Lakewood hires Mike Christensen as new football coach

LAKEWOOD >> Lakewood High School has put its football program back in the hands of Mike Cristensen, who was the Lancers’ coach from 1998 to 2005.

Christensen will be the fourth coach in the last six years and will face many of the same challenges he did when he took the team over in 1998: rebuilding the booster club, building a coaching staff and re-establishing a broken talent pipeline.

“The timing of it has all worked out,” Christensen said. “At this point in time, we both need each other again. The program has obviously not been maintained, but football is still really important in Lakewood and I think the kids are really hungry to have structure and to have a program again.”

Christensen takes over for Jimmy Nolan, whose team went 3-7 last season, the Lancers’ first losing season and worst record in 15 years. More than that, he takes over a Lakewood program in desperate need of stability after three coaches in the previous five years. The Lancers reached their peak from 2006-2010 with Thadd MacNeal, wiing a Moore League title in ‘09 and reaching the CIF Southe Section Pac-5 Division semifinals in ‘08 and ‘09.

Since MacNeal was given a pink slip and departed for his hometown, taking over at Carlsbad, Lakewood has slipped into disrepair. The team is 15-17 overall the last three seasons and hasn’t won a playoff game since MacNeal took them to the quarterfinals in 2010.

As successful as MacNeal was, Christensen laid much of the groundwork to help Lakewood retu to prominence during his 98-05 tenure. From 2002-05 he led the Lancers’ to the playoffs every year and went 35-11 in that span. In 2004, the Lancers went 11-2 and made the CIF-SS semifinals for the first time in 21 years.

Christensen’s Lancers were routinely ranked in the CIF-SS and even made it into the national rankings in ’04.

“I love the community, I’ve lived in Long Beach and Lakewood for 20 years,” Christensen said. “It’s a unique setting. I still have a lot of friends there. It’ll be nice to go back and see everybody.”

Since leaving Lakewood, he’s coached at Carson, Loyola and Peninsula, wiing Daily Breeze coach of the year honors at Carson in ‘07. He went 9-21 in three years at Peninsula, which included a forfeit-shortened 2015 season that was canceled in October because of safety conces caused by low numbers on a 21-player roster.

The road won’t be easy at Lakewood, where much is in disarray and numbers are down. There’s also just two months until the season starts. With the knowledge that he’s built the school up before, Christensen is moving forward with confidence, however.

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“I’m not worried about the football part of it,” he said. “Our biggest challenge will be instilling a culture and an expectation level in the classroom, in the weight room, on the field and in the community.”