Friday, October 13, 2000
Newport-Lloyd pits dad against son
By Ray Schaefer
Enquirer contributor
The head football coaches at Newport and Lloyd Memorial have tried to refrain from talking about tonight's Class AA district game at Lloyd. They can avoid it no longer. Newport vs. Lloyd is also Lucas Bowl I - the first time Newport's Roy Lucas Sr. will be on the opposite sideline from his son, Lloyd's Roy Lucas Jr.
The elder Lucas said it has been hard to not think about his son.
“You've got to prepare for this game just like any other game,” he said.
Players on both teams have been thinking about tonight for a while.
“It's big for us because we've lost the last five years to this team,” Lloyd senior running back Tyler Marks said.
Lloyd assistant coach Tom Rouse was a guard at Lloyd under Lucas Sr. from 1967-69. He remembers Roy Jr. running and screaming a lot while players and coaches watched game film.
“He was a cute little kid running around,” Rouse said. “He's my boss now.”
Tonight's game was perhaps inevitable.
Inevitable because the son couldn't bear to give up football when he graduated from Valley Fayette High School in Montgomery, W.Va. in 1983. The son watched his father on the sidelines and knew he wanted to teach and coach.
“Both his enthusiasm and excitement and the way he worked with (players) made me want to do it,” Lucas Jr. said. “He never pressured us (younger brother Jerry is an assistant at Scott County).”
Inevitable despite the parents trying to persuade Roy Jr. to do something else.
“He's always talked about coaching,” Lucas Sr. said. “We actually talked him out of it when he went to college; we felt like it was a tough life.”
And inevitable because Roy Jr. ultimately didn't listen.
Lucas Jr. was an assistant at Beechwood from 1992-94. He joined the Newport staff in 1995 when his father took over a team that had not won a game in 1994.
The son followed the same path as his father in 1997, when he took the head coaching job at Simon Kenton, a winless program the year in 1996.
Lucas Jr. compiled an 8-22 record in three seasons there, while his father compiled a 47-17 mark at Newport from 1995-99. The son said the biggest disappointment for him was the 5-5 record in 1998, when Simon Kenton missed the Class AAA playoffs by one game.
So why leave Simon Kenton?
Lucas Jr. said Lloyd's was the kind of football program he wanted to coach. The Juggernauts won the state Class AA title in 1965 and the AAA crown in 1976. Provided the tradition, and the fact that Erlanger and Elsmere are separated by just Dixie Highway signified the close-knit community Lucas wanted.
Still, he was surprised the job came open so soon.
“I didn't think Rudy (former coach Rudy Tassini) was close to retiring,” Lucas Jr. said.
Lucas Sr. will be relieved when tonight's game is over because he can root for his son again.
“You want to see him win every football game,” he said. “But not this one.”
Complete prep football coverage at Enquirer.com/prepfootball
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