William Roy "Link" Lyman (November 30, 1898 – December 28, 1972), also sometimes known as Roy Lyman, was an American football player and coach.
Lyman was born in Nebraska and raised in Kansas. He played college football for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team in 1918, 1919, and 1921. He played professional football as a tackle in the National Football League (NFL) for the Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs (1922–1925), the Frankford Yellow Jackets (1925), and the Chicago Bears (1926–1928, 1930–1932, and 1933–1934). He won four NFL championships (1922, 1923, and 1924 with the Bulldogs and 1933 with the Bears) and was selected five times as a first-team All-Pro player (1923, 1924, 1925, 1930, and 1934).
Lyman was an assistant football coach at Nebraska from 1935 to 1941 and at Creighton University in 1942. He later had a career in the insurance business. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1964. He died in an automobile crash in 1972 while driving to Las Vegas.
Early years
Lyman was born in 1898 in Table Rock, Nebraska. As an infant, his family moved to Rawlins County, Kansas, where his father, Edwin Lyman, was a farmer, raised stock and engaged in the real estate business. Lyman had four younger brothers (Edwin, Richard, Albert, and Louis) and three younger sisters (Anna, Margret, and Mildred).
Lyman attended high school in McDonald, Kansas, but he did not play football as there was no team with only "six or seven boys in the whole school".
Nebraska
Lyman enrolled at the University of Nebraska in 1917 where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. After playing freshman football in 1917, he played at the tackle position for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team in 1918, 1919, and 1921. Lyman was married shortly after the end of the 1919 football season and did not return to the university in the fall of 1920. He returned in February 1921 to establish his eligibility to play in the fall of 1921.
Lyman later recalled: "From the first day, I just loved the game, and we had some pretty good teams, too." The 1921 Nebraska team compiled a 7–1 record, lost a close game against Knute Rockne's Notre Dame team, outscored opponents by a combined total of 283 to 17, and won the Missouri Valley Conference championship. The 1922 Nebraska yearbook noted the following about Lyman: "Lyman was, without doubt, our fastest lineman. Roy is a big man, weighing 200 pounds, and could get down under punts almost as quickly as the ends. Roy proved to be a ground gainer on tackle-around plays before the season was over."
Professional football
Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs
In September 1922, Lyman left Lincoln, Nebraska, to play professional football for the Canton Bulldogs. The Bulldogs were coached by Guy Chamberlin, an All-American out of Nebraska, who invited Lyman to join the team. With Lyman and Pete Henry as its star tackles, the 1922 Canton Bulldogs compiled a 10–0–2 record, shut out nine of twelve opponents, outscored all opponents 184 to 15, and won the NFL championship.
Lyman returned to the Bulldogs the following year. The 1923 team had another undefeated season (11-0-1), shut out eight of twelve opponents, outscored all opponents by a combined total of 246 to 19, and won its second consecutive NFL championship. After the season, Lyman was selected as a first-team All-Pro player by the Canton Daily News and a second-team All-Pro by Collyer's Eye magazine.
In August 1924, Cleveland jeweler Samuel Deutsch bought the Canton Bulldogs and moved the team to Cleveland where they became the Cleveland Bulldogs during the 1924 NFL season. The Bulldogs compiled a 7–1–1 record, outscored opponents by a total of 229 to 60, and won their third consecutive NFL championship. After the 1924 season, Lyman was selected as a first-team All-Pro by Collyer's Eye and a second-team All-Pro by the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
In July 1925, Lyman and four of his teammates (Pete Henry, Rudy Comstock, Ben Jones, and Harry Robb) bought the team for $3,500 and moved it back to Canton. Lyman played seven games for the 1925 Bulldogs and then finished the season playing four games for the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Lyman was reunited with Guy Chamberlain who was then Frankford's head coach. After the 1925 season, Lyman was selected as a first-team All-Pro on the team selected by NFL Commissioner Joseph Carr; he was also selected as a second-team All-Pro by Collyer's Eye.