He may have left, but for Tyrone Parker, Brooklyn truly is home

Tyrone Parker has come full circle.

He was captain of George Najjar’s Lincoln High School football team in 1989.

Oh, there’s more – he was first-team All-City by Newsday and the New York Daily News.

He also played basketball at Lincoln.

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He was a city champion in the shot put in track as a sophomore.

And the icing on the cake – he won the Mike Burdy Award – symbolic of character, dedication, devotion, and hard work – from the school.

But he couldn’t stay away – from Lincoln High School.

In-between there was a football career at Stanford – then a member of the Pac-10.

“My final choices for college were Cornell, Holy Cross and Stanford,” he told the Eagle. “I didn’t realize how good a school Stanford was, until I got there.”

He cites his reasons for the California school, “Great weather, Pac-10 high-quality football and a full scholarship.”

Parker said he made a list of the Top 25 schools in the country – institutions like Duke, Northwestern and Stanford as well as the Ivy League.

“I sent a video,” he said, “and Stanford answered.”

In 1991, Parker began the season as a backup offensive guard, but was converted to the defensive line largely due to a shortage of players on the defensive front. 

Since that time, he not only never left the starting lineup, but became one of Stanford’s main forces on defense.

Football looked pretty good for Tyrone Parker after Stanford, as well.

“I played one-year in the Arena League for the San Jose (Calif.) SaberCats,” he said, “I was on the practice squad, but did travel with the team.”

Time to put away the cleats – and now he was a coach – in a different country.

“It was the Fujitsu Frontiers, in Japan,” he said, “I was Defensive Coach and Defensive Coordinator. And I spoke prolific Japanese.”

The talent was weak, he admitted. “We had corporate guys playing football. We were like the IBM of Japan. In fact,” he said, “maybe one, or perhaps two of our players could have played major college football in the states.”

So where does the complete circle enter the picture?

“After Japan, I started subbing as a teacher at Lincoln,” he said. “It morphed into a full-time position and I stayed there seven years.”

Parker credits former Lincoln basketball coach Bobby Hartstein and Mark Lewis – two educators, he says, who proved to be a big influence on his career.

“Yet, I never had any relationship with any sports team while I was at Lincoln,” Parker said.

That quickly changed when he was introduced to the Public Schools Athletic League. 

“That was 15 years ago, I was hired as Sports Coordinator,” he said. “Sort of like the Roger Goodell od Sports.”

What Parker does for the high school sports scene is coordinate rules – through the school coaches, principals and athletic directors.

In the Fall, Parker oversees football, in the winter he’s in charge of boys’ gymnastics and swimming – and in the spring he handles girls’ flag football, baseball and girls’ softball.

“Covid has been the biggest problem recently,” he said. “We’ve had cancellations as well as rescheduling situations.”

But basically, Parker says his job is to oversee the safety of athletes who perform in the high schools, as well as communicating changes for the schools.

Tyrone Parker made a name for himself as a Lincoln High PSAL football player – today he’s making a name for himself for the PSAL.

Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously, he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR

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