biweekly procedures that leave him with a colostomy bag for 48 hours. These kids, this team, are what he has to live for. This is his legacy.

“That’s going with that kid forever,” McFarlin said. “That’s why I have the energy I have.”

Stage IV cancer are the words no one wants to hear. They’re the words that say, ‘Give up.’ But this time, cancer found a 126-pound Mike linebacker. A bull rider. A man who has a lot more life to live.

“If you give up, you’re going to die,” Fletcher said. “But if you don’t and you fight, you’ve got a shot to beat this thing. He’s had that mentality for 15 months now - it’s not going to get him.”

McFarlin may eventually lose his battle with cancer. He’ll have won the war by how he lived.