Family on and off the field

Many athletes get their start in sports with the help of an outside influence, such as an idol, a friend or a family member. Brian Lucas, Mountain Brook Athletics football commissioner and chairman of Mountain Brook Parks and Recreation, has been there. 

Together with long-time coaches Bill Garner and Burke Moncus, Brian Lucas has watched a family of sorts develop within the program during his 29 years of coaching recreational sports. 

He has had many coaches join him on the field during his time in the program, but what makes them different is that they represent a selection of his former MBA athletes who have chosen to come back as coaches. 

“It’s almost become a right of passage for our former players to come back and serve our community [as coaches],” he said. 

Although every coach has their own personal reason for returning, a great sense of family —either through blood or through choice — was involved in their decision. 

“Brian reached out to Michael [Lucas] to see if he’d be interested in putting a coaching staff together,” said Donald Gambril. While Michael Lucas has no relation to Brian Lucas, he falls under that “football family” category. “Michael called me and it was a no brainer. I’d always thought it would be fun, and getting to coach with some of your best friends is even better.”

Michael Lucas contacted Peyton Falkenburg and Wil Bromberg, two other friends and former football players to coach as well. All four went to separate elementary schools, but thanks to Mountain Brook football were brought together to create a life-long friendship and be reunited under the MBA program once again. 

“If it weren’t for MBA sports, we wouldn’t have known each other,” Gambril said. 

“It was the best way to foster friendships, and a lot of the guys from third grade to high school are still some of my closest friends,” Falkenburg added.

While there are plenty of lasting bonds that have been created within the program with the help of experiences, there are others who entered the coaching world with the help of their family ties, much like Brian Lucas. 

“All roads lead back to Brian Lucas and his recruiting efforts, but my older brother, Charles, probably had the biggest impact on my coming back to coach,” said MBA football coach Chris Branch. 

While attending college at Alabama, Chris Branch was home for the last practice before the first MBA Super Bowl that his brother and Brian Lucas won together. 

“Charles offered me a chance to come “consult” for the game, and from that point on, I knew I wanted to come back and coach with him,” he said. 

While a family exists directly within the program, it extends well beyond the football fields to the community as well. 

“The relationships I have had the opportunity to build with all of these families are by far the best part about being a coach in this community,” said Chris Branch. 

Brian Lucas also said that by having former players return, their parents and families are coming back out and supporting the teams during games. 

“What’s really cool is to see many of their parents back on Crestline field, cheering on their son’s teams. Now that’s special,” he said. But he still sees many of his players and coaches as part of his football family, too. 

“I’m like a proud parent watching these young coaches develop the next generation of Spartans. They’re like my kids, and now they’re back coaching my actual kids,” he said. “I’m so proud of these guys. [It] probably freaks them out that I hug and tell them I love them, but they really have no idea the huge impact they have on these kids.” 

Although their playing days may be over, the coaches still enjoy spending time around the younger players and passing on the passion they share for football. 

“Donald always says it, but we have just as much fun as the kids do. We enjoy being around the game and teaching the younger generation,” said Michael Lucas. “At the end of the day, it’s just a game that is a vehicle to build friendships,” added Falkenburg. 

Brian Lucas is looking to grow the generations of coaches he is working with now by recruiting former Spartan athletes as coaches who have “lived the process,” he said, and his current coaches want to continue fostering a love for the sport through their players, too. 

“Most every player that donned the green and gold at one point was a Raider, or a Cowboy or a Steeler out at Crestline field,” said Chris Branch. “My overwhelming hope is that one day, a group of the players that I have coached over the years will come back and coach my kids.”

Football draft

Second-graders will play flag football this fall and teams for MBA football will be drafted Aug. 20. The season runs from Sept. 9 through Nov. 6 and concludes with the Super Bowl at Spartan Stadium. 

To register for the program, click here.