Lehi Sports
Lewis hoops family is intertwined with the best of the sport
Beky Beaton / Lehi Free Press
The Mr. Basketball 40th Reunion Gala last week (see separate story) concluded with a tribute to the Lewis family and their involvement with the sport and the award throughout its history.
Basketball fans around the state are aware that Quincy Lewis, an athletic director at Lehi High School, holds the record for the most state championships won by a coach in Utah at nine: seven at Lone Peak and two at Lehi.
He also coached a MaxPreps national championship team in 2013 and is the only Utah coach to be inducted into the Naismith High School Hall of Fame.
Not coincidentally, he has also coached more Mr. Basketball winners than any other coach in Utah history at six, or 15 percent of the total during the four decades the award has been given. But the Lewis legacy in Utah high school basketball did not begin with Quincy, nor does it end there.
“The Lewis legacy is parallel with the Mr. Basketball story,” said Matt Bowman, the 1988 recipient who played with Quincy on Timpview’s championship team that year and was the master of ceremonies for the gala.
“With so many direct ties to the large number of Utah Mr. Basketball award winners, we all thought it would be a great time to also honor the Lewis legacy,” Bowman said. “I really don’t think anyone’s had more of a tie with Mr. Basketball than the Lewis family.”
”Through all the years, I’ve coached against or played against just about all of them,” Quincy said. “So, I guess I’m kind of a high school basketball almanac, but it’s really, really neat to have a lot of the guys here tonight.”
Bowman experienced the start of that Lewis legacy firsthand, as he and Quincy played for Quincy’s father, Tim Lewis, at Timpview.
“I came from a poor family,” Tim said. “My brother Bob was an All-State player at Provo High and so I wanted to be like him a little bit.”
Cheryl Lewis, Tim’s wife and Quincy’s mother, said that after Tim finished college, he took his first job at Provo High and was an assistant for Jim Spencer.
“He was part of the staff there and they had some great teams,” Quincy said. “Brett Vroman, Devin Durrant and the Law boys were part of that era, and I think they won 56 games in a row at one point.” “When Timpview was built, he signed on there as the head coach and that’s where he got to develop his own brand of basketball,” Cheryl said.
“Coach Tim Lewis always inspired the best in us, both on and off the court,” Bowman said. “He focused on the fundamentals and then encouraged us to play hard and work as a team. The team chemistry he helped create among the five of us is what definitely led to the amazing undefeated 25-0 season (1988).
“He gave us all a tip book and told us we needed to study it,” Bowman said. “And the tip book was just really life lessons. So I give a lot of credit to Coach Lewis for just building the life lessons of work hard, practice hard, you’re not entitled to anything, go out and get it.”
Brendon Dayton, another alumnus of the 1988 team who later coached with Quincy as an assistant for many years, said, “He (Tim) had us believing we were the best team whether we were or not. We always took the court assuming we were going to win.”
“The fun in basketball is winning and one thing we will always do is have fun,” Tim said, reading from a copy of his tip book. “He is what you would consider a coach that players loved to play for,” Quincy said. “He was a very positive coach.”
“There’s lots of people who know what’s supposed to happen, but getting your guys to actually do what they’re supposed to be doing, it’s hard,” Dayton said. “And Coach Tim Lewis and Quincy Lewis, they were both really good at it.”
“Quincy went to school at Edgemont across the street from Timpview,” Tim said. “He came across the street after school, and he came to every one of my practices. He listened to every one of my pep talks before games for his whole life and he was a coach on the floor.”
“He was part of that state championship at Timpview that Tim got and then the next year they took the state championship again,” Cheryl said. “He had been around a lot of good coaches,” Tim added. “By this time he was forming some good philosophies and he knew what he wanted to do.
“Eventually he took the job at Lone Peak High School and built it into a dynasty,” Cheryl said. Debbie Lewis, Quincy’s wife, added, “My husband learned a lot from his dad being the coach and he brought a lot of that into his own coaching.”
“When I first started coaching with Quincy, it had been 15 years since we played together,” Dayton said. “It was like I was in the gym with Coach (Tim) Lewis again. And you know, he probably got fired up a little more than his dad did. His players will tell you that.
“I love being in practice. I love teaching guys. I like seeing them get better,” Quincy said. “Quincy is the ultimate competitor and knows how to win,” Bowman added. “He was an incredible teammate and it’s no surprise to any of us that he became a legendary coach in the footsteps of his dad.”
James Edward, prep writer at the Deseret News, said, “One of the most incredible things about Quincy Lewis’s coaching legacy is he only coached 16 years. In those 16 years he won nine state championships.
“As for his state titles at Lehi, they definitely weren’t the favorite going into the season either of those years. And to win those state championships, I mean that just speaks to his legacy to go to another school and win two more state championships.”
Lehi Athletic Director Quincy Lewis (second from right) with four of his Mr. Basketball honorees: (from left) Tyler Haws, Jackson Emery, TJ Haws and 2024 Lehi graduate Cooper Lewis. Emery has recently joined the staff of Lehi head Coach Reed Bromley.
Quincy’s first Mr. Basketball at Lone Peak was Jackson Emery, who won the award in 2005 as he led his team to Quincy’s first state title in just his second year at the school. Emery has recently joined Coach Reed Bromley’s program at Lehi as an assistant varsity coach.
“I am excited to join Coach Bromley and the Lehi staff,” Emery said. “They have developed a strong program over the last few years and have put themselves in a position to be contenders in 6A year in and year out.
“I look forward to helping these boys develop and put them in the best possible positions on and off the court,” he said.
The Lewis legacy continued with Quincy’s son Cooper, who won the Mr. Basketball honor in 2024 after leading the Pioneers to the 6A state championship.
He’s recently returned from his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and will be reporting to St. Mary’s College in Moraga (CA) on June 1 to begin his collegiate career with the Gaels.
“With my dad and my grandpa both being coaches, the way I was raised it’s a state championship first but as a kid, I’m four or five years old, and my dad’s coaching all these Mr. Basketballs that I look up to,” Cooper said.
He went on to describe the influence that the Lone Peak Mr. Basketballs and others who have won the award in recent years had on his game and how he tried to learn from them all.
“Cooper had a goal to be Mr. Basketball from a really young age because that’s what he grew up seeing,” Debbie said. “When I found out I was becoming the 38th Deseret News Mr. Basketball, it kind of felt like a lot of that hard work had paid off,” Cooper said.
“You know, there’s so many neat people that we’ve met and the relationships that you make from our involvement with the sport,” Quincy said. “I’m just glad that I could be a part of Utah basketball.”
A bronze plaque was commissioned especially for this event, showing the three Lewis legends with a basketball player designed after the figure on the original Mr. Basketball trophy. It was unveiled at the gala and each of them will receive a personal copy.
Quincy Lewis, Tim Lewis, Matt Bowman and Cooper Lewis after the unveiling of the Lewis Legacy bronze plaque during the Mr. Basketball 40th Anniversary Reunion Gala on May 14.
This display at the Lewis household shows Quincy’s 11 championship rings, including two as a player and nine as a coach, along with his MVP trophies from the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune his senior year in 1989, plus the plaque from his induction into the Wagner College Hall of Fame in 2012 and a summary of his career including his induction into the Naismith High School Hall of Fame in 2013.
Lehi Mr. Basketball Cooper Lewis points out his name on the Mr. Basketball anniversary trophy on May 14. Below, playing during the state championships in 2024.
