Jamal Lewis, an armed security guard at the Upper Perkiomen High School, recently took on a new commitment to the UPHS community as an assistant football coach. Although he’s been at UPHS since the beginning of the school year, he has discussed his plans to work with the team to build the community at Upper Perk.
From PeeWees to college football, Lewis told the WSJ he’s played football most of his life. In his senior year of high school, he was recruited to play at Delaware Valley University and was among the few students to move on to play in college. During his interview, he told the WSJ that he has always loved the way the sport brought people together and went on to say, “I love football. I love watching the game and being part of the game.”
Just as constant as football has been in his life, Lewis has always worked to better the communities he lives in. He began as a foster care caseworker, which he described as “securing children and making sure the children are safe.” From there, he worked in various paths, such as correctional facilities, police departments, and personal security. He even described a time he was a personal security guard for television personality Kendra Wilkinson while she was in Philadelphia.
Through his time as a personal trainer, Jamal discovered his love of coaching. Although he told the WSJ that formally coaching a sport was never something he ever thought he would do, he began coaching the seventh-grade football team in Boyertown last year. Through this experience, he said he “fell in love with it, because [he] was able to change their ideas of what football was, and they had a great time doing it.”
According to Lewis, earlier this year he and the UPHS football coach, Mr. Heinrichs, discussed Lewis’ plans for the future. Through this conversation, they began discussing football and Heinrichs eventually invited him to interview.
Jamal told the WSJ he plans “on being [at Upper Perk] for a long time” and that he has faith in building a “culture of winning”. He went on to say that “when you have a great football team, your community changes” and that improving the team could change the culture of Upper Perkiomen for the better.
The team has already begun training after school several days a week in preparation for the upcoming season and Lewis said that he helps with the training often. Jamal Lewis plans to continue working to build not only the team but also the entire Upper Perkiomen community with his dedication to the students and staff.
