John Lynch college highlights: senior season (1992) at Stanford
Highlights from hard-hitting safety
John Lynch's senior season (
1992) at
Stanford University.
A
2010 Stanford Daily article on John Lynch:
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/09/23/a-conversation-with-john-lynch/
From the article:
Lynch was recruited to
Stanford as a quarterback, but after failing to secure the starting position, he transitioned to safety in the
1991 season.
"I thought I had won it, and I was really crushed when I didn't get it, so I almost quit football," Lynch said.
With baseball still very much a part of his life, Lynch had to make a decision: football or baseball. In his junior year, he was drafted by the
Florida Marlins in baseball's amateur draft.
However, newly appointed head football coach
Bill Walsh, who won three
Super Bowls with the
San Francisco 49ers, saw something special in
John Lynch--a talent that could not go unrecognized. Lynch played merely 30 percent of the defensive snaps his junior year and was benched after his third game, so it came as a bit of a shock when Walsh called him into his office one day.
"He said, I know you have an opportunity to play professional baseball, but
I've watched your snaps, and I think you can be a Pro Bowl football player in the
National Football League," Lynch remembered.
Walsh went as far as to make a tape of a former player, the great
Ronnie Lott, to compare Lynch's skills with one of the best and hardest hitting defensive backs in the
NFL. Lynch was convinced, and, after playing in the minor leagues in the spring of his junior year, he returned to Stanford for his senior year to play football and to develop into a phenomenal football player.
"I knew that I loved baseball, but I was passionate about the sport of football, and really, that's what I wanted to do," Lynch said. "I wanted to give it a shot, and I did, and the rest is history."