Nine seasons as an NFL quarterback prepared Neil Lomax to handle the pressures and ignore the critics.
So when outsiders vocalize their whys on becoming Fort Vancouver’s football coach, a high school and football program Lomax said months ago he knew nothing about but realized it’s the place for him, his why is this: Fort needs Lomax, and Lomax needs Fort.
“They need me there,” Lomax said Wednesday after Vancouver Public Schools officially named the ex-Portland State standout its new head coach, “and I need that type of school to remind me why I coach football.”
Lomax is Fort’s eighth coaching change since 2001 and for a program that went 0-9 last fall and hasn’t won more than two games in a season since ’07.
It’s a challenge he’s eager to take, but far from his first.
Seven years assisting Roosevelt High in North Portland under Christian Swain, now Columbia River’s head coach, changed how Lomax defines coaching and showed him another side of football, the 59-year-old Lake Oswego, Ore., resident said. Roosevelt’s losing streak reached as long as 34 games before the turnaround began that led to six straight playoff seasons.
But more importantly, the Roosevelt players’ impact on Lomax forever changed how he views coaching.
“I thought a coach taught kids to be better football players, “he said, “but they have to have everything else locked in.
“It’s redefined why I coach football.”
That’s why nowhere on Lomax’s top 10 list he’s made for the upcoming fall season does it list winning a state championship much less about Xs and Os.
No. 1 on the list? Academics, first and foremost.
No. 2? The coaching staff understands the importance of No. 1.
Lomax said he hasn’t finalized the coaching staff, but does have one assistant in place. It’s Bill Smith, who retired as head coach at Century of Hillsboro, Ore. in 2016 after 15 seasons. Smith previously was head coach at Madison (Portland).
That’s the person whom Lomax described as a “co-author of the next chapter at Fort.”
The next chapter that begins soon with Lomax’s philosophy.
“I guarantee these young student-athletes I will be there for them tomorrow,” he said, “and we will do it a better way.
“That’s my heart, and my heart is really if I can make a difference.”
