Hall of Fame Inductees
Bob Byars became Lincoln’s Head men’s basketball coach in 1986 after a successful two-year stint at Delaware Valley Community College. Over the course of 18 seasons (1986-2004) as the Lions head coach, Byars won a school record 212 games. After struggling in his first five seasons, Byars’ teams produced seven winning seasons from 1991-1999, compiling a 128-73 record and a 63.6 winning percentage while winning three Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III South Championships (1993, 94, 96) and the 1993 Eastern States Athletic Conference (ESAC) regular season title.
He coached Lincoln’s only 2,000 point scorer Darrel Lewis, a 2013 Hall of Fame inductee as well as Dr. Tarron Richardson, the only Lion in program history to score over 1,500 points and grab 1,000 or more rebounds. Richardson is a member of Lincoln’s inaugural Hall of Fame class in 2012 and both he and Lewis are the only two men’s basketball players in program history to have their uniform number retired.
In 1998-99 with Lewis and Richardson as seniors, the Lions won a school record 14 straight games and reached the ECAC Championship game before falling to Gettysburg College to finish the best season in program history at that time, compiling an 18-6 record.
Byars was a star football player at Cheyney State University and is the only player in Cheyney’s history to be drafted to the NFL when the Oilers picked him in the 15th round. He was inducted in Cheyney’s Hall of Fame in 1992.
