The only thing more impressive than James Lyons the football player, is James Lyons the person.
“He’s a great student, he’s in Peer Leadership, he’s trying to get his Eagle Scout badge,” gushed Lawrence High football coach Rob Radice. “If you had to write a story on an All-American high school football player and kid, James Lyons is your guy. He’s a really amazing guy. His mom and dad are good people. He’s a special kid.”
Lyons is, indeed, a rarity.
When conversing with the Cardinals junior running back, one would think they were talking with a teacher rather than a student. He is mature, poised, polished and thoughtful.
Lyons holds a 3.4 grade point average, saying “That’s my main priority at all times, making sure I do all my homework before I lift and get all my schoolwork is done. I understand I’m a student-athlete and student comes first; athlete comes second.”
He cherishes his role as an LHS Peer Leader because “You have freshmen who don’t understand the building don’t understand the classes. Passing down your skills to the next generation of people coming in is really important.”
Having worked his way up from Cub Scouts at age 7, Lyons is two badges away from Eagle Scout and praises the organization for making him a solid citizen.
“Scouting teaches me the great value of bonding with each other, connections that are very important,” he said. “You have life skills; you’re in the wilderness. But it’s more than just the camping and cooking. It teaches you the phenomenal value of leadership. I think that’s the most important thing to me. Teaching me to be a captain of my team and of my peers.”
All that consideration for others goes out the window, however, when Lyons gets the ball in his hands on the football field.
“He’s a punishing kind of runner,” Radice said. “He’s one of those kids you don’t really want to tackle. He gets a lot of ankle tackles because they don’t want to take him on at 195 pounds. He’s a workhorse, man. He just wears other teams down.”
“(Bordentown coach) Skip Edwards said it really well. He said ‘You guys ran that power against us in the second half and he was punishing us.’”
At 6-foot, 195 pounds, Lyons’ body is carved to perfection thanks to a year-round lifting regiment that he tends to in between wrestling and running track & field.
“He looks like the Statue of David.,” Radice said. “He’s an adonis. He takes a lot of pride in his workouts. He dumps ice in a tank of cold water and takes ice baths after every practice. He is totally in tune with his craft.”
Wait. Back up. Ice baths?
“That’s too funny,” he said when asked about it. “I’ve been doing it ever since August when we started scrimmaging. It felt pretty refreshing after the hot days. It feels great. It’s a great way to recover.”
But it takes a special mindset.
“It was strange at first,” Lyons said. “Your body gets in and you don’t know how to work it. You gotta control your breathing, your mind is all over the place. You’re like ‘Oh my God what am I doing!’ It was weird but it felt good after a couple of times. You just listen to music and tune everything out.
“It relaxes my body; the ice water helps with the muscles and cools them down after a long day. It’s a whole big process. It soothes every part of your body. I mainly do my legs because that’s the body part that’s always moving in football.”
Those legs seemingly never stop moving as they have carried Lyons over, around and through would-be tacklers in the West Jersey Football League for nearly two seasons.
While playing Pop Warner in Lawrence and Bensalem, Pa., Lyons was a linebacker and running back. Since his team had a power runner, he would run to the outside. Upon arriving at Lawrence, they put him at linebacker on the JV team.
Due to injury, he started at running back the last game of a winless season against Steinert. Ironically, the Spartans featured Isaac Pate, who is battling Lyons this year for the unofficial title of Mercer’s top running back.
“It was pretty nice to get out there, get some carries.” Lyons said. “It was interesting understanding hole reading and understanding there’s gonna be a linebacker, usually bigger than you, trying to fill that hole and trying to stop you.
“As long as you get it out of your head and don’t really think about it and just run through people, you don’t think about it much.”
It’s amusing to hear Lyons talks about running through people as though anyone can do it. It’s all part of his make-up. He retained the football knowledge gained in Pop Warner to prepare for high school; was named the starter last season and took the WJFL by storm as a sophomore.
His first carry as a starter resulted in 15 yards against Princeton.
“It was a little weird,” Lyons said. “We started with the ball. They called 24 power, I saw an open lane, I was like ‘Woah this is interesting to be able to run like this and having the hole open up.’ I thought ‘Wow, it’s gonna be a great game.’”
He thought right, as the numbers kept mounting. The bruising back finished with 290 yards and two touchdowns as the Cardinals snapped a two-season, 17-game losing streak.
The following week he went for 204 as Lawrence won again. Lyons would finish the season with 1,074 yards and nine touchdowns, running for over 100 in five games. It’s no coincidence the Cardinals finished 5-4 for their first winning season since 2019.
Through Lawrence’s 4-3 start this season, Lyons had rushed for 833 yards and 11 touchdowns, and ran for 100 or more five times.
“One of the best coaching decisions I ever made was to just feed him the ball,” Radice said. “When he does well we do well. We’re running the Wing T and he’s just is thriving in it. He runs downhill, he runs hard, he runs on a low shoulder pad level. Many of the coaches we coach against are like ‘Wow that 16 is quite a player.’”
But hardly a prima donna.
“He’s just very coachable,” Radice continued. “He’s very much a team guy. He isn’t like a ‘Me guy.’ He never says ‘I need a touchdown,’ or ‘I need yards.’”
In fact, he likes handing the credit to the guys who open the holes – tackles Yousef Elsharawy and his cousin, Zane Spencer, guards Timi Olajide and Xavier Tos, and center Tyler Duncan.
“Those are my guys on the line,” Lyons said. “They’re the best out there. I appreciate what they do. I love seeing them get noticed.”
On the rare occasion where there isn’t a hole, or after he gets through a hole, Lyons still is not easy to bring down.
“My favorite running style is just running through people, that’s my thing; I try to make that work,” he said. “Sometimes going east and west doesn’t really work, you just gotta run through people.”
Fortunately for Lawrence, he is strong enough to do that. He also has a knack for seeing the holes and detecting tacklers coming from either side.
“That’s something you pick up and you’re also kind of gifted with,” Lyons said. “I do a lot of training in the off-season with friends and a mentor. We have training visibility because it’s always important you’re able to see the whole field. That’s a main thing a running back should have. I think with the amount of experience I’ve had with Pop Warner and coach Radice I’ve been able to perfect that vision and understand where I’m going all the time.”
Lyons is definitely going places, whether it’s in or out of football. He pays careful attention to each detail in his life. The versatile athlete uses the three sports he participates in to help with each other. Doing sprints In track improves his football speed. Learning takedowns as a wrestler helps him drag down ball carriers, as he also plays defensive end for the Cards.
“I need my best 11 out there all the time,” Radice said.
“I really enjoy the defense,” Lyons said. “You get down low and play smash mouth with whoever is across from you.”
Amazingly, Lyons never wears down.
“You’d think he would,” Radice said. “But he’s carried up to 30 times a game and he says ‘I’m good.’ He is just iron. He’s just built differently. He can handle the punishment; he can handle the putting it out on people. And he never complains.
“He’s wrestler so generally they’re tough kids who can handle a lot of strenuous activity because they don’t get many breaks. He’s just a throwback.”
Lyons, who has some cousins that play at the next level, is looking hard at colleges. He has emailed numerous East Coast schools such as Towson, Temple and Richmond and has been invited to Rhode Island’s Top 200 Showcase in December. Interest will likely grow from recruiters but for now, Lyons is worried about his high school team and takes satisfaction in being a major part of the Cardinals football revival.
“I’m really proud,” he said. “But I gotta hand it to my coaches, my family, my mother and father, my teammates who do all the blocking. They’re always hyping me up trying to find ways to help me out on the field.
“My coaches have been phenomenal in training me. I’m extremely grateful for what my family has done. I’m extremely proud, it’s an honor to be able to come into high school and put on a show on the field with your brothers. That’s really important.”
It’s no wonder Radice never runs out of compliments for his prized back, who stood around 1600 yards from breaking the LHS career rushing record in mid-October.
“He’s got a great attitude and he’s a great kid,” Radice said. “Everybody loves the kid, he’s happy-go-lucky, we tease him all the time. He’s just really a neat kid.”
And a darn good football player as well.
