As the expected celebration erupted under the Friday night lights of Fort Pierce’s Lawnwood Stadium, where the Vero Beach High School football team had just set a state record with its 61st consecutive regular-season victory, coach Lenny Jankowski was right in the middle of it all.
Riding on his players’ shoulders, holding up a trophy specially made to commemorate the occasion, Jankowski’s smile lit up an overcast night on which hundreds of Fighting Indians fans made the trip south to witness history.
The festive scene provided a fitting kickoff to the Vero Beach Centennial Finale and rekindled fond memories of another special night.
While the Fighting Indians’ band filled the air with the school’s fight song, the images of yesteryear – of that Rockwellian night at the Citrus Bowl, where legendary coach Billy Livings led Vero Beach to its first state football championship in 1981 – danced nostalgically through my mind.
And I began to wonder: Will Vero Beach ever win another one?
Or to be more precise: Is it still possible for Vero Beach to win a state championship, given how much Florida has grown – especially its football-talent-rich metropolitan areas – in the 38 years since Livings worked his magic here?
It’s a fair question, one that I put to Jankowski on Friday night, after Vero Beach’s record-setting, 28-3 triumph over longtime rival Fort Pierce Central.
“Sure, it’s different than it was in 1981, but I’d like to think we can still win it,” Jankowski said. “There are a lot of good teams out there every year, and it’s such a challenge, just getting to Friday night every week.
“It’s a long season, and there are so many things along the way that have to work in your favor, so much that’s outside your control,” he added. “There are games where, for whatever reason, you just come up short.
“But we’re giving ourselves chances.”
Since he took over the program in 2011, Jankowski’s Vero Beach teams have compiled an impressive 91-11 record, winning seven district titles and reaching the playoffs in each of his nine seasons, including this one.
His teams haven’t lost more than one game in a season since finishing 10-2 in 2013, and they’ve never lost more than two. On his watch, the Fighting Indians have played their way to one regional final, advanced to five regional semifinals and become relevant again.
But Jankowski, whose teams here have won only seven of 15 playoff games, has yet to take Vero Beach to the state’s Final Four.
For those wondering: Livings posted a 211-86 record in his 26 years at Vero Beach, guiding the Fighting Indians to 20 playoff appearances, 15 district titles, seven state semifinals and the program’s lone state championship.
Those lofty accomplishments prompted Vero Beach to put Livings’ name on the Citrus Bowl’s field in September 2000, and he was inducted into the Florida High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in April 2012, six months after his stroke-related death at age 75.
To be sure, all of the honors and accolades Livings received were well-deserved, because he created and nurtured the team-and-town marriage that spawned the program’s success and remains the envy of so many others around the state.
Livings, though, never won a second state championship, nor did he get another shot at the title. The Fighting Indians’ last trip to the Final Four was in 1998, 21 years ago.
Without question, the 1994 opening of Sebastian River High School had an impact on Vero’s football program, which has been forced to share the county’s talent pool. Even for a coach of Livings’ stature, winning became more difficult.
Now that Jankowski has carved out his own place in Vero Beach football lore, let’s give him his due.
The Fighting Indians haven’t lost a regular-season game since 2013, despite Jankowski adding upper-tier opponents to the schedule to help prepare his teams for the playoffs.
During the past three years, the team has had plenty of dominant performances as well as close calls, eking out victories against Virginia’s Oscar Smith (28-21) in 2017; Pahokee (27-20), St. Lucie West Centennial (20-15) and Treasure Coast (34-31) in 2018; and American Heritage (7-3), Centennial (15-13) and Treasure Coast (31-30 in overtime) this season.
“There have been so many great games – a few where we’ve had to make a play at the end to win – but our kids just keep finding a way,” Jankowski said. “Our players and coaches have continued to stay the course, maintain their focus and grind it out, refusing to have a letdown and get caught off-guard.
“We’ve created a culture where our guys come to practice every day with the goal of being 1-0 every week, and that doesn’t happen by accident,” he added. “Football practices aren’t always a lot of fun, and it’s pretty obvious we coach these kids hard, but they know we love them and they love coming to practice.
“There’s this feeling that we’re all in it together, and I’m humbled to be a part of it.”
A state title remains on his radar, and it should: He’s an outstanding coach at a school with a winning tradition and, year after year, his teams win enough to stay in the championship chase.
But he knows winning it all isn’t everything.
“I’m not saying that’s not the ultimate goal, but I’m not going to say we need to win a state championship to be successful,” Jankowski said. “That’s not my barometer for success.
“Did you do everything possible to give yourself a chance to win? If so, then, at the end of the day, win or lose, you can look in the mirror and be satisfied with what you see,” he added. “To me, that matters more than any accolades or notoriety.”