Photo courtesy of Keanon Lowe and The Oregonian
(PORTLAND) You likely remember the story…
Just before COVID, a student walked into a Portland area high school with a gun.
But that gun was never fired, thanks to the actions, the words, and the hug offered by a coach.
Football has been ingrained in Keanon Lowe.
“It was a game that my dad introduced me to, and that was our special bond when I was a young kid,” Keanon recalls. “Football really became my mentor and where I really learned how to become a young man.”
As he played high school and college ball, the lessons he took away opened his mind.
“You get a chance to really learn people,” Lowe says.
That’s where he says he developed his sense of empathy, a trait that would serve him well once he became a football coach and security officer at Parkrose High School.
May 17, 2019.
“It was a Friday, and a day like any other day,” he remembers. “I worked security at that school, and I get a call to go down to that classroom where a student was in distress. The kid’s not in that classroom, and as soon as I go to leave that class, a student opens the door and he’s holding a shotgun.
Surveillance video captured in that school hallway shows Lowe taking the gun away, then just holding the student. Emotion is clear on the attempted shooter’s face. Lowe eventually sat down with the student, and talked with him several minutes before police arrived.
“It was just a moment in my life, it’s just a moment in his life too. People wondered why I reacted that way and why I gave the kid a hug and why I was so empathetic to the kid.”
A lot of people might never be prepared for a moment so intense. Keanon Lowe says his time coaching at Parkrose opened his heart.
“I was coaching kids that were homeless…kids with anger issues…kids that were hungry. Through that experience I really learned the struggle of what some kids go through, and I really gained a true understanding of what their lives are,” Lowe says.
Today, Keanon is still coaching. Different school, but same values. And he’s written a book titled “HOMETOWN VICTORY: A Coach’s Story of Football, Fate, and Coming Home.”
“You know, personal thoughts about what happened in that hallway with that student, but its just so much more,” Keanon says. “It’s my life.”
…a life, that at age 32, seems to have the wisdom of someone who’s been around twice as long.
Keanon Lowe credits football for the hope he has today.
“I just want to be a leader in finding positivity and putting out that positivity,” he says. “I’m hopeful for that. I’m hopeful for the future, for sure.”
