A doctor’s office can be a place where a patient can hear either good news or bad news. Sometimes, it’s how the patient looks at the latter that can determine just how bad it is.

It wasn’t the news Darian Dulin wanted to hear when he was 14, but it wasn’t fatal to his football career, either.

“They did that test where they test the spacing in your bones to see if you’re done growing,” Dulin said. “The doctor came back and said: ‘What sports do you like?’ I told him football. He said: ‘Well, there’s soccer. I’m sorry, but I think you’re done growing.’ I told him that I’m a football player and that’s what I do.”

Now Dulin, 32, is a head football coach. He was hired last week by Coffeyville Community College. The doctor was right. Dulin was done growing at 5-foot-3, but he wasn’t done as a football player. He played defensive back and “a little offense” for three state champions at Lawrence High and played college ball at Butler CC and Southwestern College in Winfield.

Dulin earned bachelor’s degrees in math and chemistry from Southwestern and a master’s degree in physical education form Tarleton State in Stephenville, Texas.

Nobody is predicting his growth as a football coach has ended.

“He’s a real up-and-coming coach,” said Lawrence High coach Dirk Wedd, offensive coordinator for Dick Purdy during Dulin’s playing career for the Lions. “There are going to be a lot of defensive and offensive coordinators and head coaches coming through Coffeyville who are going to want to hire him away. He’s great with kids. He’s great with people, and he’s a good ball coach.”

An academic All-American at El Dorado CC (4.0 grade-point average) and at Southwestern, Dulin worked as an assistant coach at Kansas Wesleyan, Sam Houston State, Butler and Tarleton State.

Coming out of high school, Dulin said, he had his mind made up he was going to become a chemical engineer.

Once he got a taste of coaching, first as the seven-on-seven coach for LHS in the summer while he was in college, that goal changed.

Dulin visited Wedd and also went to Free State to see his old defensive coordinator, Bob Lisher, and his former summer baseball coach Mike Hill on Wednesday.

“Just trying to get a little pipeline to Coffeyville going,” Dulin said.

He gained LHS immortality by leaping up to knock loose a pass intended for 6-foot-3 Washburn Rural tight end Bill Bailey on fourth-and-goal from the four with four seconds remaining in the 1992 state title game.

“It was one of those shock plays,” Dulin said. “It was one of those plays that people probably didn’t think I could make. Somehow I was able to reach up and get it.”

The ’92 program listed Dulin’s weight at 133 pounds.

“He was probably the toughest kid pound-for-pound that we’ve ever had around here, and we’ve had some tough ones,” Lisher said. “He set the standard.”

Dulin’s goal is to become a Division I head coach. Care to bet against him?