Two-time Texas state baseball champion credits growing up in El Paso for success

SOUTHLAKE, Texas- Two-time Texas state baseball champion Head Coach, Larry Vucan, attributes much of his success to his El Paso roots.

A baseball and football star at Eastwood, Vucan would graduate in '86 and play ball at New Mexico Highlands.

After graduating from the University and hitting .284 for the team, Vucan played baseball in Italy and coached.

He would return permanently to El Paso in the '90s as a teacher and as an assistant baseball coach at Bel Air.

While in El Paso Vucan began working on his "system."

"I was going to be able to assess kids based on metrics and analytics and in order to do that you have to have a lot of moving parts so I went to find out how I'm going to manage that," Vucan said.

By counting the throws made in certain types of practices, he would observe the toll it took on the players' bodies.

Then he would see what effects it had on their performance during games.

In 2004 Vucan took over as the head baseball coach at Franklin High School.

Coach Vucan would find students who did not seem interested in athletics during their P.E. classes and would recruit them as managers for the baseball team.

The stats they gathered for him would help build the Franklin Cougars into a baseball powerhouse.

It was in 2010 when Coach Vucan told his wife he wanted another challenge.

"I remember after the season was done, my wife and me we were literally on Lee Trevino having dinner at Hudson's and she said, OK I'm ready to go.  And it was just that conversation.  I said, you're ready to go where?  We haven't even finished our dinner.  She said I'm looking you in the eye.  I think we are done at Franklin. I'm ready to leave El Paso," Vucan told ABC-7.

He would take a job in Justin, Texas that year volunteering as a pitching assistant with Southlake Carroll Senior High School.

In 2016 Vucan would be the Southlake Carroll Dragon's Head Baseball Coach.

His first season on the diamond the Dragons went to the state final four.

In 2018 he won it all and to show they weren't a fluke Vucan's team won it again in 2019.

After the Walmart massacre, coach Vucan brought his state championship team to El Paso, completely bypassing national tournaments.

"I wanted to make an impact, and I thought in this small way I could do was bring Southlake Carroll, the defending two-time champions, out to El Paso and hopefully bridge some gap," Vucan added.