New year, new coach: Gallup football looks to rebuild under Lawrence Garcia

By Lee Begaye
Special to the Times

GALLUP

The numbers don’t lie. The past 15 years haven’t been kind to the Gallup High School football program. Since 2010, the Bengals have posted a record of 23-123, including a 5-56 mark in 4A and 5A district play before dropping to 3A last season.

The move didn’t ease the struggle much, as Gallup went 1-5 in District 1-3A. A record that speaks more about survival than success.

In Gallup, football doesn’t carry the weight that basketball does. The gym fills up in the winter. Postseason banners hang high in other sports. But on the football field, the Bengals are still chasing past glory — the district title teams of the early ’90s, the state championship squad of 1944.

This fall, into that history walks Lawrence Garcia. A first-year, first-time head coach who spent last season calling plays across town at Miyamura. He signed on in May, inheriting a program short on results but not on hope.

“Gallup has talent,” Garcia said. “But the first thing we had to address was strength training and fundamentals. We’ve got to mold these kids, push them into the right spots, and get them to buy in.”

Recruiting basketball players

The truth in Gallup is simple: it’s a basketball town. Garcia knows it, and instead of fighting the perception, he leaned into it. Garcia began recruiting athletes from the hardwood to suit up for football.

“You recruit the basketball kids — they’re used to winning, and they know how to work hard on and off the playing field,” Garcia said. “We’re relying on them to lead this team. Even coach (Ryan) Becenti, the head basketball coach, is on staff coaching defensive backs and special teams. He’s fully bought into our program.”

Building from the ground up

Hired in May, Garcia had little time to prepare for summer competition. With no funding for travel, the Bengals retreated into the weight room. Out of the spotlight. No summer competition, no 7-on-7 tournaments. No crowd. Just repetition.

“After meeting with the team, I knew things had to change,” Garcia said. “The tempo was slow. They weren’t practicing hard. They weren’t used to lifting weights. We had to change all of that. All the good programs are four-quarter teams — we’ve got to get there, too.”

And for the first time in years, the turnout hints at momentum.

“The last two weeks we had 59 kids out between JV and varsity,” Garcia said. “They’re starting to buy in. Now it’s time for the hard work to pay off.”

The road begins in Tuba City

That work gets tested Saturday under the lights at Tuba City, where the Bengals squeezed in a matchup with Arizona’s 2A North Warriors — a late addition to round out a 10-game schedule.

Then comes the kind of reminder Gallup knows too well: 4A Silver visits the following week, the same team that dropped a 54-0 shutout on them a year ago. Class 2A Newcomb waits on Sept. 5, 2A Bayfield of Colorado on Sept. 12 — another program that hammered the Bengals 67-0 last fall.

District play begins September 19 at Tohatchi, followed by a September 26 meeting with Thoreau. The Bengals then travel to Zuni on October 3 — their lone win from 2024 — before back-to-back home games against Wingate (Oct. 10) and Crownpoint (Oct. 24). The regular season closes on Halloween night with a rivalry trip to Shiprock.

There’s no promise the turnaround comes overnight. Gallup football has been here before — chasing consistency, chasing belief. But Garcia doesn’t sound like a man measuring the season in quick fixes.

“There are glimpses of a very good team,” he said. “The question is whether we can sustain it for four quarters. That’s the difference. That’s what we’re working toward.”

For now, Gallup waits. The numbers from the past can’t be erased, but in the sweat of the weight room and the buy-in of kids crossing over from the hardwood, there’s a sense — faint but growing — that this might be the start of something different. The Bengals have been down for a long time, but Garcia’s message is simple: put in the work and see where it takes us.

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