It is kind of funny how an afternoon of playing baseball can change one person’s entire life.
Kyle Phelps was just a freshman football player at Baldwin-Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, when he tore one of his hamstrings. Feeling a little deflated, Phelps did the one thing he knew would lift his spirit — play baseball. So he started hitting and fielding again.
He called his old hitting coach in Florida, Paul Russo, to help him practice.
“When he came home that summer, he asked me to find him a baseball school because he wanted to play,” Russo said.
“So we shot — and this will show you how long ago this was — a VHS tape of Kyle hitting, and within a day, I sent it up there to be watched,” Russo said.
“We linked up, and we figured out a plan to get me a chance to play again,” Phelps said.
The tape lasted maybe 10 minutes and featured Phelps hitting and catching. It was enough to catch the eye of Kirk Kelley at Lyon College, and Phelps was at the school that fall.
“He helped me find the opportunity to play with Coach Kelley here at Lyon,” Phelps said.
“He is like a son to me; he truly is,” Russo said. “I am awful proud of him.”
Recently, Phelps was named the new head football coach at Lyon College in Batesville. He takes over a program that was reinstated just three years ago after the college ended it in 1951.
“I jumped at the opportunity to come back,” Phelps said. “This place is a great place. It means a lot to me.”
Phelps was also an assistant baseball coach at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway in 2012.
“We’re excited about Kyle taking over the program and have the utmost confidence that he will continue building the program and keep it heading in the direction that it has been going since we announced the startup three years ago,” Lyon College Director of Athletics Kevin Jenkins said in a statement.
Phelps was originally hired in 2013 at Lyon as a recruiting coordinator and defensive line coach. He was promoted to associate head coach in 2015, while keeping his other duties.
“Kyle has been here from the start and has done a fantastic job, not only leading the recruiting process of the program, but also coaching and being a great associate head coach,” Jenkins said. “I don’t think we will miss a beat this year with Kyle in charge.
“He has a great staff to work with, and we had a great recruiting class this year.”
Phelps replaces Kelley as head coach after Kelley served in the position since August 2013. In its inaugural year last season, Lyon finished 0-11 overall and 0-6 in the Central States Football League.
Kelley resigned as head coach this summer after accepting the head baseball coach and athletic director position at Eastern Oklahoma State University in Wilburton.
“I want him to succeed and for the program to succeed,” Kelley said. “We have been around so much together, and we constantly bounce things off each other.
“We just have a great relationship.”
Phelps is originally from Brandon, Florida, but attended Lyon College and played baseball under Kelley, who was the head coach at the time. Phelps came to Lyon after transferring from Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio.
He finished with his undergraduate classes in 2010 and officially graduated from Lyon in 2014. He received a master’s degree from Oklahoma
Wesleyan University, where he was also an assistant baseball coach, this spring.
“He is a very special young man,” said Kelley, who resigned just five days before training camp began. “I had a chance to coach him in college, and we coached together at three different colleges.
“I’m proud of him. Whenever you see someone you mentor accomplish their goals, you can’t help but be proud of them.”
Russo met Phelps when he was about 8 or 9 years old and did hitting lessons with him till he graduated from high school. Russo said he and Phelps were very close during that time.
“In his college career, he is the only kid that I have known to play three college sports,” Russo said. “He played college baseball, college football and college golf.
“You don’t see many gifted athletes that can do all three.”
Russo played minor league baseball for 11 years and was in AAA for seven. In that time, he played for the Minnesota Twins, the San Diego Padres, the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros organizations.
“By being a younger person, he still remembers what it is like to be a player,” Russo said of Phelps. “He will be able to show that to the players, and they will be able to respect him and love him for it.
“When your kids believe in you and believe in the plan, they will win for you.”
Phelps said learning under three different coaches prepared him in different ways — “having that ability to sift through what you like from one person and what you don’t like from another,” he said. “Things like that helped me decide what I wanted to do here.”
Lyon opened the season against Wayland Baptist in a nonconference game on Aug. 25. The Scots lost 37-14.
“We beat them in every statistical category except turnovers,” Phelps said.
“All in all, it was a good game, and I thought we were well prepared. We just turned the ball over too many times to win.”
Phelps said he has seen a lot of growth in the program over the course of the year, not only on the field but off as well.
“For one, this building wasn’t here a year ago, and we didn’t have a [practice] field here,” Phelps said. “And we had to recruit our first class, and we still have a lot of those guys here. They have been here for three years now.”
As far as his team is concerned, Phelps said, the players have really grown mentally.
“They are bigger, faster and stronger, but mentally, they have had a big jump coming into this season,” Phelps said. “We are more athletic than we have ever been, and we are better prepared to play.
“We came out and played a good game [Aug. 25], and we had a lot of positives.”
Despite being such a young program, Phelps said, the goal doesn’t change.
“We always want to win a conference championship,” Phelps said. “And it can be done. We have some talented players to get it done.
“We are not far away from it, and I hope our guys are working toward it as well.”
At Oklahoma Wesleyan University in Bartlesville, Phelps served as an assistant baseball coach and served as a recruiting coordinator, working alongside Matt Parker.
“He helped bring in a class that went 58-8 and finished third in the World Series,” Parker said. “He wasn’t here to see the fruits of his labor, but he helped start the roll that we have been on here for the last three or four years.”
Parker, who is the head baseball coach at Oklahoma Wesleyan, said he hated it when Phelps went back to Lyon.
“He works so hard and is so persistent; it doesn’t surprise me at all that he has moved up to where he is at now,” Parker said.
Parker is so confident in Phelps’ recruiting knowledge that he asked for Phelps’ help a year ago.
“He was in California recruiting players for Lyon, so I asked him if he would skip lunch and go watch a baseball recruit for me,” Parker said.
“He jokes and says he still needs an Oklahoma Wesleyan shirt, and I told him the check is in the mail. I hope he is not waiting for that check because it’s never coming,” Parker said with a laugh.
Recruiting is Phelps’ specialty, and he said that even though Lyon is a young program, it hasn’t been too difficult to convince kids to come play.
“I think football has a large audience, and a large group of kids can relate to it,” Phelps said. “Academically here, it is tough, just because of the standards we have at Lyon.
“But kids want to play football, and they want to play football in college.”
Phelps does focus a lot on local recruiting, but he said Lyon also recruits on a national scale and has players from Florida, Texas, California and Missouri.
“Obviously, any bordering state, we are recruiting heavily as well,” Phelps said, “but we also recruit on a national level.”
Phelps said the community support of Batesville has been tremendous. Currently, the Scots play all of their home games at Pioneer Stadium at Batesville High School, and in the season opener, Phelps estimated there were about 2,500 people in attendance.
“Batesville has been gracious with us in allowing us to use their facility,” Phelps said. “I really think the community is definitely behind us and what we are doing.”
Phelps said there is no plan in place at the moment for Lyon to build its own stadium.
“I’d love to have one,” Phelps said. “I know we have a deal with the high school to use that one for multiple years.
“But some day, down the line, we will have a stadium.”
Phelps said being at Lyon since the beginning has really prepared him to be head coach.
“I know what is expected here, and I know what [the professors] expect, as far as academically,” Phelps said. “I am grateful to Dr. [Donald] Weatherman and Coach Jenkins for trusting me to lead the program.
“It really means a lot to me.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.