Coit was a four sport letterman in high school and competed in football and track at Springfield College in Massachusetts. Upon receiving his degree in Physical Education, he started his coaching career in 1956 when he was hired as an assistant football coach at Webster High School in Rochester New York.
In 1959 he became the head football coach at Webster High, a position he held for two years. His 1960 team went undefeated and won the league championship.
In 1961, Coit was hired as a graduate assistant football coach and physical education teacher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where he received his Master of Science degree.
From 1962 through 1970 he was an assistant football coach and physical education instructor at American River College. He coached the track and field team in 1964 and his distance medley team set a national record at the West Coast Relays. He was asked to coach the men’s tennis team in 1966 and his team won the state championship while one of his players won the individual state championship. In 1967, he started the physical education program at the Placerville campus and coached the baseball and basketball teams until 1970.
Cosumnes River College opened in 1970 and Coit was hired as one of the original faculty members and head football coach. He coached football from 1971 to 1978 when the program was dropped. In the seven years he coached football at CRC, forty eight of his players received football scholarships to four year institutions. Rick Scribner played two years for the Green Bay Packers and two years for the Oakland Raiders. Ray Allred played in the Canadian Football League for two seasons. In 1971, along with coaching football, he became the men’s golf coach. He coached golf for four years. In 1980, Coit became the head coach of the women’s tennis team. Coit may be the only coach in CRC history to have coached his wife and daughter. Both competed for Cosumnes on the tennis team. In his fifteen years at the helm, his tennis teams competed in numerous regional tournaments and he had individual players make it into the state championship tournament several times. Along with tennis, from 1984 to 1987, Coit coached of the cross country team.
Coit has been working in education, teaching and coaching, for over fifty years. He has coached forty five seasons of sport in the forty years he worked in the Los Rios Community College District. In the eight years he worked at American River College, he coached sixteen seasons. While full time at Cosumnes River College, Coit coached twenty nine seasons in thirty two years.
Along with his coaching and teaching duties, Coach Conant originated the Children’s Summer Swim Program at CRC. Coit led the swim program every summer for thirty years from 1971-2001.
Coach Conant retired from coaching in 1995 but continued teaching full time until June 2002. Semi-retired, he is still teaching part time at CRC. Coit lives in Rancho Murieta, enjoys playing golf and tennis with his wife Sharolyn and their friends. Sharolyn and Coit have two daughters, Kim and Jennifer.