Crisis Creates a Champion | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The creator of this article, Bethany Bradsher, is an author for theECU News Services.

East Carolina's best men's golfer in several years had trouble adjusting to college, with poor grades keeping him out of tournaments. But Harold Varner refocused his life, then charged up the leaderboard

    There have been two turning points in Harold Varner's career as an East Carolina golfer. The first came at the end of his freshman year when he struggled on the course and in the classroom. Because of his poor grades, he didn't qualify for several tournaments. That exclusion became a life-changing moment that propelled him two years later to a second turning point. As a better student and player, Varner charged up the leaderboard in historic fashion to win the North Carolina Amateur Championship.

    "The best thing that ever happened to me as a freshman was not playing," he says. "I wasn't playing good. My grades weren't good. That was a pretty low point. It was one of the best things that ever happened, because I started appreciating playing so much more."

    He headed home to Gastonia with a reinforced resolve to make the summer count, and he spent most of his waking hours on the golf course during that vacation. When he returned for his sophomore season, he earned the lowest scoring average on the team and was named second team All-Conference USA.

    "Before that, he had been able to get through life by smiling and being charming," says his head coach, Press McPhaul. "School and golf weren't working, and he realized, 'I can't fake my way through.' That clicked sometime that spring, and before long he started to see results."

    Varner continued to make steady progress through that year and the early part of his junior season, until late October of last year brought the next major milestone. At the Outer Banks Intercollegiate, the last tournament of ECU's fall season, he posted the best 54-hole score in Pirate history (a 20-under 196) to become the individual champion. It was a key boost to his faith in his own potential.

    That tournament marked a major realization for Varner - that he was talented enough to prevail in a large collegiate field. Before winning the Outer Banks Intercollegiate, he wasn't convinced he was good enough to take a title without some extraordinary luck. But from that day on, he knew that hard work would take him far.
Harold Varner: Above    photo by Jay Clark
    "I think several things happened," McPhaul says. "One is, he saw that his best was good enough, that he didn't have to step outside of himself to win, much like a quarterback doesn't have to force a throw or a basketball player waits for his shot. He started to realize that patience was a good thing. He's making a decision to actively commit to a process that he knows will work, and he started to do that over and over again.

    "He's incredibly gifted physically. He never knows when his firepower is going to take over and he's going to make four birdies in five holes. So I think he learned that he just needs to keep doing good stuff and wait."

    One of the Harold moments that is seared in McPhaul's memory happened that night as the team boarded the van to return the Greenville. They had not even pulled out of the parking lot when Varner asked, "How many days until our next tournament?" McPhaul quickly did the math and gave him the answer: 90 days. Varner responded, "Well, that's 90 days to get better."

    'Every shot's another opportunity'

    Varner's second overall collegiate title - at the AutoTrader.com Collegiate Classic in November - came during the last tournament of his fall senior season. With the spring schedule featuring two big Florida invitationals and the Conference USA Championships in April, Varner's confidence is at a peak, and he hopes to add onto his string of victories as his ECU career concludes.

    "Once I won, I figured out, 'I can win; I don't have to do anything special to win,'" he said. "I love winning. There's nothing better than winning. You've got to hope for the best at all times. Every shot's another opportunity. That's how I approach life. Every day's another opportunity."

    He spent last summer taking advantage of two big opportunities. He competed in both of the state's major amateur tournaments - the N.C. Amateur in June and the N.C. Match Play Tournament in August - and won them both.

    He entered the final day of the N.C. Amateur, played at Greensboro Country Club, tied for 11th and four strokes back. What followed was a classic case of everything clicking at the right time, as he carded seven birdies and an eagle for a 66, the lowest score of the day. He knew it was a great round, but with the leaders still on the course he didn't know that victory was within reach. "He just kept doing what he does, and that is, pick good shots, execute them, and try everything he could to get putts to the hole," McPhaul says. "He was just hanging around the clubhouse, and somebody said, 'You might win this thing.'"

    Two months after that feat, Varner made North Carolina amateur history by completing what is known as an "N.C. Am Slam" with a victory over Colin Chapman in the final round of the Match Play Championship in Bermuda Run. He became the first golfer in the state to win both events, and he accented that accomplishment by taking both titles in the same year.

    As long as he was collecting milestones, Varner also learned that he was the first African-American male golfer to win the amateur championship in the 102-year history of the event. (Earlier in the year, Angela Stewart, an African-American woman from Greenville, won the N.C. Senior Women's championship.) And while Varner loves stories of courageous stands taken against injustice - one of his favorite movies is Glory Road - he says he didn't start playing golf in a quest to be a revolutionary.

    "I don't think about it much, but I get it," he says. "If it opens up doors for other African-Americans who aren't playing golf, that's awesome."

    If young players of any background are looking for a role model, McPhaul considers Varner an excellent candidate. He routinely thinks of others before himself, and as part of a strong senior class of five golfers he has been working toward becoming a vocal leader for the Pirate underclassmen. And with the spring schedule pointing to the C-USA Tournament and the NCAA Tournament, McPhaul knows that the time is ripe for Varner to emerge as aplayer with national potential.