Barely school-age is when he first drew opponents’ attention with speed faster than most and play-making abilities far beyond anyone else.
How, at ages 6 and 7, did area Pop Warner football teams try to bottle up a kid named Lincoln Victor, a quarterback who eventually a decade later, is leading the Union Titans into Saturday’s Class 4A football state championship game seeking an undefeated season?
Canon Racanelli quarterbacked Hockinson to an undefeated 2017 season, and first faced off opposite Victor numerous times in youth ball. Stopping Victor always became priority No. 1 since a Pop Warner national tournament spot usually went through Racanelli’s North County Wildcats or Victor’s Evergreen Bulldogs.
“We would always have to worry about how we were going to keep Lincoln contained,” said Racanelli, who finished his redshirt freshman season at Central Washington, “because he was such a good athlete. He has always been super competitive and it showed from a young age.”
The same can be said today.
Years later, Victor is the epitome of a dual-threat quarterback who has accounted for 5,213 passing yards, 1,585 rushing yards and 75 total touchdowns in three seasons as Union High School’s starter.
It’s the same player who draws high praise from teammates and opponents alike on competitiveness to class to commitment, whose father chokes up talking about his youngest son accomplishments, and a local coach who believes Victor defines what it means to be a leader.
And it’s the same player who 10 years ago this weekend witnessed an upstart Union program go 13-1 to reach the Class 3A state title game in its second year of existence only to have the same crushed feeling in the Tacoma Dome stands as players did on the turf when the Titans lost 35-6 to perennial power Bellevue. Victor’s brother, Kapono, played running back and linebacker on that 2008 Union team.
Now a decade later, Union (13-0) faces Lake Stevens (13-0) Saturday in the Class 4A championship game seeking the program’s first state title with another Victor on the roster. And this Victor wants nothing more than to make a victory happen.
Growing up a Titan
At age 8, the world already seem big enough, but Union football was Victor’s world in 2008.
Part of the ball-boy crew on then-coach Cale Piland’s teams, Victor attended every practice, and every Union game. He cherished the players and coaches who knew his name. He learned early how invaluable leadership is through watching his older sister, Brandi, play on the Titans volleyball teams. He learned how to carry oneself and lift each other from Kapono’s Titans football teams.
Growing up a Titan has been one of the best moments of his life.
“I didn’t know anything but Union football,” Victor said. “To watch this team grow, community grow and reach new goals to set for the people who come after us, which is us. To finally know it’s been 10 years — exactly senior year — it’s surreal.”
Those leadership traits made an immediate impact once in high school. But to better understand the qualities that define his leadership, you must better understand where Victor comes from.
Family is Victor’s biggest life pillar, and he proudly plays the game honoring his Hawaiian roots, a culture rich in tradition, values, family, love and commitment. He’s driven to succeed, and win for the heritage he prides himself in.
“That’s instilled in us,” said Victor, a native of Hawaii and born to Hawaiian natives. “It’s something special that a lot of people don’t realize and don’t understand, but if you come from a culture that is so deeply rooted, you play for them.”
And Victor goes a step further incorporating that to his Titan family, too. The success and fun-filled game atmosphere is what he wants teammates to enjoy.
Watch pregame. Watch on the sidelines. Watch postgame.
“There’s never a down moment with me,” Victor said. “To bring others with you up on your success and always give credit to people who surround you.”
Starts with family
Brandon Victor set the base for his youngest son.
Better jobs and more opportunities for their children is why Brandon and his wife, Melissa, uprooted their family of five from Maui to Vancouver in the early 2000s. While here, their family grew to six.
Lincoln Victor never was far from football, his dad said. Pop Warner on Sundays, daily practices with Union’s teams, tagging along with dad as part of local semi-pro teams.
Brandon Victor is Union’s special teams coordinator and receivers coach and also works in-building at Union High School. He’s good at separating father and coach roles in practices and game days, and fights back tears when looking back on his son’s high-school football career that includes two 4A Greater St. Helens League offensive MVPs and 4A GSHL titles in two seasons.
Brandon Victor said he “got forced into” coaching his son’s 6-year-old Pop Warner team. By age 10, Lincoln Victor’s Russell Wilson-type escapes made youth coaches jaw drop.
“I didn’t teach him everything,” Brandon Victor joked.
At 5 feet 9 and 165 pounds, Victor’s played quarterback all his life, but likely will play receiver, cornerback, or special teams in college, where he’s been recruited by five programs.
Most important stat
Lincoln Victor is never big on personal statistics, but for the record, through 13 games, he’s completed 70 percent of his passes for 2,214 yards and 21 touchdowns, and rushed for 720 yards and 10 touchdowns.
The only stat he cares about is matters is the 13. Seven of Union’s 13 wins this season have come by a seven or fewer points.
“The best stat we can ever have is a win,” he said. “We have 13 of those, and we’re looking for one more.”
Matt Gracey, who was let go after four seasons at Heritage’s coach earlier this week, has watched Victor transform into he calls an X-factor.
And that goes beyond what he does on the field.
“Every team tries to find one thing that puts them over the top,” Gracey said. “He has something about him. People want to follow him and want to allow him to be a leader.”
As a member of the WIAA’s inaugural football state playoff seeding committee, Gracey’s witnessed a number of 4A and 3A contests this season, including both of Union’s wins over Puyallup when Victor’s play changed the course of both games.
Trailing by 17 with 6-plus minutes to play Sept. 28, a first-down run by Victor on fourth-and-7 from their own 12 set the comeback course in motion.
In the state semifinal, with star two-way player Darien Chase out injured after the first play from scrimmage, Victor played cornerback much of the second half shutting down leading receiver Justin Haase to help lead the defensive charge. Union rallied to win, 35-28.
Big moments in big games is what Victor lives for, head coach Rory Rosenbach said, with a certain fiery edge and command for the ball that is second to none.
“He thrives under those pressure moments,” Rosenbach said. “He loves games on the line — to make a play with his legs or get it to a guy to make a play.”
And that’s what Victor hopes he and his teammates do Saturday, too, in the biggest game on the largest stage to date for these current Titans.
Victor and the Titans might just come full circle 10 years to the weekend since its last state title-game appearance. Oddly enough, Victor is reminded daily of the 2008 title-game defeat; the laminated front-page newspaper clipping, the one where he’s photographed as an 8-year-old embracing older brother Kapono postgame, hangs in his bedroom.
But it’s for more than him: the program, the school, and community he admires.
“It’s something special here,” Victor said. “I’m truly grateful to be a Titan. … This is a part of me.
“I want to finish the job, and here we are.”
