Shelby Township

Ike’s Lantzy goes out on top; football coach retires

By Jon Malavolti
C & G Sports Writer

» Click on image to view full size « Photo by Erin Sanchez Longtime Utica Eisenhower football coach Bob Lantzy recently announced his retirement. Lantzy surpassed the 300 win mark and led the Eagles to the state semifinals in his final season. Photo by Erin Sanchez Longtime Utica Eisenhower football coach Bob Lantzy recently announced his retirement. Lantzy surpassed the 300 win mark and led the Eagles to the state semifinals in his final season.

For a little more than 40 years, one man has patrolled the sidelines of the Utica Eisenhower football program.

Now, Bob Lantzy, the only varsity head coach the Eagles have ever known, is calling it a career.

And a spectacular one at that.

The Ike coach said he had made the decision to retire a year ago and waited until recently, following the 2011 season, to make the announcement official.

“The main reason I picked this year, I can’t go out on better note,” he said. “We won three championships — the MAC, the district and the regional.”

In his final season as the Ike coach, Lantzy surpassed the 300 win mark, led the Eagles to the Macomb Area Conference Red Division title and to a deep run into the playoffs, ending with a state semifinal loss to eventual Division 1 champions Detroit Cass Tech.

“We played in a great semifinal game,” Lantzy said. “We had a great group of seniors, and the prospects for next year are still outstanding. It’s a great time to leave. Everything is still positive.”

The coach leaves Ike with a 304-115-1 career record, including 13 league championships, five district titles, seven regional crowns and four state-finals appearances.

He credited much of his program’s success to finding the right mix of players who had the right “gifts.”

“You don’t look at people because of size and speed, but how they play the game,” Lantzy said. “That’s really an important factor in football. You see who’s going to make those plays, who has the courage, heart and brain.

“You learn, in order to have great football teams, the secret to winning big, you need a lot of different types of people — not all ones that fit the same mold — to be successful,” the coach continued. “You’re always looking for different qualities that people have to make them special.”

The coach used the same word to describe his time and the people he met at Ike — “special.”

“As a head coach in a big community, it becomes your life,” Lantzy said. “They’re the people that you do everything with. It’s so rewarding. You meet so many different people.

“I’ll miss it a lot,” he said.

Lantzy didn’t actually get his coaching start at Ike. His first job was as an assistant at Utica High in 1969.

After a successful prep career at Harper Woods Notre Dame High School, Lantzy played football and got a teaching degree at Northern Michigan University. His coach at Northern steered him into the play-calling profession.

“It just so happened that my coach, his brother-in-law was the athletic director at Utica,” Lantzy said. “He sent me down here. They had a football opening at Utica.”

As perhaps a sign of the success to come, Lantzy helped the Chieftains go undefeated in the ’69 season, outscoring their nine opponents 330-30, according to the archival website www.michigan-football.com.

That next year, Lantzy took over the new program at Ike, which was made up of just sophomores at the time. The Eagles’ first official varsity season was the next year, in 1971. Coaching a squad with no seniors against other established teams, Ike went 3-6, but Lantzy began laying the groundwork for his and his programs’ legacy.

The Eagles would undergo only three more losing seasons in 40 years under the coach, who led the squad to 10 double-digit-win seasons and many playoff appearances, highlighted by reaching the state finals in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003.

Chris Corteg, Ike’s current athletic director, said earlier this season what impresses him most about Lantzy is the enthusiasm he puts into the program every single season.

“It’s like it’s his first year into coaching,” Corteg said. “Here’s a guy that’s done this forever, and he still exudes tons of energy. He’s not relying on past efforts or cruising along. He’s fiery, in a good way.

“You see that he’s always very well-prepared for every game. It doesn’t matter who we play.”

Lanzty said now he’s going to spend more time out in Arizona, and catch up on some golf and fishing, as well. While he hasn’t completely ruled out remaining involved with football in some way or another, he said this is a good time in his life to concentrate on some other things, like family.

While he’s away from the sport that has defined so much of his life, Lantzy said, most of all, he’ll miss the “competition” aspect of football.

“That’ll be the biggest part, seeing those kids get more and more intense as the week goes on. Then, that moment before you come out of the locker room before a game, that’s a great moment,” the coach said.

“It’s really an intense moment when you’re ready to hit the playing field.”

At press time, no successor had been announced. Lantzy said he was hoping it would be someone from the current staff. Either way, he had some sound final advice for his replacement: “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“Just keep doing whatever we’ve been doing,” Lantzy said. “Because whatever we’ve been doing, it’s working pretty good.”

You can reach C & G Sports Writer Jon Malavolti at jmalavolti@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1040.