It’s been a winding road for Quincy Lewis in recent years.

After winning seven state championships and one national championship as the head coach of the Lone Peak boys basketball team, Lewis joined the BYU men’s basketball program as an assistant.

His most recent stop was as the athletic director at Timpview but it felt like it would only be a matter of time before he returned to coaching.

“I’ve taken stock of where I’m at in the last year and I like being in the gym,” Lewis said. “Timpview was a great situation to be a part of athletics but I think I’ve got a little bit more coaching in me. I realized that if I’m going to coach, now is the time.”

That became official late Monday night when Lehi High School announced that Lewis would be the new head boys basketball coach for the Pioneers.

“Lehi has a proud and rich basketball history, and Coach Lewis is a great addition to that,” Lehi principal Doug Webb said in the press release. “We are really excited to have him join our faculty.”

Lewis said Sean Yeager, who had coached the Pioneers for the last few years, chose to step back into a different role and will help as a part-time athletic director at Lehi.

That meant there was an opening but the process took a couple of months before everything came together.

“This position opened up just about the same time that COVID-19 hit Utah, so it was kind of a longer process,” Lewis said. “I looked at a lot of different avenues. What I was looking for was a situation that I felt like was a good reset with a clean start, at a place that I felt had really good potential.”

He had also considered whether he wanted to return to the high school coaching ranks or go more toward college coaching.

“We looked at college things as well but you really look at what is going to be the best situation,” Lewis said. “This one was the best situation.”

He feels like Lehi has some great things going at this point. The Pioneers won Region 7 last year with a 9-3 record (13-10 overall) before dropping a heartbreaker to Park City in the first round of the 5A state tournament.

“Lehi has some positive momentum right now,” Lewis said. “They are a growing area. They have a new school. They won a region championship last year. You can see maybe what Lehi can be.”

He said he’s started putting together his staff and reaching out to the Pioneer players, although that has been more challenging because of the pandemic.

“It is an unusual time to get a job, that’s for sure,” Lewis said. “I’ve been able to talk to a few of the guys already and hope to talk to more here in the near future. I’m excited. The guys sounded great on the phone and I know I’ll be watching a lot of film, learning a lot more about them so we can be prepared when we get our first chance to get out on the floor.”

He said his message to Lehi players and the community is that the goals are going to be set high from the start.

“Our goal will always be to win the state championship,” Lewis said. “Our focus will be to get better every day. With those two things being said, we’re going to understand that working as hard as we can to develop those things goes hand-in-hand with developing the right kind of habits that can develop young men. That’s really the most important thing when you walk out of Lehi High. The things you can learn through athletics are hard to pick up somewhere else.”

He acknowledged that his past success means there will naturally be some expectations.

“I’ve always thought that you don’t want to be anywhere where there isn’t a level of expectation because that means that people want to do well,” Lewis said. “That’s where you want to be. I know that will be out there, but I’m going to jump into this and be focused on what we are doing each day.”

He said he feels like he’s always learning and hopes to apply things he’s picked up from his time at BYU, Lone Peak, Timpview and other places.

“You learn something every year,” Lewis said. “There are things to learn no matter where you are at. Hopefully what I can do is put all that together and try to do a good job for Lehi.”