Champions' TriBUne Archive

By: Ira Lewis
 
Champions' TriBUne is a special feature through Baylor Athletics that will give you the student-athlete's perspective and tell their story in their voice. Ira Lewis is a fifth-year senior defensive tackle on the Baylor football team from Houston, Texas. An All-Big 12 selection last season when he had a career-high 5 ½ sacks and 11 ½ tackles for loss, the 6-foot-3, 290-pound Lewis is one of the Bears' top prospects for the 2019 NFL Draft. 
 
All my life, I wanted to be this big football star.
 
I wanted to go to the high school state championship game, which we ended up doing my junior year at Houston Lamar, but we lost to Allen. Then, I wanted to go to a big D-I college and be a star player there, which I'm trying to accomplish right now. And I wanted to get drafted and make it in the NFL. That would be my dream.
 
My dad always said that if you want to do something, you can do it if you put your mind to it. And I told him, even when I was pretty young, "One day, I'm going to be this football star, I'm going to make it to the NFL, and I'm going to help the family out and be a role model for a lot of people."
 
I had played other sports growing up: baseball, basketball, track. Swimming was actually my first sport. My dad wanted to make sure I knew how to swim. But, I fell in love with football.

Tom Nolen, my high school coach, just retired this summer, but he always told me I could be a special player by how hard I worked and by the talent he saw in me. He always thought I was a good kid, and he was on me every day to keep pushing to be great.
 
So was my d-line coach, Lee Malowitz – Coach Mal. He was really the turning point in me becoming the player I wanted to be.
 
My junior year, when we were trying to make a run to get to state, we had a little scare in the first round and won, 36-33. I didn't have a very good game, and he asked me, "Are you scared, or what's going on, because you haven't played like this all season. We need you to be that player."
 
That next week, we were practicing for our second-round game against Alief Taylor, and he threatened to move me inside. I messed up in practice, and he was like, "You know what, that's it!" He benched me for the rest of practice, and the next day he put me back in as a defensive tackle, like I wasn't going to play end anymore. I think that kind of lit this fire in me to play even harder and just prove him wrong and prove to myself that I could be this type of player.
 
Against Alief Taylor, I had one of the best games I had ever had. And Coach Mal told me, "I've been playing you at the wrong position this entire time."

Playing in the state championship game that year was great, because Houston hadn't had an inner-city school get to the state championship in like 25 years. I think the last one was Yates. The closest one was when Vince Young and Madison lost in the state semifinals. We kind of felt like we had the whole city behind us. It was a great experience.
 
Being recruited, I had some schools looking at me as a defensive end and some others looking at me more at defensive tackle. It didn't really matter to me, I just wanted to play.
 
I chose Baylor because it wasn't too far from home, and I knew about RG3 winning the Heisman and what the program was doing. It's a great school, strong spiritual environment, so I thought it was the best option for me.
 
That first year, I had a bunch of the older guys that really helped me become a better player and keep my confidence up, to know that I could do this and how hard I need to work and how every detail matters. It really helped me evolve and become a great player, because watching them do it made me want to make them proud and do right by them.
 
It was great watching those guys win a Big 12 championship that first year. It was amazing to see all the effort that went into it, and they really helped instill in me what I've got to do and what our senior class needs to do in order to get back to that.
 
Going through the coaching transition was hard on everybody, but at the same time God isn't going to put you through something if there's not something better waiting for you at the other end. So, we stuck it out, and now I feel like we're in a really good position.
 
When Coach Rhule came in, I just knew he had a winning attitude and he's going to get me and get this team where he wants it to be and where we want to be. Really, the whole coaching staff, they all wanted to win and they wanted to instill that in us and got us working hard right from the start. Once I saw that, and I saw how hard they worked and how much they wanted us to do well, I knew we were going to be a great team.
 
Last year, being voted a single-digit number by my teammates and for them to think that highly of me, it just makes me want to play harder for them and keep doing whatever I can to help us win. That's a huge honor for me.
 
My coaches are always on me about how you've got to lead them, how they're going to follow whatever you do. So, you can't do something or take a play off, because the younger guys look up to me. And when you're gone, they're going to talk about you and think about how hard you worked. So, I've got to keep holding myself to a higher standard and making sure I'm doing what I need to do.
 
People come up to me all the time, asking me why I started wearing Savage-Lewis on my jersey. My father was going through some health problems, and just seeing my mom be that strong and seeing her go through all that and still be there for me, and act like nothing was fazing her, that just really showed me how strong a woman she is. I can never repay her for all that she's done for me, but I just thought it would be a little something I could do.
 
I graduated in May with a degree in political science and would really like to pursue a law degree after my football career is done. When I first came to college, I really wanted to be a pharmacist. I always loved science. But, I had taken a political science class and kind of fell in love with it. I just love learning about cases and the rules, why things are the way they are.

If you're looking at coming here to play football, I want you to know that you're going to learn how to play great football and you're also going to get a great education. Make sure you take advantage of every opportunity you get with football and school.
 
For now, I'm just focused on football and seeing where I can go with that first. The NFL is my dream, of course, so I'm definitely going to fight for it. To any NFL team that is willing to draft me or pick me up, just know that you're going to get a player who's going to work hard every day and is always going to do his best, regardless.