Augustana College Athletics

Augustana’s school record holder in the high jump, Craig Lyon enters the Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame this evening with one of the most compelling stories of any of its 177 members.
 
A native of Sugar Grove, Illinois, Lyon graduated from Kaneland High School in 1996 after winning a Class A state title in the high jump and finishing fourth in the triple jump and long jump. Despite interest from many Division I programs, Craig enrolled at Augustana, joining his twin brother, Scott. The pair—who graduated first and second, respectively, in their class at Kaneland—went on to compete in both track & field and junior varsity basketball for the Vikings.
 
After a relatively quiet freshman indoor season, Lyon won the high jump in his first outdoor meet—the Early Spring Opener. Later that same week, he repeated at the Viking Olympics and added a team season-best 21’ 8” in the long jump. He matched a season-best 6’ 8” in winning the high jump at the Meet of Champions and his 6’ 6” clearance at the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin Championships earned him a third-place finish.
 
Although cut short by injury, Lyon’s breakout season came as a sophomore in 1998. In the first indoor meet of the year at the University of Iowa, he became Augustana’s first seven-foot high jumper. He actually had three successful jumps at that height or better that day, capped by a winning leap of 7’ 3”. That mark was best in the world to that point in 1998 and is still the best in school history. Lyon went on to claim the indoor national title, going 6’ 11¾” in St. Paul, Minnesota. On April 4, he took down Lonnie Hewitt’s outdoor school record, going 7’ 2” at Luther’s Norsemen Relays. A national qualifier in both the high jump and triple jump (46’ 3¼”—still eighth-best in school history), his season was ended two weeks later by a foot injury.
 
That injury was nothing compared to one that would nearly end Lyon’s career early in his junior season. At the final indoor meet of the year—the CCIW Invitational in Bloomington, Illinois—the shoe on his plant foot split, resulting in a fracture and dislocation of his left foot which veteran Coach Paul Olsen called “easily the most gruesome injury I’ve ever seen.”
 
Having gone as high as 7’ 5” in practice, Lyon had set his sights on qualifying for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. That was out of the question now as the focus shifted to enabling him just to walk normally again. After a July surgery to align and fuse metatarsal and cuneiform bones, he told Olsen that the doctors had informed him he would “never jump at this level again.” Olsen’s response was, “...on that foot.”
 
So the process began for Lyon to switch his plant foot. Strength in the right leg would be no problem. Since the injury, he had continued his usual workouts, including one-legged squats and bleacher bounds and hopping up stairs, all on the right leg. Technique would be another thing altogether. Learning to jump off the other foot would be akin to learning to throw or write with the opposite hand. Lyon called it “the most frustrating thing I’ve ever done.”
 
Despite the steep learning curve and not being able to even run until October, Lyon cleared 6’ 2” at the first indoor meet of the 2000 season. On February 5, he went 6’ 4” at the UW-La Crosse Invitational. Moving outdoors, he was a winner at the Early Spring Opener, as well as at a dual meet versus La Crosse. His comeback was capped on April 15, when he soared 6’ 8¼” to win the Viking Olympics and become a provisional qualifier for the national meet. In his final competition as a Viking, he finished second at the CCIW Championships with a leap of 6’ 5”.
 
Lyon’s remarkable story earned him the 2000 Male Comeback Athlete Award from Training & Conditioning magazine, as well as Athlete of the Year from Lutheran Brotherhood. He was also named a first team GTE Academic All-American for the second time and won Augustana’s Knut Erickson Award as the Viking senior athlete with the highest grade point average.
 
A pre-med major who graduated in 2000 with a 4.00 GPA, Lyon went on to earn his M.D. from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. For the last eight years, he’s been an orthopaedic surgeon at Mercy Health Systems in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He is a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the Wisconsin Orthopaedic Society.
 
Craig resides in Lake Geneva with his wife, Shaunna, who is a pediatrician, and their three children—Bradley, Evan and Jackson. He calls his time at Augustana “the most memorable four years of my life.”