Bob Lewis’ name is synonymous with high school football excellence, and now it has been immortalized with the best North Carolina has ever seen — right where it belongs.
The majority of Lewis’ life has been spent pacing the sidelines of football fields on Friday nights, the days sandwiched between them tirelessly devising scouting reports, conducting practices and coaching up players. All of it was done to prepare young men to give the best of themselves, on and off the gridiron.
In coaching, Lewis was not only teaching them x’s and o’s, but imparting the principles they would take with them in life: hard work, drive, determination and perseverance.
Many who coach never reach the apex. Lewis did many times, but was modest to a fault about his accolades. He was forever invested in the journey, the team- and individual-building along the way and humbled at the results on the field. Though there were a bounty of accolades at which he could thump his chest, that wasn’t his way.
Lewis hoisted five N.C. High School Athletic Association titles, four 2A crowns as the Dark Horses’ coach and a 3A crown, his first of all of them, in 1973, at the helm of the East Bladen Eagles.
Lewis’ teams in Clinton won state titles in 1990, 1996, 1997 and 2001, and were state runner-up in 1995 and 2014. At Harrells Christian Academy, Lewis coached the 2005 state champions and the 2007 state runner-up in the eight-man N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association.
For all his accomplishments, Lewis was inducted Saturday into the NCHSAA Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2018 ceremony in Cary, his name now in the pantheon of the state’s greats — right where it should be.
Overall, Lewis compiled a 322-146-6 record during his 41 years coaching, which spanned from 1972 until his retirement at the end of the 2017 season. He was the head coach for North Carolina in the 1999 Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas, an elite honor.
He also coached at Pender and Whiteville, helming the latter for just two years, in 2008 and 2009. It may just be the shining example of the Bob Lewis impact. He went 3-7 the first year, and the very next season amassed a 9-4 record in advancing to the third round of the 2A East playoffs, where Whiteville fell to eventual state champion Tarboro.
He has coached many young men who have gone on to enjoy their own personal and professional successes, some ascending from 2A to the NFL ranks, including Jerris McPhail, Leonard Henry and two-time Super Bowl champion Willie Parker.
“I’ll be the first one to tell you that I’ve been lucky,” Lewis told The Independent a couple years back. “I’ve been in the right place at the right time and I’ve had great coaches and great athletes and I’ve been able to accomplish some things with them that I wouldn’t even have dreamed I could do. It’s been exciting and I hope I’ve left some sort of legacy.”
Not only has he left a legacy, it goes beyond the bounds of Sampson County.
He has been a legend, not just in how he coached, but his mentorship to players, fellow coaches and those in the community. There were never any agendas, because Lewis didn’t operate that way. He was a straight shooter.
Lewis grew up without a father, his parents divorcing when he was just in grade school, leaving his mother to take care of him and his younger brother. As a high-schooler, Lewis found a father figure in Burgaw football coach Hershey Hipps. He once described Hipps as “kind of person that a lot of people strive to be but never quite are.”
Whether his humility allows him to see it, Lewis has been that person for so many, a true Hall of Famer.