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Lehi football coach Ed Larson accepts a gift during a ceremony before the start of a state playoff game against Layton on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. Larson is retiring at the end of the season.

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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Lehi football coach Ed Larson (white hat) kisses his wife, Jeanne, during a ceremony celebrating his career before the start of a state playoff game against Layton on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. Larson is retiring at the end of the season.

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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Lehi coach Ed Larson (white hat), along with his wife, Jeanne and other family members, during a ceremony celebrating his career before the start of a state playoff game against Layton on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. Larson is retiring at the end of the season.

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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Lehi head coach Ed Larson (right) talks to assistant coach Jason Andersen during a 6A football state playoff game against Layton on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024.

Darnell Dickson, Daily Herald

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Jeanne Larson still remembers the first parents meeting at Lehi High School.

It was 2014 and her husband, Ed Larson, was taking over a Pioneers football program that had won only 13 games in nine years.

“It was brutal,” Jeanne Larson said. “I’ve never been to a parents meeting like that. Nobody smiled. They just watched us as we set all the chairs up. They looked mad, like they wouldn’t believe what he was saying. It was like they were too scared to get excited about Lehi football. It was really quiet, even though there was a big crowd there from the beginning.”

Things changed at Lehi, but not immediately. The Pioneers went 0-10 in Larson’s first season, then 3-7 in his second. Two years later, in 2017, Lehi went 12-2 and won the Class 5A title by beating neighbor school Skyridge, 55-17. The Pioneers added back-to-back state championships in 2021 and 2022.

“Now everybody knows what’s possible,” Jeanne Larson said.

Ed Larson announced his retirement from coaching in August, telling the Lehi Free Press, “I’m stepping away now because it’s time for new leadership. Besides that, I have some other goals for my life that I have set aside during my coaching career, and it’s time now for me to begin working on those goals after we finish out this year.”

Quincy Lewis is the Pioneers’ athletic director and a pretty good coach himself, having won a state record nine basketball titles between stints at Lone Peak and Lehi. He recently stepped away from coaching as well.

“Ed’s got a really good feel for his kids and the program,” Lewis said. “He’s really well organized. What’s really amazing is he built this thing from the ground up. He built this program from 0-10 his first year to be one of the top five programs in the state at the highest level. He started a youth football program and got them excited about Lehi football.”

When Jeanne met Ed, football was the furthest thing from her mind.

“I was the girl who said football was the stupidest thing that anyone ever wasted their time on,” she admitted. “So it’s kind of been a weird growing experience for me. But I’ve loved it and supported him. He’s successful because he studies other programs and learns from them. He loves to win but he wants the boys to grow up to be good men of character. He teaches them how to treats women. He’s hard on them like they’re his own boys and expects a lot of them.”

Over more than 35 years, the Larsons have coached at the college level (Ricks College and Weber State) as well as at high school jobs for Timpanogos, Ogden and Springville.

At Lehi, they found more than just a job.

“Everyone said to him, ‘Why are you going to Lehi?'” Jeanne Larson said. “And he said, ‘It’s a sleeping giant.’ He’s kept the kids here where as before they would go to other programs. He does camps with the young players and goes and visits the kids in third grade. He started all that stuff and it feeds into what this is.

“It’s an amazing community. At games I’ll sit next to someone and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, do you have a son or grandson who plays here?’ And they’re like, ‘No, this is just what you do in Lehi. You come to the game.'”

Mays Madsen is a senior wide receiver for the Pioneers. He knows about coaches, too: His father, Eric, coached baseball at Utah Valley for 18 years and led Lehi to a state title last spring, where Mays was the Daily Herald’s Player of the Year.

“I think about how Coach Larson cares a lot about football, but he definitely puts the kids first,” Mays Madsen said. “You can just see how much he cares about us. There’s no one better than Ed. He’s always working on stuff. Each week we have some brand-new plays, and it’s crazy, because he’s a magician offensively. He just takes such good care of us.”

DeVaughn Eka is a junior running back for Lehi.

“He’s a great head coach,” Eka said. “You don’t find many coaches out there like him. He knows how to coach, and he’s a good person all around. So he’s special to have. We already want to win a championship with or without him leaving. So him leaving, we’re really trying to execute and do the little things to win.”

Ed Larson credits his success to his coaching staff, which includes assistant head coach Dan Rice, defensive coordinator Jared Harward, former Lehi head coach and BYU quarterback Steve Clements, former Cougars Jason Andersen and Manase Tonga and former Lehi quarterback Cole Cooper.

“Like any company, personnel matters,” Ed Larson said. “I was able to get some of the best assistants, in my opinion, in the state. I’ve got a tremendous defensive staff that’s just gangbusters for us. I mean, I’m not Ed Larson without those guys. Then, we’ve just got players going through the program. We keep them here in Lehi, instead of transferring to other schools. There’s a lot of talent here and there’s going to be a lot of talent coming up. So it’s going to be good for a while. I’m happy about that part.”

Ed Larson will teach for a few more years but Jeanne is looking forward to having her husband home more to spend time with their five adult children and three grandchildren. She got a sneak peak during the pandemic in 2020 — “I cried when they opened school back up,” she said — and added that they will still be active in the football community.

“When we were at Ricks College, Ed would load all of our kids up in the car and take them to football practice,” Jeanne said. “One day one our neighbors said, ‘I can’t believe it, we saw Ed playing basketball with your kids. Ed doesn’t ever play with your kids.’ I told them, ‘He plays with them every day with 150 football players.'”

Former players and Lehi fans honored Larson before the start of last Friday’s 47-6 6A playoff victory against Layton. The No. 4 seed Pioneers advanced to the quarterfinals, earning Larson and his program one more Friday night under the lights.

He can’t bring himself look beyond the next game.

“Those are things I’ll reflect on when I’m standing here and the scoreboard says something different,” Larson said. “I haven’t really thought about it (retiring) at this point. I just know we’ve got one game to get over and the seniors deserve that from me, to make sure that it’s all about them and to make sure we get this thing rolling in the right direction.”