When Mesa Vista High School basketball coach Benito Maestas stepped onto campus last season for his first year on the job, he was out to find a leader.
His first order of business was all but settled quickly once he met Xavier Varela.
“I needed a leader to buy in to my program,” Maestas said. “Xavier stepped up and the rest followed. Once he bought in, we started getting better and started competing.”
The Trojans finished 13-16 last season and lost in the first round of the state tournament to Fort Sumner/House High School, but Varela still earned first-team honors for district 5-2A, just like he did in his junior and sophomore years.
Maestas credits Varela’s success to his gym rat mentality.
“If he could spend all his time in one place, it would be the gym,” he said.
Varela agreed that it’s where his heart lies.
“I don’t really have any other hobbies outside of sports,” he said. “But I’m really interested in the rap music industry and I pretty much spend my free time hanging out with my friends.
Despite the countless hours spent playing and practicing, Varela said the people he was able to work with made the biggest difference.
“I don’t think basketball really taught me as much as the people who helped me taught me,” he said. “I played with guys like Diego Gallegos, Isaac Baldonado, Isaiah Garcia, Frankie Ortiz and Brian Gollas. They pushed me to be better and they wanted me to succeed as much as I wanted them to succeed. I was also blessed with having good coaches like Thomas Vigil and Benito Maestas. They really showed me a lot and I guess they will always make basketball such a special thing for me.”
When asked what made Varela great, Maestas could only point to his ability to get to the rim.
“Attacking the basket was what he was best at,” he said. “There was no one in the district, or maybe even the state that could stop him. He had such a quick first step and he could jump great.”
Varela idolized LeBron James growing up, but said the “King” is such a special talent that it was hard to emulate anything after him. Instead, he took notice of James’ former teammate, Dwayne Wade.
“His ability to draw fouls and use his body inside to score was something I think I duplicated pretty well,” Varela said about Wade. “My strengths have to be my athleticism and my mind for it. My athletic abilities made it easy for me to score inside because not much people could get as close to the rim as me.”
During his sophomore season, Varela learned from seniors like Baldonado and Gallegos what it took to be successful. That team finished the season 16-13 under coach Vigil before losing to Magdalena High School in the 2016 state tournament quarterfinals at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho.
“In my sophomore year, I played with a good group of seniors and they basically took a lot of pressure off of me and gave me freedom to have fun with the game,” Varela said. “I ended up taking the fun I had and bringing it to being a captain.”
Now that Varela is finished with basketball, he is not worried about continuing to be the person he has learned to become.
“I describe myself as someone who always wants to have fun and someone who will always make the most out of any situation,” he said. “The lifestyle I go by is just to live in the moment and appreciate everything.”
With that in mind, Varela will head to Alamosa, Colo., to study at Adams State University as undecided.
“I’m not really sure about what I want to do yet,” Varela said. “I’m just taking things as they come and I’ll figure it out when the time is right.”