ELKVIEW, W.Va. — It didn’t take former Herbert Hoover head football Coach Tim Meyer long to have a smile on his face when asked about the late Steve Lipscomb.
“Shoot, I could sit here and talk about Steve all day. He was an unbelievable young man,” said Meyer.
Lipscomb was a senior on the Herbert Hoover football team the first year Meyer was hired as an assistant for former head coach Steve Stouffel. Meyer said his assignment was to establish a weight room program for the Husky team and not a lot of players were interested in making it happen. Not until Steve Lipscomb became interested.
“He and a couple of other guys got involved and showed a lot of interest and really made the thing go. He was the type of person that made me feel very comfortable. I was young back then and it’s kind of that point that makes you or breaks you as a coach,” said Meyer. “When you have a guy like Steve Lipscomb who follows along and does everything you ask with 100 percent effort, it was a heck of a way to break into coaching,”
Lipscomb graduated from Hoover and the next life move would be plotted by world events. According to his obituary after the September 11th attacks on the nation, he joined the United States Marine Corps out of a sense of obligation and duty. He was sent to Iraq where he fought in the now famous Battle of Fallujah. He was seriously wounded by a roadside IED and eventually went through extensive recovery before he was honorably discharged.
He recovered and went to work in 2006 in the coal mines for Massey Energy and eventually with Alpha Natural Resources. With his years of experience he rose to the level of shift foreman which was his job the night the Rolling Thunder Mine in Nicholas County filled with water after an old mine works was breached. According to company officials the 17 men on his underground crew moved to safety, but Lipscomb was the last left inside to make sure everybody made it out. He unfortunately did not and perished.
The story came as no surprise to Meyer who knew early Lipscomb was a different kind of person.
“As a teacher and a coach you see some people and you kind of get a feeling for them. I knew that Steve would be the kind of person who would be incredible in anything that he did,” Meyer said.
Organizers of his funeral Saturday anticipate the crowd paying their final respects will be large and diverse. A lifelong resident of Elk River, Lipscomb had a big family to begin with. Officials say when that is combined with his extended family and friends along with those tied to his military background and the coal mining community it’s likely to be a huge number who turn out for the ceremony. That’s why the service was moved to the gymnasium at Herbert Hoover High School. The only thing longer than the line to pay final respects will be the string of stories about Steve’s life which expected to be practically endless.
“I tell you what, I could sit here and talk about Steve all day, he was just an unbelievable young man,” said Meyer.
Lipscomb’s service will include visitation from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. with the funeral at 4:00. Ironically at the time of his funeral, the Hoover football team will kickoff against Princeton in the state quarter final game. The team will have Steve in their heart as they take the field.