Lincoln QB doubles up at Yankee Stadium

“Great kid, good athlete, and also a good student,” was Lincoln’s Varsity Head Coach Shawn O’ Connor’s assessment of this season’s Railsplitters’ quarterback Tylik Bethea. “He’s only a junior and he had a record-breaking season for the most completions and yardage. In fact, he threw for 20 touchdowns, just one short of the league leader with 21.”

After receiving his two awards for 101 pass completions and 1,680 passing yards during the halftime ceremony of the December 5 PSAL Championship game at Yankee Stadium, Bethea credited his success to Coach O’Connor stating, “He’s a good teacher; once you learn the play he lets you develop.”  

When Bethea was asked how he achieved his two milestones, he simply stated, “I just trust in my receivers.” In addition to trusting his receivers, Coach O’Connor also added, “Tylik is technically very advanced because he makes such good reads.”

O’Connor went on to explain, “He spreads the ball around very well. Very few high school players can remain calm and hit their secondary receiver when their primary receiver is covered. Then he even amazes me when he hits his third receiver on a play. He doesn’t get shaken that easily and responds well on the field. After throwing an early interception in our opening game against Wagner, he came back to win the game for us by throwing for over 300 yards.”

“He’s a good student too with a 95.7  percent average,” said O’Connor. “When we had injuries, he was very selfless coming to the Varsity from the JV as a freshman two years ago just to be the backup quarterback only to get into a few games. But that experience paid off as you can see with the kind of season he’s had.”

With four recent appearances in the Bronx along with three Lincoln championships (2011, 2013 & 2014) since the Yankee Stadium Classic was started in 2010, Coach O’ Connor optimistically stated, “We have a good returning core and Tylik gives us a real good shot to return to Yankee Stadium.”