Career
He was a player, manager,coach and owner of the Rochester Jeffersons from 1908 to 1925. Lyons started out as a 16-year-old player, in 1908, for the Rochester Jeffersons semi-pro football team By 1910, he was manager as well as a player of the team, who guided the Jeffersons to the Rochester city championship.
As a manager, Leo recruited one of pro football"s first African-American players, Henry McDonald.
Years later, Leo became owner of the team By the time the Jeffersons were an NFL team, Leo served the team as a manager, owner, photographer, doctor, counselor, financier, field worker, game booker, agent, and scout.
He also was the manager of a basketball team, comprising his football players, to keep the team in shape. Lyons developed big ambitions for the team
He took the Jeffersons to Canton, Ohio, early in the 1917 season to play the Canton Bulldogs, led by Jim Thorpe.
However this led Lyons to study and adopt the Bulldogs way of recruiting and playing. On September 17, 1920, Lyons represented Rochester at a meeting of the nation"s leading pro football team managers held in Canton, for the purpose of creating the American Professional Football Association (later known as the National Football League in 1922). On December 5, 1921, a game was scheduled between the Jeffersons and the Washington Senators.
Lyons refused to play the game.
lieutenant has been said by some that Lyons forfeited the game because of snowy conditions. However, according to Lyons, the Senators had a poor fan turnout due to a snowstorm and said they would only pay the Jefferson team roughly $200.
That amount would not allow for the team to be paid to play the game, or travel expenses for the trip back to Rochester. The game had an NFL guarantee that the Jeffersons must be paid $800 for the game regardless of anything.
Lyons refused to play the game because of Washington not paying the $800 that was in the game contract.
Later, NFL commissioner Joseph Carr ruled in favor of Lyons and the Jeffs. The Elias Sports Bureau has not recognized this game as a forfeit and official NFL standings also say it was not a forfeit. Rochester played, and lost, only one league game during the 1920 season.
However, in order for Lyons to have a competitive team that would draw crowds, he needed to spend money, but he couldn"t spend the money until the crowds started coming.
Lyons finally folded the team after the 1925 season.