Hometown victory : a coach's story of football, fate, and coming home

Hometown victory A coach's story of football, fate, and coming home

Keanon Lowe

Book - 2022

"The Blindside meets Friday Night Lights in Keanon Lowe's Hometown Victory when an NFL coach returns home after losing a friend to opiods to coach a team of struggling high school kids on a 23-game losing streak. Keanon Lowe was working as an offensive analyst for the San Francisco 49ers when his childhood friend and former high school teammate suddenly died from an opioid overdose. Keanon dropped everything--including the plum NFL job he had been working towards since childhood--leading him to a position as football coach at a struggling high school back in his hometown. At the time, Parkrose High School was in the middle of a 23-game losing streak -- they were the ultimate underdogs. In many ways, the road to Parkrose was paved ...by Keanon's life-defining experiences -- from a childhood spent dodging racist bullies and finding the support and mentorship he craved on the football team, to an NFL season where he worked closely with Colin Kaepernick as he evolved his sideline protest. Keanon was drawn to the young men on the Parkrose team, and to the school itself. After two years, he pushed them to become conference champions, mentoring countless players along the way. But still, there was that nagging sense that his calling wasn't meant to stop there. He was at that school for a reason. In May 2019, he got his answer when a 19-year-old student entered a Parkrose classroom with a trench coat and shotgun. Keanon disarmed him and pulled the boy into a hug, telling him he cared. In the boy, Keanon saw himself, and the young men he grew up with or mentored along the way -- and weren't so many of them just looking for acceptance, for comfort, for love? With the heart of favorite football classics - The Blindside, Friday Night Lights, Remember the Titans - Keanon's journey at Parkrose is the true account of a life spent striving forward, even when faced with the unimaginable. Hometown Victory is a story about gratitude, service, and most of all, hope"--

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Subjects
Lowe, Keanon.
Oregon Ducks (Football team) > History.
African American football coaches > United States > Biography.
Football coaches > United States > Biography.
African American football players > United States > Biography.
School sports > Coaching > Oregon.
School shootings > Oregon > Prevention.
Autobiographies.
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York : Flatiron Books 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Keanon Lowe (author)
Other Authors
Justin Spizman (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
viii, 223 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781250807632
  • 1. Friday Night Lights: You're Always Auditioning for Something
  • 2. Losing a Brother: There's a Threat to Your Success Around Every Corner
  • 3. A Father's Final Lesson: Respect the Game
  • 4. Running the "9": Fate Rewards Showing Up
  • 5. QB1: Relish in the Greatness around You
  • 6. Bad News Broncos: Mowing the Lawns at Parkrose High
  • 7. Commitment Day: Just Dial the Number
  • 8. The "Program": You Get What You Put into It
  • 9. Building Steam: Be Valuable in Everything You Do
  • 10. David Versus Goliath: You Can't Win 'Em All
  • 11. An Angel in the Hallway: Love Is the Antidote to Hate
  • 12. A Ride to Remember: Don't Throw the Days Away
  • Acknowledgments
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Former NFL player Lowe, who received a congressional Medal of Honor in 2020 for his heroism in thwarting an armed teenage student at Parkrose High School in Portland, Ore., recounts in this tender debut his return home to coach high school football and the incident that transformed his life years later. After Lowe's former high school teammate died of an opioid overdose in 2017, Lowe left his job as an offensive analyst for the San Francisco 49ers to head up his Portland hometown's floundering football team. In moving flashbacks, Lowe recounts leading Parkrose High's team--which had a 23-game losing streak "dating back three seasons"--to win the first playoff ever in their school's history. His narrative resonates most, though, in its compassionate depictions of the lives of his students, perhaps best exemplified in Lowe's humane handling of the would-be shooter he stopped and disarmed in the school's building in 2019: "Instead of tackling him," he writes, "I hugged him.... This kid didn't need hurt, he needed love." Unfortunately, just when it gets its hooks in readers, Lowe's real-life underdog story comes to an abrupt end when, after describing a triumphant playoff run, Lowe writes, "I left the school after the second season to take on another challenge." Still, the extraordinary empathy on display is indisputably inspiring. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Lowe was working as an offensive analyst for the San Francisco 49ers when a childhood friend and former high school teammate died of an opioid overdose. He decided to do something different with his life, giving up his golden NFL job and returning to his hometown to coach high school football. When he took over, the Parkrose High School team was stuck in a 23-game losing streak, but in a story that's been much reported, within two years he had led them to a conference championship. Along the way, he disarmed a school shooter, embracing him until the police arrived, and he has been noted throughout his career for his keen mentorship. Look for the forthcoming movie starring Dwayne Johnson; with a 200,000-copy first printing.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A former NFL coach recounts his experiences coaching high school students from a marginalized community. Lowe's storyline is the stuff of countless memoirs and films: A good-hearted teacher counsels young people whom society has sidelined, taking their football team into championship territory. After college ball and a brief career coaching in the NFL, the author returned to his Portland, Oregon, hometown, "the whitest city in America"--in just about every neighborhood except that of Parkrose High School, a low-income area "where the first programs to be affected when it came to school budgets were the sports programs." The previous three football seasons had yielded a record of 0-23. Lowe turned that around, against the odds, by insisting that his players were a kind of family and treating them accordingly--including the demand that the players treat him and each other with respect. To accomplish this, he had to sideline some of the best on the roster until they took his requirements seriously. In the end, they went up against one of the best squads in the city and, of course, won--even if they were defeated later in the championship cycle. "The Broncos fought and battled," writes Lowe, "but ultimately didn't come out victorious in the quarterfinals of the state playoffs. The ride was over, but the legendary season would live on forever." There's not much surprising in the narrative, though there are a few wrinkles that teachers in wealthier schools might not encounter--e.g., one of the best players is homeless, and most grapple with broken homes and lack of resources. One memorable moment is when Lowe faces down a student armed with a shotgun, a moment he characterizes as a "young man…crying for help." There's some tough love here that's useful, too, as when Lowe insists, "Anything worth a shit or worth achieving takes dedication." Inspiring reading for students and teachers striving for excellence against the odds. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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