“Gotta Get Your Hands Dirty”: Noah Lyles Admits Being the ‘Anti-Hero’ of Track and Field

Being one of the popular faces of a sport involves receiving both love and hate, and Noah Lyles is pretty accustomed to the latter. His loud and seemingly brash personality has often come under fire for coming off as arrogant. Yet, he wears it like a badge of honor amongst all his achievements.

In a recent conversation with Shannon Sharpe and Chad Johnson on the Nightcap podcast, Lyles talked about this image and how he dealt with it. While it did get him and the sport a lot of attention, he knew he was inviting more room for banter.

While on the podcast, Sharpe asked the Olympic gold medalist how he perceived all this noise around him on and off the track. Well, Lyles had his take ready, explaining how he both loved and hated being in the spotlight.

On the track, Lyles welcomed all the banter and even loved indulging in it since that made the sprints more entertaining. But off-track, he did not approve of people trying to paint a different picture of him. However, even though it irked him, he knew he couldn’t do anything about it other than focus on his own goals.

“Haters are going to hear what they want to hear, but the people who support me, they’re going to want to hear what they hear.”

That’s where the hosts asked him about his image which many perceived as being some sort of a villain. While Lyles knew his loud personality brought in more attention to the sport, his negative image was a subject that often came up.

“In terms of being the villain and being the hero, I see myself as an anti-hero. Sometimes you gotta get your hands dirty and sometimes…you gotta try and shoot for the stars.”

Yet through all this, Lyles confessed that he just wanted to get better and stronger in life and his career. Apart from his generally confident self, he knew he needed to listen to the people when the criticism was genuine. And when it came to his life the way he has been living it up so far, he knew he wouldn’t do it any other way.

Lyles talks about a question he’d hate to get

Life hasn’t been easy for the 27-year-old American sprinter, having battled several hurdles before tasting success. From ADD to Dyslexia, his diagnosis just scratched the surface of what he went through in his childhood.

Lyles had a severe case of asthma and, owing to his mental setbacks, faced a severe case of bullying. Battling through all this, he spoke to Ben Gallaga about how he only grew stronger from beating his difficulties.

But given a chance, would he go back and change his life? Lyles hated this question that several would ask him. Not only would he not change a thing about his past, but he knew he’d want all of those incidents that built up his character.