Following a win that left his team undefeated in its conference and saw one of his players break a 35-year-old rushing record, Nansemond-Suffolk Academy football coach Lew Johnston announced he will be retiring when the season is over.

Johnston made the announcement during a team and parent meeting in the upper school gym after the Saints’ home victory over Hampton Roads Academy on Friday.

“It’s time, as I told them, to give the first fruits of my time and energy to my dear sweet wife, who’s been an absolutely wonderful coach’s wife for 41 years,” he said, recalling the meeting in an interview.

Johnston, 66, was prompted to this decision earlier this season. One of his wife’s younger brothers had died unexpectedly, and the man did not have a church where he lived in Roanoke. Consequently, Johnston, an ordained pastor who had known the man for 45 years, volunteered to lead the funeral.

To do so, “I missed the first two days of practice in 41 years,” Johnston said, noting it was a sacrifice for which his wife was deeply appreciative. “The look on her face that I was willing to do this for her just resonated with me.”

It led him to consider shifting his focus away from football once and for all.

As he returned to his normal coaching duties following those couple of days, he said, “I felt like the Lord was saying the timing’s right to do it now.”

Johnston has stepped away from the game before, leaving his long-held position as coach at Western Branch High School after the 2006 season. He returned to coaching in 2008 at Jolliff Middle School and planned to retire for good after the 2010 season before feeling led to the coaching spot at NSA.

But Johnston said there will be no such return to the coaching ranks this time.

“This is retirement,” he said. “God’s closing that door and opening a new one. It’s time to move on to something else now, a new stage of my life.”

He’s been a head football coach for 30 years, spent 11 years prior to that as an assistant and is a published author on the subjects of developing a successful football program and incorporating a shotgun attack into a Wing-T offense.

As a head football coach, Johnston holds a career record of 214-84-3. He went 163-62-3 while coaching the Bruins at Western Branch from 1985 to 2006, went 17-2 at Jolliff Middle from 2008 to 2010 and is currently 34-20 at Nansemond-Suffolk, where he has coached since 2011.

“It’s been five good years, and hopefully we’re going to cap it off with two (more) wins,” he said.

Johnston has never won a state championship as a coach, but he has the Saints (7-3) in good position to claim one this year. They host North Cross School this week in the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Division III state semifinals.

Johnston met with NSA head of school Deborah Russell and director of boys’ athletics T.W. Johnson on Tuesday to notify them of his decision.

“He’s been great for our school, and the obvious thing is what’s happening on the football field, but I think more important is the value that he’s added to our school in terms of caring for the kids,” T.W. Johnson said, citing Johnston as a role model in the NSA community.

“From that standpoint, we’re going to miss having him around on a daily basis, particularly during the football season, but we definitely fully support his decision and understand why (he’s made it). I think it’s a great opportunity for him to spend more time with his wife.”

NSA director of girls’ athletics Betty Jean Riddick, who hired Johnston, said he “is going to be missed greatly by our NSA community, and he embraced NSA from the day he was hired.”