Mike Lawrence is entering his third season as the strength and conditioning coach for football. He is also the running backs coach. Prior to AMU, he served as the wide receivers coach at Tennessee State University. For the 2014 season, Coach Lawrence served as the special teams coordinator, wide receivers coach, and running backs coach at Bethany College in Kansas. During that season, two of his wide receivers were named first-team all-conference.
Prior to jumping to the college ranks, Coach Lawrence coached for two years at Wiregrass High School in Wesley Chapel, Florida. He served as the offensive coordinator and running backs coach in 2012 before being promoted to head coach in 2013. Coach Lawrence's previous two seasons were spent as the running backs coach at Dunedin High School in Dunedin, Florida. Coach Lawrence also coached at Maryville High School in Maryville, Tennessee, for three seasons (two as the offensive coordinator) and at Junction City High School in Junction City, Kansas, for one season.
Coach Lawrence's playing career was marked with tremendous success as he secured the mark as the all-time leading rusher (2,265 yards) at Kansas State by the time he graduated with a social studies degree. He was also named All-Big 12. His single best game was 252-yard performance against Iowa State. Coach Lawrence went on to play arena football for seven seasons (River City Rage and Tennessee Thundercats) and in the German Football League for three seasons Rhein Main Razorbacks. During his arena career, he won two championships, one as a player and one as a player-coach. He was also named to the all-star team in six out of his seven seasons.
