Nymir Marable has always listened to his coaches.
Maybe as a kid, he shouldn’t have.
Marable is a senior wideout on the Abraham Lincoln High School football team, and if you get a glimpse of him running past defenders, you’ll know he has more than enough speed to hang with anyone in the area.
But growing up when he was playing for the Frankford Chargers – a team that was started by his grandfather – he was deemed too small to play.
At the time, he believed them.
“My whole life when I was younger, I was always one of the smallest guys and coaches thought I was too small, so I would always doubt myself,” Marable said. “I played there and later for the 215 Cardinals. I would lose confidence because people would say I was small. I doubted myself and my confidence wasn’t great.”
Then he started working out with his cousin, Duke Walker.
That was shortly before he landed at Lincoln, and the timing couldn’t have been better.
He walked into Lincoln a different man, and the 6-foot-1, 150-pound speedster is now one of the best players in the Public League and he leads an offense that could pose a lot of problems for other teams this year.
“My cousin Duke Walker helped build my confidence,” Marable said. “I would train with him, he’d get me better, help me with things like inside release, getting my routes crispy, stuff like that. I got the confidence because I know I can do that.
“I’ve had some great father figures in my life. He was one. My godfather was the same. They helped me, and when I got to Lincoln, the coaches there, I don’t know, they made me feel like I could do anything. They got me ready to play. I didn’t have the same confidence problem once I got here. Everything was better.”
Lincoln, which was never a powerhouse, has become just that.
The Railsplitters, led by coach Hakeem Cooper, have become an elite team in the Public League. A year after winning the 6A championship, Lincoln finished runner-up in 2024 after losing a tight game to Imhotep Charter.
This year, the Railsplitters once again have loaded up with a crazy schedule, which Marable believes will only help the team get back to the top of the Public League. The hard work starts now.
“I love our schedule because I love competing,” said Marable, who will lead the Railsplitters in nonleague games against Chester, Germantown Academy, Conwell-Egan and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy before getting into the heart of the Public League schedule. “Our first four games are going to be a fight. A real fight. I feel like we’re prepared for it, we put in all the work this offseason.
“I heard before I got here, not right before but years before, it was stinking Lincoln, I love what the coaches did. (Cooper) turned it around. The program is so good. It’s not a football team, it’s a program. People see us as a public school, they see us as stinking Lincoln. Then they play us and they see, we’re a good team.”
Because of that, there’s no more lack of confidence, but Marable got possibly the greatest boost a player could get this summer.
He was at a seven-on-seven tournament, working out in front of college coaches, and he suffered a hamstring injury. The first person he saw after the injury wasn’t a trainer.
“I ran a post and pulled my hamstring,” Marable said of the injury that happened in early June. “DeSean Jackson, the coach of Delaware State, was there, and ran over so fast, he still got the speed. He told me, ‘Come see me after the tournament.’
“I saw him, we talked and he gave me an offer personally. That will live with me forever. It’s DeSean Jackson. That’s what he was, he knows what you have to do to be a receiver, so that was huge. It meant everything to me.”
Jackson has a good eye for talent, and a better eye for who can excel in the classroom.
Marable, who has offers but has yet to commit, is an honor student, and maintains a 3.6 grade point average. He’s better there than on the football field, and that’s saying a lot.
“Honestly I’m proud of both, but I’d say GPA is more important because school comes first,” he said. “I can’t have football without school. That’s why I’m there. I heard that before and that’s how I try to be.
“School, I want all A’s and B’s, rather all A’s, every marking period. Football, I want to win a state championship and I want to go All-State to represent Lincoln. All-Pub is nice, but we want to shoot for the highest. For the team goal, that’s the biggest. We want that Public League championship back, play Prep or the best in the Catholic League, hopefully beat them and get to the state championship and win the state championship.”
He has high goals, and he knows he has the right people in his corner to get him there.
“The coaches and teammates at Lincoln, we all want the same thing, to do better,” said Marable, who will be a captain this year. “My mom is a huge part of it. Taking me to practice, games and school. I love her so much. She’s like my best friend. She never missed a game and always has talks with me about life and raising me to be the man I am today.
“My mom’s sister, too, my aunt. She’s like a second mom to me. She never misses a game. I’m very lucky, I have a lot of people there for me. I just want to do it for them.”
