To top off a season ending with the 4A State Championship and a No. 18 national ranking, MaxPreps awarded girls’ basketball coach Joe Lombard the National Girls’ Athletics Coach of the Year.
MaxPreps is a CBS Sports branch focused on high school athletics around the country which nominates coaches and players annually for their national awards. According to MaxPreps representative Mike Wilkes, who presented Lombard with the award, the nomination process included more than 55,000 varsity girls’ coaches in the United States.
“The editing staff narrowed it down to five, and then the fans voted for one of them,” Wilkes said. “Each coach we nominated won multiple titles, coached for decades and has a winning record on and off the court.”
Lombard won the award over top softball, volleyball and basketball coaches, including Kevin Kiernan, coach of the girls’ basketball national champions, the Mater Dei Monarchs of Santa Ana, California, and Richard Jorgenson, coach of the No. 1 Woodlands, Texas softball team in both the editor and computer rankings.
“I never really thought that much about winning the award,” Lombard said. “I thought it looked bad when my wife said she accidentally voted for one of the other nominees.”
Lombard attributed this season’s accomplishments to the girls’ commitment to their coaches and each other every day of the season.
“They were the ultimate ‘team,’” Lombard said. “Each player was unselfish and everyone sacrificed for her team to be successful. We carried 15 players for the playoffs, so we had to make adjustments for practicing with more kids.”
Even after 15 state titles during Lombard’s 33 years as a coach, winning the championship hasn’t lost any luster or sense of accomplishment over time.
“The 15th championship felt like the first,” Lombard said. “It was one of the great moments in Lady Eagle history to finish 38-0 and state champions. The team motto was ‘step up’—and they delivered.”
Lombard also won National Coach of the Year from Russell Athletics and USA Today in 2003 when the Lady Eagles won 3A State and the USA Today National Championship.
