April 26, 2008 01:35 pm
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TERRELL LESTER column
Lance West is an enthusiastic soul. He talks in a sprint. Like he’s double-parked.
There is an infectious, incessant sense of excitability about him. In his speech. In his smile. In his walk.
He is forever upbeat. Never downbeat.
Yet if there were ever an occasion for Lance West to be less than ebullient, it might have been during the period when he had forsaken football.
Lance West was a high school football coach. A good football coach. He had coached in the 1999 All-State game. He had been singled out by a statewide group for Coach of the Year honors.
Yet, at the age of 33, he walked away from the sport he loved. Thought he could be happy following another path.
He left athletics. He left education. He chose another profession.
“And I hated it,” he said last week on his 40th birthday.
Still, true to his nature, Lance West kept a stiff upper lip. On the outside, he was Mr. Businessman. On the inside, deep inside, he was Coach West.
His split personality didn’t — couldn’t — endure for long. Four years ago, he returned to education.
He took an administrative post at Justus-Tiawah. A year later, he settled in as director of athletics at Sequoyah High School.
The sparkle had returned to Lance West’s eyes.
He was back in education. He might not have returned to football, but he did return to athletics.
Instead of being a football coach, he became a “coach of coaches.”
He presided over an athletic department that produced periods of Lance West-like excitement — namely the 2006 Class 3A football state championship.
And, as might be expected, that merely whetted his coaching appetite.
Now, West has fed that hunger.
He has turned in his resignation at Sequoyah and has accepted the position of head football coach at Collinsville.
It was at Collinsville where West had resigned from that same position following an 11-2 season.
The Collinsville administration wanted West to return.
And, West wanted to return.
“It presented itself, and I would be nuts not to do it,” he said. “That’s what it boils down to.”
Lance West is becoming Coach West again.
He will take on added duties as assistant high school principal, but he will be coaching football, too. That’s what makes Lance West tick.
But leaving Sequoyah, going to Collinsville, leaving his administrative desk at Sequoyah, taking the coaching whistle at Collinsville, that’s a challenge, even for Lance West.
He calls the decision “bittersweet.”
“It’s almost an equal emotion,” he said. “I’m ecstatic about going over there. Excited. Fired up.
“But I’m almost equally passionate about hating to leave. Hating to leave these kids, these teachers.”
The determining factor, he said, was the tandem job offer — high school administration and football coach. Maybe, not exactly in that order.
“An old coach, I forget who, told me once after he had retired, ‘You never get it out of your system,’” West said.
“I know what he was talking about. I don’t think I ever got it out of my system.
“The bottom line is, I truly miss the Friday night experience. There’s just something magical about it. I can’t wait to hear the band. And get the crowd going. You know, the whole nine yards. There’s just nothing like it.”
His voice was beginning to rise. His hands were beginning to fly around his head. His smile was turning into a laugh.
Lance West, Coach West, was talking football. He was home.
“I got into this — education — to coach,” he said. “I just keep going back to that. I got into this business to coach and teach.
“I had kind of gotten away from what I was, quote, called to do, quote.
“Now, this is allowing me to scratch both of my itches.”
But before he could make the move, before he could satisfy that yearning to return to the sideline, he had to receive the blessing of his wife, Amy.
“If my wife, and my kids, weren’t all fired up about this, I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it,” he said.
“My wife’s the epitome of a coach’s wife. She’s as excited as I am. She wants to get back in it.”
It is difficult to imagine even Amy West being as enthusiastic about the football gig as Lance West is.
“I’m getting my icing, and I get to eat my cake, too,” he said.
“How many times do you get to say that in life?”
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