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FVSU Celebrates the Life of Legendary Coach Leon J.

Posted on Jan 01, 2019 at 0:00 AM

"Leon J. "Stan" Lomax was a legendary former FVSU Wildcat football and basketball head coach who set new standards for athletics teams accomplishments in the state of Georgia and intercollegiate competition. He passed away on December 30, 2018 at the age of 95.

The Hall of Fame coach set new standards for coaching at multiple levels, and in multiple sports, in the state of Georgia and in national collegiate athletics. An alumnus, Lomax graduated from Fort Valley State College in 1943. He was inducted into Georgia Sports Hall of Fame (1996), Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame (1986), Fort Valley State College Alumni Hall of Fame (1979), and Risley High School Alumni Association Hall of Fame (2018).

 

"Coach Lomax has been indispensable in creating Fort Valley State University's tradition of athletic excellence," said Paul Jones, FVSU president. "Coach Lomax helped countless young men and women become winners, not just on the field, but also by becoming scholars and contributors to the community. The FVSU family mourns his loss, but celebrates his extraordinary impact in the state and in the nation."

Lomax stepped down as head coach of FVSU's football team in 1977 after a 29-year coaching career. He served as FVSU's head coach for fourteen years, compiling a record of 86-33-7 and leading the team to four Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) championships. He was named the SIAC's "Coach of the Year" four times. His 1972 team and the team from Fisk University were the first HBCU football teams to be featured in a regionally telecast ABC-TV Sports Network game. Nationally, he served as a member of the coaching staff in 1971's Black All-Star Classic in the Houston, Texas Astrodome and coached the East Team in the first Annual All-American Freedom Football Classic in Los Angeles, California in 1976. When he stepped down as Wildcat head coach, Lomax had earned the top winning percentage and longest period of continuous coaching service of any Georgia college football coach serving at the time.

Lomax was asked to introduce his former player, Larry Rayfield Wright, when he was inducted into the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame. "He saw something in me that I didn't even see in myself," Wright said in Missing the Athlete, published in the Players Tribune.

Lomax also served as FVSU's head basketball coach from 1963"1967 and served as assistant to the president.

Lomax assumed head coaching duties at Fort Valley State College after a wildly successful tenure at Brunswick, Georgia's Risley High School, where he led his teams in multiple sports to state championships, including two football championships (1950 and 1957), two basketball championships, and five consecutive track and field championships.

An Athens, Georgia native, Lomax received the Pop Warner Award for the "Huddle Prayer of the Year" in 1971 and was recognized by the 1007 Wrong Club as "Coach of the Year" in 1969, 1972, 1975 and 1976. He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and served in World War II. He earned a master's degree in education from Boston University.

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