Coach Lyman is the new head coach of Girls Varsity Cross Country at AACS this year. He's been coaching for over fifteen years in Maryland including previous time as an assistant for the AACS boys varsity cross country team and also with Annapolis Rowing Club.
In Coach Lyman's early years, he attended Kent Island, a preparatory school in Connecticut. Every student there was required to play a sport each season, putting him in the position to try numerous sports. Some of these include football, soccer, wrestling, ice hockey, and skiing, but the one he enjoyed the most was rowing. His rowing passion led him to Princeton University, where he rowed all four years there. Some of Coach Lyman's athletic accomplishments include making the U.S. Junior National Team in 1970 for rowing and participating in the World Championships in Greece that summer. His team finished fourth in the Grand Final. During his college sophomore year, he was invited to the final trials for the Olympic camp in 1972, but unfortunately didn't make it. In Lyman's senior year at Princeton, he was elected co-captain of the heavyweight crew. He went on to row in grad school at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where we won the British University Championships.
Fast forwarding to Coach Lyman's entrance to AACS, he initially started working at the school as a Bible teacher and chaplain. He thought one of the best ways to get to know the students was as a coach. He said, "I'd been running for years, loved it, and so cross country seemed the best fit." The girls cross country team is running faster and more efficiently everyday. He enjoys the fellowship and fun and looks forward to practice everyday. He can't remember ever enjoying coaching more then he is this year. His chief goal for his runners is that they will do the very best they can and have a wonderful time doing it. If they do that, the results will follow. The desire for the girls cross country program over the next few years is to get more athletes involved. One fond memory he has is one of his runners telling him, "The best decision I made at AACS was to go out for cross country!" He would love for other young women to have the same experience.
By Malani Martin, Eagle Nation Club