Suitland High's Lynch Dies in Wreck
Football Coach Led Team to Two Maryland Championships

By Josh Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 1, 2009

Nick Lynch, the Suitland High School football coach and athletic director and one of the most respected figures in Prince George's County athletics, was killed early yesterday morning in a two-car collision about a mile from his Brandywine home.

Lynch -- known as "Nick," even though his given name was David -- was traveling south on Branch Avenue about 2:30 a.m. when he attempted to turn left onto Brandywine Road, said Trooper Wesley Brown of the Maryland State Police. Lynch's car, a 2008 Dodge Magnum, was struck by a 2000 GMC Sierra traveling north on Branch Avenue, Brown said.

Lynch was taken to Southern Maryland Hospital in Clinton, where he was pronounced dead, Brown said. The driver of the Sierra suffered a broken leg. The accident remains under investigation.

Lynch, 43, carried an immense stature in the District Heights community. He took over a Suitland program in 1996 that had never made the playoffs and turned it into a state power, winning two Maryland championships and qualifying for the playoffs nine times in his 13 years. He also never stopped doing the little things; he usually collected yard-markers and goal-post pads after home games and occasionally could be found making sure the bathrooms were clean.

"This is a tough one," Suitland Principal Mark Fossett said. "He's had an impact on so many people's lives -- not only football players, but students in general. It wasn't like Nick was just the head coach of football. This is a devastating loss to our community, to our family. I can't tell you how much of an impact it's going to have. It's one of those things you don't even fathom."

Stefan Gansert, division chief at Chapel Oaks Volunteer Fire Department, was the first responder on the scene. Gansert, a former head football coach at Fairmont Heights and now an assistant at Eleanor Roosevelt in Greenbelt, was less than a mile away after leaving a house fire and heading home when the call came over the radio.

"It was an accident that I deal with all the time in my career," said Gansert, who was unaware until later yesterday morning that the person he pulled from one of the vehicles was Lynch. "I just worked it as a scene. I thank God [for] not knowing it was him. He didn't let me recognize it was him because then I don't think I would have been able to do my job."

Lynch grew up in Glenarden and was the second youngest of eight siblings. He played wide receiver at Eleanor Roosevelt and East Tennessee State University and returned to Prince George's, where he eventually became a coach and special-education teacher. He spent nine years as an assistant coach before becoming head coach.

His teams went 117-33, winning state championships in 2004 and 2006. The Rams were state runners-up on two other occasions under Lynch. This season's team qualified for the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season and finished 8-3.

"The football players had great respect for him," said Lynch's brother, Keith, who worked as an assistant coach at Suitland for several years. "Where other people gave up on kids, he was there for them. A lot of them, man, he was a father to a lot of them. A lot of them grew up in broken homes."

Lynch had a knack for connecting with his players, whether through pep talks or funny antics. At one practice in 1999, when his players seemed wound too tight, he suited up in helmet and pads and joined the reserves on the field to face off against the starters. He occasionally quarterbacked the scout-team offense.

He tried to give his players a family atmosphere that some of them may have lacked at home. His players regularly joined Lynch for services at the Ebenezer AME church in Fort Washington, and he held postgame meals for his team in the school gymnasium.

Lynch didn't hide his emotions. In a 2003 playoff loss to Eleanor Roosevelt, he pulled his team off the field with 1 minute 29 seconds remaining to protest the officiating; that earned him a suspension from the Rams' 2004 playoff opener. He also occasionally wore a pink shirt on the sideline in remembrance of his mother, Doris, who died of breast cancer.

"Out of all the people, it's just crazy . . . so many people depend on him. The kids depend on him," said Eric Wade, the former Largo High head coach who grew up with Lynch and was an assistant coach at Suitland for the past five seasons. "You live with every single kid. You just don't understand how hard it is . . . and how much he cared. Cared enough to give a kid hard discipline when he needed it, and give him love when he needed it."

Said senior defensive end Anthony Thomas, a three-year varsity player: "As a father figure, he was tough. But at the same time, he looked out for your best interests. He always said there is nothing promised. You can never replace Coach Lynch in any way. He's a stand-up guy and a good person to look up to, in my eyes."

News of Lynch's death started a chain of phone calls yesterday morning among coaches around the state.

"He was truly a leader of Prince George's County coaches," said Crossland High Coach Eric Knight, who was an assistant coach at Roosevelt during Lynch's sophomore and junior years of high school. "He was unselfish with his time. If it needed to be done, Nick was the kind of guy who would do it. It's truly a loss for everybody. He's going to be sorely missed."

Eleanor Roosevelt Coach Tom Green said Lynch's standing in the county was the reason he went to Suitland as an assistant coach earlier this decade.

"He was a unique guy for Suitland," Green said. "It takes a special guy to work at Suitland and be effective at Suitland. And he was the guy."

Lynch became adept at helping his team deal with grief, starting with the 2003 shooting death of former standout Raheem Lewis. In October 2007, former player Eric Allen, who was a recruit for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, collapsed and died during a training exercise. And later that same month, Ramon D. Ware, a 2007 graduate and varsity offensive lineman, was fatally shot outside an apartment complex in District Heights.

Lynch ordered stickers with each young man's jersey number and told his players to display the stickers on the front of their helmets, where they would be most visible.

"The love of the kids and showing them direction and just being there for them, that is what motivates me," Nick Lynch told The Post in a 1999 profile. "I just want to see the happiness on young men's faces when they accomplish their goals. It can't be measured."

Lynch is survived by his wife, Ivornette, and a son, David Jr., as well as seven siblings and other relatives.

Staff writer Hamil R. Harris contributed to this report.