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"I looked at that team in the summer
and felt we'd be lucky if we were
5-5," said Frank DeFelice, a defensive
coordinator on that team. "But we were
9-1, and it was on account of him that
we were. He might not have been the
fastest player, or the quickest, or the
biggest, or might not have had the best
arm. But I'll tell you this: He was the
smartest. That's what stood out in my
mind."
Lynch rubbed elbows with players
such as Tom Toner, Billy Adams and
Dick Jauron, who went onto have
professional football careers. Jauron was
even the NFL's Coach of the Year in
2001.
Lynch played both football and
basketball under his father's tutelage, and
got a firsthand glimpse of his father's
legendary toughness.
"He thrived very well under his
father," said DeFelice. "He was the
quarterback on the football team, where
his father coached the backs; he was
the point guard on the basketball team,
where his father was the head coach; and
he played baseball for me."
As a basketball player, Lynch caught
the wrath of his father firsthand a few
times.
"If we had a bad practice, or I had a
bad practice, he used to make me walk
home from the high school (which,
in those days, meant walking from
Greenwood Avenue all the way down to
the very bottom of Banks Road, where
he lived). If we had a good practice, he'd
drive me home."
But, said Lynch, his father always
felt that his greatest trophies were the
success stories of the players he coached.
After a year at Phillips Exeter
Academy, Lynch went to Harvard, where
he played football. In 1975, he kicked
the winning field goal in the Harvard-
Yale game. If anyone had been looking
for a portent of things to come, they
needed to go no further back than 1969,
when, as a junior at Swampscott, he
kicked a last-second field goal to beat
Marblehead, 15-14, on Thanksgiving and
kept what was then a 27-game unbeaten
streak alive.
"Well, he was clutch," said DeFelice.
"One thing about him was that he
understood the moment."
After a stint on the radio, Lynch
joined Channel 5 in 1982.
During his career at Channel 5,
Lynch says he has seen many changes.
The biggest, he said, is the technology.