"I felt like I had lost that competitive edge," said newly named Reginald Lewis football coach Anthony Knox. "It's good to be back on the sidelines."

Anthony Knox, a proven winner as a football coach, has been named to take over the program at Reginald Lewis in Baltimore City, he said recently.

Knox has a 54-22 career record in four seasons at Randallstown and three at Poly. He has guided his programs to five playoff berths during that time and has yet to experience a losing season.

Knox resigned following his third year at Poly in the fall of 2005, having won the first two of his Engineers' three meetings of their annual clash with Baltimore City rival City College.

During his initial season coaching the Engineers, Knox guided that team to the city's Division I title and a 20-13, Class 2A North Region playoff loss to Baltimore County power Hereford.

Poly slipped to 7-4, and, 5-5, over Knox's last two seasons at the helm, after which he decided to take a year off from coaching. Longtime Patterson coach Roger Wrenn replaced Knox at Poly last fall.

"I felt like I had lost that competitive edge, and that I needed to get that love back," said Knox, 45, who takes over a program that was 2-8 a year ago under Maurice Tyler.

"We're in Division II of  the Baltimore City League, and it's good to be back on the sidelines," Knox said. "I'm just hoping that we can turn things around here a little bit."

Before taking over at Poly in August of 2003, Knox spent four seasons at Randallstown. During that time, Knox guided the Rams to two Baltimore County titles.

Knox had become the first African American to take the helm at Poly, whose previous coaches were
Bob Lumsden, who registered a 139-24-4 record from 1949-to-1966; Augie Waibel (280-75 record from '67-thru-97) and John Hammond (29-22 record from '98-thru-2002) according to The Baltimore Sun.