Lafayette football coach Eric Shaw stepping down after 20 years with Generals
Lafayette’s season-ending 21-19 loss to Paul Laurence Dunbar in the Class 6A playoffs on Friday night marked Coach Eric Shaw’s last game as the Generals’ head coach, ending a 20-year coaching career at the school that at its height included back-to-back state championship game appearances.
Lafayette has struggled on the field since those thrilling campaigns in 2015 and 2016 which were bolstered by future NFL linemen Jedrick Wills and Landon Young. But Shaw said he doesn’t look on his career as having highs and lows.
“This is what I want everybody to remember: All 20 years have been highs,” Shaw said.
Shaw, a Pensacola, Fla., native who moved to the Lexington area to settle down with his family after a college career at Louisiana Tech and three years as a linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals, was a defensive assistant at Lafayette for a decade before taking over the lead role in 2013.
Shaw, 50, got started coaching when his oldest son, Eric Jr., began playing high school ball. He’s since been able to coach all four of his sons in the program. Enrique Shaw is an assistant on his current staff. But Shaw has seen every player on every team he’s coached as a part of his family.
“Every team I’ve had on the field, they are my sons. That’s how many kids I’ve had, and that’s how I feel about this,” he said.
Shaw had a 45-59 record at Lafayette, peaked by a 12-3 mark in 2015 and a 13-2 season in 2016. The Generals lost the 2015 Class 6A finals to Male. They lost the 2016 finals to Trinity. Lafayette has reached the big-school state finals only two other times: Tom Fee’s 1985 squad, which lost to Trinity, and Roy Walton’s 1960 squad, which lost to Highlands. Scott County is the only school outside Louisville’s big three — Trinity, St. Xavier and Male — to win a large school state title in more than two decades.
But over the five seasons since, Lafayette has won no more than three games and had two one-win seasons, including last year. Lafayette finished this season 2-9 and lost two quarterbacks to injury along the way.
“I’ve been doing this a long time and sometimes a man has to understand when it’s time to make a transition,” said Shaw, who let his team know he would step down two weeks ago. “This has been an amazing, amazing, amazing journey. I’ve had great support from the administration over the years. And you know, it comes to a place in time in life, you just have to make a decision, and when it’s time to go, it’s time to go.”
The competitor in Shaw “wants to win every game … I want to win a championship. I want to win the state title — every year I’ve been here. However, that’s minimal when it comes to the lives and the guidance you give through that, to be able to have these young men stand on their own two feet when they graduate high school.”
Coaching has always been about more than the wins and losses on the field, Shaw said. “It’s about life and impacting young men’s lives. If it weren’t for coaches who got a hold of me when I was young, my life would be different because I wouldn’t be here. My goal is to give as much as I can to others.”
Shaw has continued his higher education studies online and is pursuing a doctorate in advanced studies of human behavior. He anticipates a new career for himself after this school year as a mentor and coach in that field if not football.
“I know a lot of people talk about the Big Blue Nation, but my nation is Lafayette and to be embraced by that and to be able to be encouraged by that — for those that have been involved with it the past 20 years to trust me in the manner that they have — I am very, very grateful.” Shaw said.
In his final game, Lafayette rallied with three second half touchdowns and cut its deficit to 21-19 early in the fourth quarter. A late interception thwarted the Generals’ chance to upset top-seeded Dunbar in the final minutes.
“Tonight was very emotional, not because we lost, because, to me, we didn’t lose tonight,” Shaw said. “I had a group of sons that played their a-- off … Yes, my greatest accomplishment is those two state championship runs, but to have these seniors go through what they went through these past four years — I know they are going to be great men and be better for it down the road. And I can’t be more proud of this group than tonight.”
This story was originally published November 6, 2021 at 12:45 PM.
