Chris Lewis (born December 13, 1980) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

Early life and high school

Lewis was born and grew up in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

and attended

Long Beach Polytechnic High School Long Beach Polytechnic High School, founded in 1895 as Long Beach High School, is a four-year public high school located at 1600 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, California, United States. The school serves portions of Long Beach, including Bixby ...

, where he played football and volleyball. He was a four-year starter at quarterback and was named All-

California Interscholastic Federation The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) is the governing body for high school sports in the U.S. state of California. CIF membership includes both public and private high schools. Unlike most other state organizations, it does not have a s ...

(CIF) as a junior and senior and named first-team All-

Moore League The Moore League is a high school sports league in Southern California. It comprises seven schools: public traditional high schools of the Long Beach Unified School District plus Compton High School. The league is administered by the California I ...

three times. As a senior, Lewis completed 174 of 293 pass attempts for 3,170 yards and 43 touchdowns and was named the CIF Offensive Player of the Year and the

Gatorade National Player of the Year The Gatorade Player of the Year awards are given annually to up and coming high school student-athletes in the United States. They are given for boys' baseball, boys' and girls' basketball, boys' and girls' cross country, boys' football, boys' a ...

. He finished his high school career with 8,616 passing yards and a California-record 107 touchdown passes. Lewis committed to play college football at Stanford, where his older sister Robyn was playing volleyball.

College career

Lewis redshirted his freshman year at Stanford. He began his redshirt freshman season as the backup to starter

Randy Fasani Randy Fasani (born September 18, 1978) is a former professional American football quarterback. High school career Fasani started his football days at Del Oro High School in Loomis, California. He finished his high school career with 5,299 pas ...

. Lewis saw his first significant playing action against fifth-ranked

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

after Fasani suffered an injury and completed 12 of 33 pass attempts for 214 yards and three touchdowns, including a touchdown pass with less than two minutes left put the Cardinal ahead in a 27-24 upset victory. He started the next three games while Fasani recovered from his injury. Lewis finished the season with 1,179 passing yards on 92-for-204 passing with eight touchdown passes and five interceptions. Lewis began his redshirt sophomore season as the second string quarterback again, but ultimately started four games and passed for 1,277 yards with 12 touchdown passes and eight interceptions. He entered the Cardinal's game against fifth-ranked

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

late in the second quarter following an injury to Fasani and completed 12 of 26 passes for 189 and two touchdowns in a comeback 49–42 victory. Lewis passed for 250 yards and three touchdowns as Stanford won 38-28 over fourth-ranked

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. Lewis was named Stanford's starting quarterback going into his redshirt junior year. He missed the season opener after being suspended for a minor

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

infraction. Lewis started the next five games before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury. Lewis ultimately lost his starting job during the offseason to

Trent Edwards Trent Addison Edwards (born October 30, 1983) is a former American football quarterback. He played college football at Stanford and was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the third round of the 2007 NFL Draft. As a rookie, Edwards took over the sta ...

. He returned to the starting lineup after Edwards suffered a shoulder injury and started seven games during his redshirt senior season. Lewis finished his collegiate career with 19 starts and 30 total games played, completing 350 of 713 pass attempts for 4,346 yards with 33 touchdown passes and 31 interceptions.

Professional career

Lewis was signed as an undrafted free agent by the

Arizona Cardinals The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division, and play t ...

on June 7, 2004. He was released at the end of training camp and spent time during the regular season on the Cardinals' practice squad. In 2005, the Cardinals allocated Lewis to the Cologne Centurions of

NFL Europe NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...

. He played in nine games for Cologne and passed for 412 yards. Lewis was released by the Cardinals on June 24, 2005. Lewis was a member of the

San Jose SaberCats The San Jose SaberCats were a professional arena football team based in San Jose, California. The SaberCats had been members of the Arena Football League (AFL) since 1995 (the year in which the team was founded); and until 2015, they belonged to ...

of the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

in 2006.

References

External links

Stanford Cardinal bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Chris 1980 births Players of American football from Long Beach, California American football quarterbacks Stanford Cardinal football players Cologne Centurions (NFL Europe) players San Jose SaberCats players Arizona Cardinals players Living people