Mourning a true leader
The Grambling community and Lincoln Parish are mourning the loss of Michael Lyons, one of the winningest high school basketball coaches in north Louisiana history and a true leader of students.
Lyons passed away Monday and left behind a legacy at what was Grambling High School, where he won six state championships and 1,170 games coaching both boys and girls basketball for the Kittens.
During a run between 1985 and 1992, Lyons led the Kittens to unprecedented heights in prep hoops. His teams won championships in 1985 and 1986, won backto- back titles in 1989 and 1990 and then won it all at the 1992 Top 28 Tournament.
Byron Starks was on that 1990 squad and credits his coach with molding him into the man and basketball coach he is today.
“He was like a father to me. He was someone to look up to and to emulate,” Starks, the head men’s basketball coach at LSU-Eunice said. “He ran his program with discipline and instilled in us to be better on and off the court.”
Starks rose to prominence on the prep scene during his time at Grambling High, as did many others like long-time NBA star Paul Millsap and Jerald Honeycutt, who played professionally for the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers. Current Lincoln Preparatory School head boys coach Antonio Hudson also played for Lyons before going on to play college ball at LSU.
“Coach Lyons was a coach for life, not just basketball,” Starks, who played collegiately at UL-Lafayette, said. “Playing for Coach was like playing for your father in that he passed along life lessons and blessings. It was an honor to walk those halls at Grambling High and to play for such a good man.”
Lyons also pulled off one of the rare feats in prep coaching — taking over the boys and girls programs at the same high school. He won more than 730 games as the boys coach and won another 430-plus as the girls coach.
In addition to his state titles, his teams played in the championship game 12 times. During a period of time during the 1990s and into the 2000s, Grambling High and Southern Lab gave prep fans a symmetry with the collegiate programs on each campus. Grambling and Southern Lab played each other in the Class 1A state title game three times with Lyons coming out on top twice. He retired from coaching in 2008.
Before Lincoln Prep Executive Director Gordan Ford roamed the halls of his school, he roamed the halls at Grambling High in the 1980s and was the statistician for Lyons’ basketball teams.
Ford believes Lyons’ legacy in Grambling parallels that of another local legend.
“What Coach Eddie Robinson meant to Grambling State, is what Coach Michael Lyons meant to Grambling High,” Ford said. “You’re talking about two leaders of people. He was a father to a lot of boys who didn’t have a father at home.
“I’ll also say, you didn’t want to do something wrong and be on the bad side of Coach Lyons,” he continued. “He didn’t play around. He wanted all of us to do the right thing. If you were a young man in Grambling in the 1980s, you wanted to be Coach Lyons. He wore a suit and tie to school every day and taught us how to be professional.”
In addition to his exploits on the hardwood, what many don’t realize is all the other daily tasks he accepted at Grambling High. He was also the defensive coordinator for the football team and the boys and girls track and field coach.
Among the players who excelled under Lyons’ leadership on the gridiron and went on to play professionally are Walter Dean and Tracy Greene.
Ford said that losing his mentor will be painful for some time to come. “It’s a huge blow,” Ford, who attended St. David Missionary Baptist Church with Lyons, said. “He is that man here. Not another person who had the impact he has had.”
Ruston head coach Ryan Bond remembers attending basketball camps orchestrated by Lyons when he was a young player in Weston. The lessons taught in those campus all those years ago have been carried with Bond in his own coaching career.
“I can remember going to his campus in junior high and high school and coming away thinking about how good a person he was,” Bond said. “Everyone knows how great he was coaching. What he accomplished speaks for itself. What we lost is a leader of young people … period. It’s a sad time for the basketball community and for everyone.”
Services for Lyons will be held on the campus of Grambling State at Memorial Gym Saturday at 11 a.m.
