By T. Scott Boatright
One of the area’s most successful basketball coaches, former Grambling Laboratory High School’s Michael Lyons, passed away early Monday morning in a Shreveport hospital at the age of 72 after being airlifted there on Sunday.
The news reverberated around Lincoln Parish as well as Union Parish, where Lyons was serving as athletics director and assistant principal of discipline.
It was at Grambling Lab, where he coached from 1979 to 2008, that Lyons made himself known as one of the most formidable coaches in the state, amassing a career coaching record of 1,170-198. He posted a 737-100 record with the boys’ basketball from 1979 to the 2008 and a 434-98 record with girls’ basketball from 1979-1999 while winning six state championships and 40 district championships.
Lyons earned 41 different “Coach of the Year” awards during that span.
Former NBA standout Paul Millsap, who led the national in rebounding three different seasons as a Louisiana Tech Bulldog, played for Lyons at Grambling Lab, as did former Tulane standout Jerald Honeycutt and former LSU star Antonio Hudson, the current boys basketball coach at Lincoln Preparatory School.
“It’s a shock,” Hudson said. “Me and Coach had a close personal relationship. It’s hard to talk about without getting emotional. … It’s just a shock. I’m at a loss for words.
“When your heroes get older you know what’s going to happen and eventually that day is going to come. But I don’t know if you can really ever be prepared. I don’t think so. But I’ll tell you what, you can see the outpouring of love on Facebook, and you can feel it in some of the calls and text messages I’ve received today from people who are concerned.”
Hudson’s former coach at LSU, John Brady, was one of those well-wishers.
“Coach Brady called and gave his praise to Coach Lyons,” said Hudson. “Coach has had an effect not just on me or not just in this area, but even statewide.”
Lincoln Preparatory School Executive Director Gordan Ford played football under Lyons at Grambling Lab and also served as Lyons’ statistician.
“So many of us — 10 or 12 of us — at Lincoln Prep right now went to school under him at Grambling Lab whether he was a coach or assistant principal there,” Ford said. “I was actually there when he started as a PE teacher. Before he became an administrator he was my PE teacher in middle school.
“In those days, they coached everything. So Coach Lyons was the boys basketball coach, the girls basketball coach, girls and boys track coach and he was defensive coordinator for the football team.”
Ford called Lyons’ passing a gigantic loss.
“In Grambling — at Lincoln Prep — he means the same thing that Coach Eddie Robinson means to the university,” Ford said. “There are very few men like that who affect so many people, and all in a positive way.”
Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Leon Barmore got to know Lyons in the early 1970s.
“Mike was my assistant when I came back to Ruston High School in 1971,” Barmore said. “Mike was a wonderful man and a wonderful coach for me. I knew that as we worked together that everywhere he would go as a head coach, he was going to be very good, and he was.
“He had a great knowledge of the game. I just think Mike really and truly, down deep in his heart, loved his players, he loved his school and he loved this area. I didn’t see him much over the years, but I certainly kept up with him over the years and the championships he brought to Grambling High School, and I’m very saddened by his loss. We’ve lost a great coach and a great man.”
Former Ruston High School basketball coach Jack Thigpen got to know Lyons when they were both leading their teams in cross-parish games against the other.
“He was a real gentleman and a heckuva of a basketball coach,” Thigpen said. “I enjoyed competing against him when our teams played. He was always very cordial and a legend among north Louisiana high school basketball coaches.”
Michael Jiles first played for Lyons at Grambling Lab before also coaching alongside of him and even writing sports news articles about him.
“I think the writing part of it got me even closer to him,” Jiles said. “And then we got even closer when I ended up working at Grambling High. He was like an uncle to me, and we still continued to call each other. We talked almost every week.
“He was so much of an inspiration to me, such a big part of my life — it hurts. This hurts. He impacted so many lives and so many young men and young women at Grambling High and in Union Parish. He was a legend and will be missed tremendously.”
Jiles said that he was impacetd by every way Lyons lived his life, even down to the way he dressed.
“He was also classy. He never had a wrinkle in anything he wore — always a sharped-dressed man,” Jiles said. “He exemplified what a man should be. He showed us how to lead a household, how to properly handle finances, how to be a good father and things like that. He was just that type of guy. He taught me so much.
“There will never be another like him. He was one-of-a-kind.”
