Chan Lowe named Leroy’s permanent head football coach and athletic director

 

 

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

Leroy principal Gerald Pace didn’t have to talk to anyone about being the school’s new head football coach after Jason Massey left for the Clarke County job, not even Chan Lowe, whose job interview came in 2023, when he led the Bears to a second straight Class 1A state championship as an interim coach.

Lowe was officially approved as Leroy’s permanent coach and athletic director Thursday evening by the Washington County Board of Education.

It had long been a foregone conclusion that Lowe, 34, would get the job after going 20-2 in two seasons while Massey served in the Alabama National Guard.

“It’s a dream come true,” Lowe said. “This is something I’ve wanted to do since I decided to go into coaching. And you can’t ask for a better place to be the head football coach at than Leroy High School. I love the school, love the community, love the people in the community. There’s just no better place on a Friday night.”

Pace said Lowe was the obvious choice.

“He’s been to state twice and he’s proven himself,” Pace said. “He’s got a great record. He has motivated our students, not just our players but our students in a great way. They trust him. They lean on him and he’s able to talk with them and communicate with them in a way that they respect. The head football coach for Leroy is a pretty prominent position. A lot of eyes are on that person in that spot and there’s a lot of responsibility that goes along with it. There had been a few other names that circulated but Chan was always the frontrunner.”

Massey was 83-41 in 11 seasons at Leroy, including the 2022 Class 1A state championship with Lowe coordinating the Bears’ best defense since 2005. Lowe was named the 2022 Class 1A Assistant Coach of the Year by the Alabama Football Coaches Association that season.

When Massey was called up for Guard duty in 2023, Lowe took over and went 10-0, winning a second straight Blue Map and the Bears’ seventh in all.

Despite his success, Lowe said there will always be pressure to win on whoever coaches Leroy.

“It’s just because of the school itself and the history and the tradition that it has,” he said. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. Hats off to coach Massey because I made that comment when we won it in ’23 that if it hadn’t been for him, I would not be the coach that I am today. He started preparing me to be a head football coach.”

While Lowe said he would make changes — “There have been, even in the past year and a half, some  things I’ve done my own way, just what’s comfortable to me and what I know and what I think is best for our players” — the standards of discipline set by Massey and apparently his way with the weather will remain.

“There’s a lot of Masseyisms in my vocabulary and the way I do things is a direct reflection of him,” Lowe said. “One of the big things was when it rains in Leroy, it could be thundering all the way around and it acts like it’s about to rain practice out and all the kids always made the joke that he actually had a force field. He just went and flipped the switch on it; it never rained on the practice field. We’re rocking on last year and it does the same thing and it just goes right around us and Sawyer Sullivan looked at me and said, ‘Now, coach Massey wasn’t supposed to leave that switch with you. He was supposed to take that with him.’”

Lowe has been at Leroy for 10 years and said his long relationship with the players will serve the program well.

“I can communicate what we need to do to our players and just continue that buy-in and that culture and that tradition that’s been so long established here,” he said. “This group of seniors coming up were in the second grade when I got to Leroy. I’ve known a bunch of them since they were knee high to a grasshopper. And when you watch them grow up and they’re around you and you’re around them, it makes it easier. They know what to expect from me and they know what they can get away with and what they can’t get away with and what the punishments are going to be for certain behaviors. That’s what’s been the easiest thing about the transition is they know because I feel like, even during my time as an assistant with coach Massey, the level of respect for me was right up there with the level of respect that the players had for him.”

Lowe said perhaps the most important shared Masseyism through the years was memorized by each team: “Be where you’re supposed to be, doing what you’re supposed to be doing, when you’re supposed to be doing it.”

Lowe said it’s simple: “If you do those things, you’re not going to get in trouble and there’s no room for you to make a mistake. We’re not going to miss practice unless you’ve got a valid excuse. We ain’t going to act up in the classroom. We’re going to be where we’re supposed to be.”

It’s such an ingrained part of the program that the older players warn the younger ones without being prompted.

“Last year, at the practice before the first day of school, I went through the whole thing and I started by saying, ‘Be where you’re supposed to be’ … and they finish it for you,” Lowe said. “You can look at them if they’re acting up and if it’s bad enough, we’ll tell them, ‘You know, we can go to paradise if you want to. And nobody wants to go to paradise.’ The older kids will tell the younger ones, ‘You don’t want to do that. That ain’t where you want to go.’ It’s what we call our opportunity for improvement program.”

Lowe played for Georgiana and began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Wilcox Central before coming to Leroy. He has also helped coach baseball and was the Bears’ softball coach in 2025.

Massey and Lowe will face each other for the first time as opposing coaches on Aug. 29 when their teams meet in Grove Hill.