Max Lilly wasn’t like all his other friends growing up.

While their heroes were playing on Saturdays and Sundays, the Woodrow Wilson senior center’s heroes played right in front of him on Friday night.

“I remember the first day he was here, I was here, watching their two-a-day practices,” Lilly said. “I remember watching all the greats play — Marcus Manns, Austin Peters, Nate Manns, Mike Ross. I remember sitting in the stands and being around them. People would think the professionals would be our idols. The guys out here for Beckley football were my idols.”

These days Max Lilly, son of head coach John H. Lilly, is going through his last summer of two-a-days and he is loving every minute of it.

Especially after almost losing it.

He was injured in the Flying Eagles’ fourth game of the season against Parkersburg.

He tore his MCL and did some damage to the ACL.

His dad had to give him the prognosis, which was not good.

“It is tough to separate coach and dad,” coach Lilly said. “But sitting there and telling him he might be done for the year and he had to have knee surgery, it wasn’t an easy thing to do. It was very emotional.”

“It was devastating,” Max Lilly said. “Football is what I’ve done all my life. It’s what I love. It’s the only thing I do. To be told your season is over is just devastating.

“It wasn’t a complete funk, but I tried to deny it. I kept doing what the doctors told me.”

But guess what.

He was down. And out.

But not for the season.

He stuck to the regimen given to him by the medical staff and a prayer was answered.

“I do believe in the power of prayer, and I always have,” coach Lilly said. “And, we have a great medical staff. We’ve got Amanda Goots, a nationally-certified trainer, Dr. (Charles) Morgan, Dr. (Jerry) Beasley and Dr. (Gary) Poling.

“He did exactly what they told him to do to a T. Nothing more, nothing less. When we went back down they said he was 100 percent and we were in shock because we thought he was done for the year.”

The young Lilly was ready, too.

“You can ask my mom and dad,” Lilly said. “I couldn’t wait. My dad and the trainer (Goots) had to hold me back because I still had a couple of things that needed to do get cleared with the doctor. It’s football. It’s life to me. Words can’t describe how much I love it.”

His teammates were impressed. Just ask Michael Bailey, a junior who had to take Lilly’s place at center after just gaining confidence as a first-year starter at guard.

“It shows awesome character and leadership,” Bailey said of Lilly’s return. “More than that, to recover that fast from an ACL tear and come back and lay in those last two games and really help us out, that showed a lot. It showed how much he wanted to be out there with his teammates on Friday night.”

“That ‘Beckley’ on his chest means a whole lot,” coach Lilly said. “He’s been a Beckley guy his whole life. He’s been over here on this football field since he was three or four years old. He loves Beckley and he loves the game.”

And it’s not just because he grew up the son of a coach.

“It’s different,” Max Lilly said. “I just have to work harder than everyone else and also know that anything that is given to you, you have to earn it. My dad keeps me at a high standard for everything. If he sees me slacking at something he might let another person get away with, I know I can’t get away with it.

“I always kept the same work ethic coming into my freshman year and my dad told me that work ethic wasn’t going to work for me.”

“A coach’s son always has to do more because there is a perception that everything is handed to them when 99 percent of the time it’s the opposite,” coach Lilly said. “I told him when he was in ninth grade, ‘You’re going to have to be twice as good as the guy in front of you or I’m not putting you out there.’ Because I’m not going to listen to all the haters.”

Of course, he has come to learn that criticism of his dad, the coach, comes with the territory. He hears it.

“All the time,” Max Lilly said. “On the Internet, around school, anywhere. He told us (he and brother Troy, a freshman) when we were young that stuff would happen and we had to learn to deal with it and ignore it. It’s the lies people say, that’s what gets to me.

“It’s his life. He is here every single day. He wouldn’t come in the middle of December in a snowstorm just so he could be here with the players helping them get a workout in, he wouldn’t be breaking down film every single day.”

And he hopes to follow in those coaching footsteps. And he won’t forget the lesson he learned last fall.

“It teaches you to be humble and it teaches you to play every play like it’s your last because it can be taken away just that fast,” Lilly said of his injury. “I will never forget that.”