Lucas Niang, a Franco-Ivorian at the Super Bowl

Published on : 02/11/2024 – 11:09

4 mins

He is the only player in the NFL, the American football championship, to wear this flag on his helmet. Since the league allowed players to display their origins, Frenchman Lucas Niang has chosen to put the star-spangled banner and the tricolor banner side by side.

Sunday, February 11, the blue-white-red flag will be on the Super Bowl field. For the second year in a row, this player born in the United States, to a French father and an Ivorian mother, will participate in one of the biggest sporting events on the planet. His Kansas City Chiefs team, already victorious last year, is preparing to face the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas.

“I have my passport!”

The presence of a “Frenchy” at the top of American football is an achievement. The last and only trace of a Frenchman in the NFL dates back to the early 1990s with Richard Tardits, a Basque who had worn the colors of the New England Patriots. Even if he has never lived in France, Lucas Niang claims his origins. “I have my passport!”, he proclaims in the pages of the newspaper L’Équipe which devoted a portrait to him on Thursday February 8. “My mother came to study in France from the Ivory Coast, where a whole part of my family, on my mother’s side, still lives. My father grew up in France.”

Born 25 years ago in New York, Lucas Niang then lived in Switzerland for two years, before his parents returned to settle in the United States, in Connecticut. Despite the distance, he speaks French perfectly. He spent all his summers in France. “I went to Marseille, to Lille too, depending on where my family lived. We moved around quite a bit, we went to see my grandmother, our aunts and uncles, my cousins,” he describes, before to admit a weakness for “crepes” and “croque-monsieur”.

A hope of American football

Even if he displays very French tastes, it is for a very American sport that the young boy is passionate. After playing tennis and basketball, he stood out in high school by playing American football. Several universities are in the running to recruit him. He ultimately opted for Texas Christian University (TCU).

Positioned in attack as an offensive tackle, his role is to protect the quarterback, the team’s playmaker. Very mobile despite his extraordinary size (1.98 m and 154 kilos), Lucas Niang is enjoying the glory days of his university team.

Unfortunately, the young player was quickly overtaken by injuries. While he is one of the great hopes of the 2020 draft, hip surgery slows down his rise. He was finally selected only in the third round like 96^e choice by the Kansas City Chiefs. The Covid-19 pandemic also prevents him from experiencing his first professional season.

In 2021, number 77 continues with new injuries to the shoulder, ribs, then tendon. Lucas Niang hangs on and returns to the field. He is not one of the team’s starters but he still helped the franchise win the Super Bowl a year ago against the Philadelphia Eagles at the end of the 2022 season. He then became the very first Frenchman to win an NFL title.

This year, his body hasn’t played any tricks on him. He was able to participate in 14 out of 17 games and will be on the field for Sunday’s final alongside the two stars of the team, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and receiver Travis Kelce, companion of singer Taylor Swift. “Long live France!”, he shouted with joy last year after the Chiefs’ victory. In the event of a repeat offense, Lucas Niang will go down in history even further.