Joe Lombard is MaxPreps Female Team Coach of the Year presented by Playtex Sport

As good a day as March 5 was for Joe Lombard, today may be even better.

It will just lack the birthday candles and wild celebration.

After 33 years coaching girls basketball in Texas, on that March day his Canyon (Texas) Eagles gave him his 1,100th win against just 98 losses.

And that 1,100th win just happened to be the one that gave Canyon the Texas 4A state championship – and that championship just happened to be his 15th.

Oh, and it was his birthday.

"It was a fun year," says Lombard.

That victory, Canyon's 38-0 record and the state title secured Lombard the MaxPreps Girls Basketball Coach of the Year. After a national fan poll and more discussion among the MaxPreps writing staff, Lombard was picked today as the Female Coach of the Year, presented by Playtex Sport.

Lombard was chosen over all coaches in all sports throughout the country who lead a girls sports team.

Among those he was picked over:

* Richard Jorgensen — The Woodlands (Texas) softball: He's leading the current No. 1 team in the country according to both the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 National Softball Rankings and computer-generated rankings. The Woodlands is 38-0.

* Kevin Kiernan — Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) basketball: After leading Troy to three state titles, Kiernan helped the Monarchs to their second consecutive mythical national championship and a 34-1 season. Mater Dei, 123-7 since he took over, finished on a 26-game win streak.

* Ryan Mitchell — Lovejoy (Texas) volleyball: He led the Leopards to a 44-3 record, state 3A title and victories over 4A champ Lake Travis and 5A state champion Hebron.

* David Winn — Palo Alto (Calif.) volleyball: Winn led an unranked team to a 41-1 season including a stunning five-game win over heavily favored Long Beach Poly in the state Division I finals.

With just one returning starter, Lombard didn't think his team's chances for a banner year were good heading into the season. But then again, Lombard is a guy who has 15 state titles without a single recognizable Division I star on his roster.

When he started out at Nazareth High School in 1978, though, it would have taken a wizard to have predicted his tremendous success.

Lombard had grown up in Indiana and played college basketball at Wayland Baptist in Texas, where the Flying Queens were one of the early powers in the women's game. But Lombard had no sense of the sport – "I had never seen a girls game," he says. And besides, prior to 1978, the girls in Texas played a six-person version that was then popular in several states.

After graduating, Lombard interviewed for several teaching jobs, and a boys basketball coaching position, and was even offered some.

"I think it was one of those God things," says Lombard. "I did a couple interviews for boys jobs, but they just didn't feel right."

Then Nazareth, the defending 1A state champion, came into the picture. "They were desperate," he says, and they took a chance on the inexperienced young coach.

Good call. The Swiftettes promptly went on a 68-game winning streak and took the next two state championships.

After seven years at Nazareth, and six Texas titles, Lombard moved 45 miles down the road to Canyon. "It just felt like the right time," he says. And though the Eagles had won six state championships in the past, they were in a down cycle.

It took Lombard four years to get Canyon back to the state title game. Then, in 1992, the Eagles won the first of their nine under the guidance of Lombard, the last of which came this year, capping a 38-0 season and a No. 18 ranking in the final MaxPreps Xcellent 25 National Girls Basketball Rankings.

So does Lombard have a magical system, some secret offense, a special defense? Not really.

"I'm a man-to-man coach, mainly in the halfcourt," he says. "Offensively, we do fast break, but teams we play would say we're patient. Some years we go three-out, two-in, but the last two years we've been running dribble-drive motion (which is four-out, one-in). I have a passion for the game – I study it."

And that study has resulted in a flexibility rare in programs that have long runs of success. This past season, for example, Lombard played 11 or 12 girls.

"I don't think I've ever done that before," he says. "I rotated six girls through two post spots – I'd play whoever was hot."

Obviously, Lombard is doing more than just warming his seat on the bench, and the 58-year-old has no plans to step aside soon – but he can envision the day when that might happen. "I'm not going to do the Joe Paterno thing," he says. His son Tate is an assistant at Stephenville High School and one day wants to be a head coach, and Joe could see himself helping Tate.

And if Tate listens to his old man, expect Stephenville to suddenly start winning state championships too.

See the MaxPreps 2010-11 Female Coach National Awards page. Team of the Year will be announced Friday. Player of the Year - Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis - was announced on Monday.