Basics learned at Wyomissing carried Matt Lytle to highest levels of football
The mental approach and skill set that carried Matt Lytle to the highest levels of football are rooted in his beginnings as a quarterback with the Wyomissing Spartans.
He threw for more yards than anyone in program history and quarterbacked the team to 30 wins and two District 3 championships in three seasons as a starter.
He played four seasons at the University of Pittsburgh, had NFL stints with the Carolina Panthers, Seattle Seahawks and Baltimore Ravens and quarterbacked the Rhein Fire to the 2000 World Bowl VIII championship.
All of it, says Lytle, now 48, goes back to the beginning.
“Every level was special,” said Lytle, set for induction into the Berks County Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame Sunday. “High school is the best time in your life. You build such long-lasting relationships that continue on and on. There’s nothing better than the ‘Wyo’ roots.
“I played for one of the greatest coaches in Berks County history, Bob Wolfrum. The winning tradition, the work ethic. . . Bob instilled a team-first mentality. The X’s and O’s, the fundamentals, blocking and tackling, managing a game, handling the ball, the misdirection, all of those things absolutely (helped me succeed at higher levels).”
Lytle, playing in the run-oriented Wing-T offense, passed for over 3,500 yards with the Spartans, setting a program-record. He threw for a record 1,228 yards as a sophomore, just the second 1,000-yard passing season in the program at the time. He passed for over 1,000 in each of his three seasons even though his chances to throw the ball were limited.
“I’m not gonna lie,” he said. “I would’ve loved to have thrown the ball 30 times a game, or even 20 times a game.”
Tony Hardy, the great Reading High receiver, tried to get Lytle to transfer and play in the ‘Air Jet’ system John “Jet” Johnston was employing at the time.
He was tempted but stayed with the Spartans, going 11-1 and sharing the Inter-County League title and winning the District 3 Class A title as a senior. Despite the excellent record, Wyomissing didn’t advance to the PIAA Tournament because of a power-rating system that took only the top four teams at the time.
Lytle went on to throw for over 3,700 yards at Pitt, including 2,092 yards with 16 TDs as a senior in 1998. Despite putting up big numbers his final season he was taken in the 1999 NFL Draft.
That, Lytle said, made climbing to and staying at the highest level of the game infinitely more difficult.
“When you’re not drafted in the first round you’ve got to come to the table every day competing,” he said. “You’re walking on egg shells. You’re working your butt off in the film room weight room, staying late hours. You don’t have that luxury of getting three, four, five opportunities like a lot of first-round guys did.”
He hooked on with the Rhein Fire in the spring of 2000, then got his first chance in the NFL later that year with the Seahawks. He made his debut against the Los Angeles Raiders.
He went to camp with the Panthers in 2001 and made his first NFL start on Nov. 4 when the team’s first two quarterbacks were injured. He went 15-of-25 for 126 yards and threw a TD pass to Kris Mangum in a 48-14 loss to the St. Louis Rams.
Lytle played in 2002 with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League and went to camp with the Ravens in 2003.
He was released late in camp and without getting a chance to play in any of the club’s three preseason games.
At age 27 he realized his NFL dream was over.
Despite not being able to stay in the league for an extended time Lytle has no regrets about his time in pro football. He had a chance to compete at the highest level and against boyhood idols, such as Joe Montana, Steve Young, John Elway and Brett Favre.
“(You get there) and your name’s on a locker (and you think) ‘This is it,’ ” Lytle said. “I’m here. I can do this.”
Shortly after leaving the Ravens Lytle received a phone call. It was from Ed Reed, the Ravens’ Hall of Fame-bound safety. Reed wanted to encourage Lytle to continue the journey.
“You balled out,” Reed told him. “You impressed the hell out of me.”
Lytle didn’t continue the journey, as Reed urged, but the All-Pro defensive back’s words were not lost on him.
“That’s all I needed (to hear),” Lytle said. “To me, that was just closure from the Lord that I did everything I could; I worked my butt off. I gave it everything I had, it just wasn’t in the cards… I wasn’t in the right place at the right time.”
Lytle didn’t give up the dream entirely. He was a standout pitcher in high school, helping pitch the Spartans to the 1993 PIAA Class AA championship game. The left-hander threw in the low 90’s and was drafted by the New York Mets in the 26th round following his senior season, 1994.
Throughout his football career Lytle always wondered if he had taken the right path out of high school. The baseball dream never left.
A few months after throwing his last football for the Ravens he picked up a baseball again. He arranged tryouts in Florida in the spring of 1994 and threw for the Mets and Florida Marlins. He had an offer from the Marlins to start with their Class A minor league team.
He was 28 at the time and a father for the first time. He decided not to take the offer.
“If I had it to do over again I would’ve done the A-ball thing, just to experience it,” he says now. “Who knows where it would’ve gone?”
His focus now is on children – five his own, plus local quarterbacks he’s helping train. Work commitments prevent him from full-time coaching but he loves staying involved with young players. He offers training sessions each spring and summer.
“Materialistic things don’t matter, it’s what can you do for the next generation, what can you do to help people,” Lytle said. “I don’t need people to remember me as being a great athlete. I want them to remember, ‘Hey, Matt’s a great guy; he was great with my kids.’
“The calling for me is working with young kids and building them into great citizens, great fathers, great husbands, great people. That’s what matters.”