‘We love you, Coach Ziggy!’

When Copeland "Ziggy" Lewis, a Jamaican football coach in the United States marked the incredible achievement of 200 lifetime wins recently, even the defeated opposing team stood still and watched as he was celebrated with a heartfelt pre-recorded video.

For Lewis, who represented Jamaica internationally at the Under-17 level, the seven-minute video, which featured rival coaches, his family in Jamaica, his son who is away on duty for the military and lots of other students, family and friends, came as a complete shock. https://youtu.be/XMByZgreEcw “It was a big surprise. It was the biggest surprise I've had in my life because I had zero idea it was going to happen,” he explained. Reaching 200 career wins is considered a significant achievement for any high school coach, but for Lewis it was also a side effect of his desire to give his best. “I don't think many people knew I was close until maybe the week of. I didn't even know until I saw the video, to be honest with you. It's not something I sit down and be like, okay, I need one win, I need two wins. It's just, I just want to do the best as the coach so the players could perform to the best of their ability and bring success to the players, the programme and the community. ” While Lewis wasn’t necessarily keeping track, his loved ones were confident that he would reach the milestone. So confident, that the girls’ soccer booster club at Nazareth Area High School, alongside Stefanie Ott, organised and edited clips in the video congratulating him on securing the 200th win before the match was even played. “It was a playoff game, and obviously it's a game where you had to win because, if you lose, you're done… and I said before, I have a very good team, I have great players. I don't think in the back of their mind, it was like, we have to win for Coach Ziggy; it was more like, hey, we need to win so the season could continue,” he shared. And when they did win, the video was shared with a shocked Lewis and all the match attendees, including the opposing team and parents who all stayed behind to watch. Despite his modesty, It’s not hard to see why Lewis’ coworkers and student athletes at Nazareth especially were eager to participate in the congratulatory video. Aside from his encouraging coaching style, he has led the team on an incredible run. Undefeated in 122 games, Lewis piloted the school to their first-ever Eastern Pennsylvania Conference (EPC) title this year. However, Coach Ziggy, as he is fondly called at the school where he has spent almost 14 years, spreads the credit around evenly. Speaking to

Observer Online

hours before the team was due to play a semi-final in another league, he noted that the entire team has worked hard to be where they are today. “First of all, you need the support system from the school, and credit to my assistants and others,” he said, adding, “The players get, you know, all the credit because they’ve performed. So it's a great achievement, but I give all the credit to my admin and the coaches and the players.” He knows what it means to be a player, having been involved in football practically his whole life. A native of Leeds in St Elizabeth, Lewis distinguished himself in local competitions, eventually becoming a part of the then-Essex Valley All Stars Under-14 development programme, rubbing shoulders with future Reggae Boyz star Lovell Palmer. He was a key fixture in the Munro College football team in the late 90s, captaining the team to the Galloway Cup in 1999 and moving on to represent the school in subsequent senior-level competitions. His performances got him scouted for the national under-17 team and then a full scholarship to East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania. Lewis played as a defender for four years at East Stroudsburg before transitioning into coaching. And the video included the one person who saw him through it all “It hit me emotionally because I saw my mom. And my mom, my mom is my biggest supporter from day one. When I was at Munro, I know how hard she worked to make sure that we had food on the table and we had the best life possible,” he explained. Once the video was shared online, it prompted an avalanche of responses, which Lewis is not taking for granted. “It didn't hit me how much impact I've had on people until I saw the video and then when everyone knew about the record, I got hundreds of text messages and emails and phone calls, just people thanking me and people who had no idea this was a record, or just athletes I've coached over the years, families that have been a part of my life,” he said. “It's something that I won't take for granted. I'm just happy that I had an impact on others that was a positive impact,” he added. Included in the video is a clip shot days after the passage of Hurricane Melissa in October 2025 showing Lewis hugging fellow coach Al Haddad, the head of a rival team and his long-time mentor. “That was the most emotional game I've ever had in my life because that was the day my sister and my mom called me and told me we lost the roof from Melissa,” he explained. Lewis had beaten Haddad’s team, and the emotions of winning combined with the loss of his family home were overwhelming. In the video, Haddad described the moment as one of the most important of his coaching career. “He knew what I was going through with everything that was going on in Jamaica that week. It was just a mental, like, ‘thank you’ for something good having happened in my life in that moment,” Lewis shared. It meant this video, and the 200th win, were doubly significant to him as it came just around the one-year mark of Hurricane Melissa. For any young Jamaicans experiencing similar loss and struggling to find motivation, Lewis encouraged: “Don't be afraid to talk to somebody…don't keep your emotions to yourself… And don't be afraid to reach for your goals. It may seem hard, but the worst thing you can do is have regrets.” Reflecting on his career now, there is nowhere he would rather be. “I never thought I was going to be a coach, but somebody told me once, like, hey, you have the personality and the charisma to be very good. So I took their advice, and I'm grateful to this day that I listened to that person's advice, and I would not change anything in the world,” he said. (Video: Copeland Lewis/ Nazareth Area High School)