The Lyles Brothers Come Home
By: Lauren Larsen and Regina Allen
Noah and Josephus Lyles, the Titan graduates who have gained international attention for their speed and skill on the track, returned home to T.C. Last month, Noah Lyles won first place in the 200 meter race, claiming the world title and on October 10th, he presented his IAAF Diamond League Trophy and Gold Medal to his former track coach, Mike Hughes and T.C. students.
Noah said that he thought about being the first U.S. athlete to win the 200 meter world title since 2007 in a different way than most might expect. “If you think about all this stuff that involves pressure, it becomes more stressful, so the best thing to do is to just focus on yourself and when I did that, something great came out of it.”
He feels a lot of relief knowing that his hard work and dedication this season paid off, “I’ve been running for more than a year, and finally being able to put the closing chapter on the season and get what I wanted [out of] it, gold medals, [makes me] feel happy.”
Josephus has encountered some injuries in the past, but has made conscious efforts to get himself back to 100%. “[I’m] doing physical therapy, physical training, and talking to sports psychologists. I’ve been doing some cross training work and we’re about to start training in the next two to three weeks for the Olympics, so hopefully that goes really well. But in terms of bouncing back, [I’m] just trying to keep a positive mindset [and] put in a lot of work.”
The two came to speak about their athletic success and how T.C. served as the foundation for it. Noah said, “[Coming home brought] a lot of nostalgia. Seeing people that we used to work with and then seeing a lot of trophies, looking at a lot of pictures, that kind of feels like, ‘oh wow that feels so long ago’ even though it was just a few years ago.”
Josephus said that it’s crazy how high school wasn’t that long ago, “I was still in high school in 2016. I come back here and I feel like people look at me like I’m a lot older, but I was really here just a few years ago.”
In the future, Noah intends to accomplish many feats, “I plan to have three, no, six Olympic gold medals, a lot of World Championship medals, probably a World Record in either the 100 or 200 meter, preferably in the 200, maybe have been in a World Championship race with my brother in the 200 meter by then, and probably a World Record in the 300.”
Josephus said that in five years, he wants to win Olympic gold medals, “I want to be an Olympic champion by then. I want to be talking about World Records, if not breaking World Records by then. [I will] probably just do what I’m doing now at a higher level, just running faster.”
The brothers encourage Titan athletes to keep working hard, “I feel like a lot of people look at me and Josephus and they get caught up in what our lifestyle looks like, but all the hard work that we did in high school is how we got here,” said Noah, “The little things — we weren’t really big partiers — we literally would go to school and train all day. Then we would go home and eat and do homework. Our life was kind of boring.”
“It’s all the work that you’re putting in at this time, this actually matters; it’s the development that gets you to the greatness,” said Noah.
