BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Lantz Lowery, who helped make Keystone Heights High School one of the state’s best in the sport of boys weightlifting, is leaving to become the head weightlifting coach and handle strength and conditioning for the football program at Palatka High School.
“We’ve had success at Keystone — great success,” said Lowery, who led the Indians to five state championships. “This is an opportunity to go someplace else and see if we can replicate that success. Can we do it again before I retire? Am I capable of doing this again?”
Lowery has coached football and weightlifting at KHHS since 2003, with the exception of the 2015-16 school year when he accepted the position of head football coach at Interlachen High School.
Keystone shared the Class 1A state title with Baker County in 2014. When Lowery returned to KHHS after one year at Interlachen, the Indians won three Class 1A championships in a row from 2021 through 2023. In 2022, the Indians won two state titles, earning the top trophy in both the traditional and newly added snatch events.
“It is hard enough to win one state championship in a coaching career, let alone three in a row,” KHHS Athletic Director Chuck Dickinson said. “He has done this because of his dedication to our student-athletes — being able to motivate them and hold them accountable to each other.”
Head Football Coach Steve Reynolds, who worked alongside Lowery the last four years, described Lowery as having been an “incredibly valuable asset” to KHHS.
“We’re grateful for all the hard work he put in,” Reynolds said.
Palatka High School experienced its own impressive run of weightlifting success, winning five straight state championships from 1991 through 1995, making it one of four schools to have won at least five titles in a row. Palatka also won state titles in 1987, 2000 and 2007 and was state runner-up in 1984, 1985, 1988, 1996, 1997 and 1999.
“Palatka has a history of state championships,” Lowery said. “It’d be pretty cool to be able to restore that.”
Keystone’s recent history of state championships also includes numerous district and regional titles. Since 2012, when the district and regional formats were created, the Indians have won their district every year, including the year Lowery was at Interlachen. That includes winning two titles each in the last three years with the addition of the snatch event, which then morphed into the Olympic event.
The Indians have won their region every year during the same span with the exception of this past season, when they were runners-up to Suwannee in both traditional and Olympic. Keystone earned traditional and snatch regional titles in 2022 and was traditional champ and Olympic runner-up in 2023.
Keystone also won the Clay County Championship meet (which involves all county public schools) from 2021 through the past season.
Dickinson said Lowery “is without a doubt the best coach in Clay County in the sport of weightlifting.”
Lowery shared the Florida Dairy Farmers Class 1A Boys Weightlifting Coach of the Year honor in 2014 and was the outright 1A Coach of the Year in 2021 and 2022.
Recently, he shared the Best Overall Coach in Florida for the 2022-23 school year by the National Federation of High School Coaches Association.
“He’s been a beacon of hard work and consistency in this sport,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds said Lowery also proved that one could adapt to new situations, alluding to the fact that Keystone won the state championship in the snatch event the first year it was implemented.
“You’re never too experienced to try something new and get out of your comfort zone,” Reynolds said.
Aside from athletic successes (Lowery also coached undefeated seasons in junior varsity football), what Lowery will remember the most about his time at KHHS are the relationships he established, whether they were with fellow coaches, teachers and administrators or, most importantly, the students.
“The kids are what have made this decision hard,” Lowery said. “It’s so much more than weightlifting or football. The relationships that you build with the young men, just teaching them how to become adults. They’re going to be dads. They’re going to be husbands one day. That takes hard work.”
Dickinson said, “He has done more for these kids than just win state championships. He has taught them how to believe in themselves and that anything is possible through hard work and dedication. He taught them life skills and gave them memories that they will never forget. He taught them how to handle disappointment with honor and how to move forward from that disappointment by outworking everybody else.”
Lowery, who once worked for UPS, said he never expected to do what he wound up doing at KHHS, but it wound up being something he was obviously good at.
Leaving KHHS is bittersweet, but he’s excited about the future.
“You turn the page,” Lowery said. “Now, it’s time to get after it all over again and see what Palatka has to offer.”
