Hometown Victory

A Coach's Story of Football, Fate, and Coming Home

By: Keanon Lowe, Justin Spizman

Narrated by: Landon Woodson

The Blindside meets Friday Night Lights in Keanon Lowe's Hometown Victory when an NFL coach returns home after losing a friend to opiods to coach a team of struggling high school kids on a 23-game losing streak.

Keanon Lowe was working as an offensive analyst for the San Francisco 49ers when his childhood friend and former high school teammate suddenly died from an opioid overdose. Keanon dropped everything––including the plum NFL job he had been working towards since childhood––leading him to a position as football coach at a struggling high school back in his hometown. At the time, Parkrose High School was in the middle of a 23-game losing streak--they were the ultimate underdogs.

In many ways, the road to Parkrose was paved by Keanon's life-defining experiences––from a childhood spent dodging racist bullies and finding the support and mentorship he craved on the football team, to an NFL season where he worked closely with Colin Kaepernick as he evolved his sideline protest. Keanon was drawn to the young men on the Parkrose team, and to the school itself. After two years, he pushed them to become conference champions, mentoring countless players along the way.

But still, there was that nagging sense that his calling wasn't meant to stop there. He was at that school for a reason. In May 2019, he got his answer when a 19-year-old student entered a Parkrose classroom with a trench coat and shotgun. Keanon disarmed him and pulled the boy into a hug, telling him he cared. In the boy, Keanon saw himself, and the young men he grew up with or mentored along the way––and weren't so many of them just looking for acceptance, for comfort, for love?

With the heart of favorite football classics––The Blindside, Friday Night Lights, Remember the Titans––Keanon’s journey at Parkrose is the true account of a life spent striving forward, even when faced with the unimaginable. Hometown Victory is a story about gratitude, service, and most of all, hope.

Inspiring Book

It gives you a real look of what life can throw at you and it is up to the person to quit or push ahead.

Also I am a true believer that life once in a while test you and again you can give up or push ahead.

Where is the editor?

Lovely story. Ghostwriters are paid to remove repetitive, hackneyed words like “special” and “the universe” when a sincere author overuses them. If the ghostwriter doesn’t do that the editor needs to. I don’t blame Lowe.

A Remarkable Man and A Remarkable Storh

Keanon Lowe used his experience as a star collegiate football player to coach a high school team in one of the poorest areas of Portland to a district championship while influencing his players who came from fire circumstances. He taught them not only about football but also about life and not quitting when things get you down. He teaches them and an entire city about love when he stops a school shooter and then hugs the depressed young man.
I worked with Keanon's mom when he was in high school and knew of his commitment and hard work in football but this book showed me that he was a man with far more gifts than football. He is a man that can change the world one person at a time.
Well written and well narrated.