Persons of the Year – Sports: Demeco Ryans
A highly sought-after player and coach has landed successfully again in Houston.
Demeco Ryans was born and raised in Bessemer, Alabama, less than an hour’s drive from the University of Alabama. Ryans excelled in high school and became a top university recruiting prospect nationwide. He was also heavily recruited by the University of Alabama Crimson Tide. Ryans settled on his local Crimson Tide connections, where he played for four years and had a spectacular college career that preceded his accent to a lucrative NFL career. In college, he was a unanimous College All-American linebacker. He also received the Lott Trophy for athletic excellence and off-the-field achievements in his senior year.
Also, in his final year at Bama, Ryans was named the defensive MVP in Alabana’s 13–10 win over Texas Tech in the 2006 Cotton Bowl.
After college, Ryans played for six years as a standout linebacker for the Texans. He signed a rookie contract after being selected as the 33rd pick in the 2006 draft and excelled in his rookie season, earning Defensive Rookie of the Year honors. During Ryans’s career, he went to two Pro Bowls during his playing days for Houston before being traded to the Philadelphia Eagles, where he played for four more seasons. Upon retiring, he again became a hot commodity, as he had been in high school and college, but this time, it would be as a coach. Demeco Ryans became Coach Ryans in 2017 after signing a coaching contract with the San Francisco 49ers as their linebackers coach. He coached the inside linebackers from 2018 to 2020 before being named their defensive coordinator in 2021.
As a successful assistant and defensive coordinator with the San Francisco, Ryans was being talked about as a potential head coach somewhere in the NFL coaching ranks. And to the pleasant surprise of many fans, here was hired by the owners of the Houston Texans franchise to be their eighth head coach in their twenty-two-year history. In his first year, he has the team on the cusp of returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2019.
As the league’s defensive rookie of the year and collector of 156 tackles in his first season, many wondered what made him so special. He wasn’t the most athletic or the fastest linebacker, but he was a tireless worker and weightlifter, according to teammates. He was in the front row at team meetings and studied the game. It’s obvious all the hard work has paid off. In his rookie year as a head coach, he could easily be named Coach of The Year by the League.