US Olympic sprinter Noah Lyles hopes to match his gold-medal winning dad, who watches from Charlotte
Kevin Lyles says he won’t be nervous Wednesday morning at 8:55 a.m., when his oldest son, Noah, tries to win an Olympic gold medal for Team USA.
“I’m going to be excited,” said Lyles, who has lived in Charlotte for 16 years. “I might have a few butterflies but Noah has proven himself over and over again, proven that he can manage expectations and manage stress. So I’m not going to be falling apart. I’ll be quiet and watch the race.”
Noah Lyles is the reigning World Champion at 200 meters, and he’ll be the favorite to win a gold medal. If he gets it, he’ll have a gold medal to match his dad’s.
And both of Lyles’ parents were track stars.
His mother, Keisha, was a 10-time All-American at Seton Hall in the ‘90s. Kevin Lyles was the 1993 Big East Indoor Championships most outstanding track performer at Seton Hall. Kevin Lyles won 1,600-meter relay gold medals at the World University Games in 1993 and at the 1995 World Championships.
Now, Kevin Lyles hopes his son can win gold.
“I knew around the time he was 13 or 14 that he was good,” Kevin Lyles said. “That eight grade year, I saw it. (Noah and his younger brother Josephus) trained here (in Charlotte) and Noah started with the high jump and doing sprints, and he was a little smaller and slight of frame, but he was competing against those bigger guys and you could see his talent was off the charts.”
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Kevin Lyles, now divorced from Keisha, said the family moved to Charlotte in 2005 from Gainesville, Fla, where they had befriended Stacey and DeNae LeMay, who were planning to move here to start a church. The LeMays founded Champion Kingdom Center in Charlotte, and their sons went onto become football stars at Butler High School. The baby boy, Benny LeMay, is now in the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts.
“We were part of a church down there (in Gainesville) and we were really close to the LeMays,” Kevin Lyles said. “My boys and his sons were tight in Gainesville. We moved up here to help start their church and because I was a finance major, it made sense to move to this area because there were better opportunities with my degree.”
Kevin Lyles said his kids -- Noah, Josephus and baby sister Abby -- all attended school in Charlotte for several years before moving to Virginia. In the summer, Kevin Lyles said, the kids would come to Charlotte and train. Abby didn’t take to running and got into biochemistry.
Noah Lyles and Josephus, born one year apart, quickly became such stars that they turned pro out of high school and signed an eight-year contracts with adidas.
Noah Lyles won the 200-meters at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games and just missed out of qualifying for the 2016 Olympics right out of high school. Josephus won the 400-meters at New Balance Nationals in 2014 and ran a time good enough a year later, in 2015, that would have made the Olympic Trials 400-meter final.
Josephus suffered a season-ending torn right hip flexor two months before the 2016 Olympic Trials.
This year, Josephus ran in the 200-meter semifinals at the U.S. Olympic Trials this year but did not advance.
So Wednesday, the family will be pulling for Noah, 24, to win a gold medal in his first Olympic games. COVID rules won’t allow them to be there in person, but Kevin Lyles said the family will cheering loudly from back in the states.
“Noah knows we are here and he has all of our support and he’s excited about that,” Kevin Lyles said. “I’ve watched him come up and I’ve gotten a little bit used to how well he’s doing but it never gets old to see your kids do well.”
This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 6:15 PM.
