The Blindside meets Friday Night Lights in Keanon Lowe's Hometown
Victory when an NFL coach returns home after losing a friend 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.
