Long before he became the surprise general manager of the 49ers, John Lynch was a legitimate two-sport athlete, a popular teammate and a bright student at Stanford University. And yet he harbored a dark secret.
Lynch was hopeless when it came to music.
“If I wanted to make fun of him about something,” noted Rob Robbins, a Cardinal infielder from 1988-1991, “I’d say he wasn’t a very good dancer.”
Lynch’s vocal talents might have been worse.
“He’d sing along to the radio on the way to practice,” said Tony Detter, who played the infield at Stanford from 1989-1992. “I would say John certainly knows less than half of the words he sings along with. So while singing, a lot of the time he would just jumble words together in a way that didn’t make sense.”
If you think that’s unfair, consider the “Diamonds and Pearls” episode. Prince’s album of that name came out in October of 1991, when Lynch was starting his junior year on The Farm. It included a song with the same title, and toward the end of that song backup vocalist and keyboardist Rosie Gaines repeats the line, “D to the I to the A to the M … ” You know where she’s going. Lynch apparently did not.
“I don’t know if you remember, but cassettes used to come with lyrics sometimes, like folded up on a sheet in the cassette,” said David Holbrook, Stanford corner infielder from 1989-1992. “So John’s singing the lyrics while looking at the sheet, and he’s repeatedly singing ‘D to the One to the A to the M.’ He didn’t notice it was supposed to be an I.”
We dredge up these stories not to embarrass Lynch, but to provide a weak attempt at balance in a profile of his diamond days at Stanford. Beyond his musical disability, former Pac-10 baseball teammates paint a picture that is almost syrupy in its praise.
“I’m going to try not to sound like a billboard for John Lynch. But John is one of the best people I’ve known in my life,” Detter said while waiting for a taxi in Tokyo, where he was doing business for Asurion, a company that provides services for wireless carriers. “John wouldn’t count me as one of his best friends; we’re not close in that way. But he’s kind and generous and authentic to everyone. I root for him to do well in everything he does, because he’s such a good person.”
As Dave McCarty, a first baseman who was a year ahead of Lynch, put it: “He’s one of those guys who walks into a room and everyone likes him. He just has that personality.”
Lynch made his fame as a hard-hitting NFL safety, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and later the Denver Broncos. For most of his time at Stanford, though, it wasn’t clear which sport he would follow.
One of the reasons Lynch chose Stanford was the ability to play both football and baseball. He was interested in Notre Dame, for example, but football coach Lou Holtz forbade him from playing baseball there. At Stanford, Dennis Green and baseball coach Mark Marquess both encouraged it. In fact, Marquess (who recently announced that his 41st season in the job will be his last) had also been a two-sport athlete at Stanford.
Grant Cohn’s Inside the 49ers blog
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