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Coach Lynch seen at the Prince George's County versus SMAC
All-Star football game banquet.
(Photo courtesy of Digitalsports.com)
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By Perry Green
AFRO Sports Writer
(January 6, 2009) - More than 1,000 people gathered at a vigil last Friday to mourn the unexpected death of David Nick Lynch, one of the most respected figures in Prince George's County high school athletics.
Lynch, who served the past 13 years as the head football coach of Suitland High School, died last Wednesday during a two-car collision in Brandywine, Md. He was 43.
According to news reports, Lynch was traveling south on Branch Avenue at 2:30 a.m. and was attempting a left turn onto Brandywine Road when his 2008 Dodge Magnum was struck by a 2000 GMC Sierra. The accident occurred just a mile away from his home.
Lynch was rushed to Southern Maryland Hospital in Clinton, but was soon pronounced dead; the other driver involved in the accident suffered a broken leg.
“It was an accident that I deal with all the time in my career,” said Stefan Gansert, the division chief at Chapel Oaks Volunteer Fire Department and the first responder on the scene.
He’s also a fellow P. G. County high school football coach and was familiar with coach Lynch.
“I just worked it as a [normal accident] scene… I thank God [for] not knowing it was him,” said Gansert.
“He didn’t let me recognize it was him because I don’t think I would have been able to do my job.”
Gansert isn’t the only one emotionally hurting over Lynch’s death.
Family members, friends, students and those who never even met Lynch came together over the weekend to pay respect to the man who so many looked to as a father figure.
“Out of all the people, it’s just crazy…so many people depend on him,” Suitland assistant coach Eric Wade told the media, who also grew up with Lynch.
“The kids depend on him…You just don’t understand how hard it is…and how he cared enough to give a kid hard discipline when he needed it and give him love when he needed it.”
Lynch made every player that stepped on the field better and took Suitland from a team that never made the playoffs, to a state powerhouse program with two Maryland Championships and nine playoff appearances in the last 13 years.
But he had a greater impact on his players off the field.
He was even known for taking many of his players to attend services with him at Ebenezer AME church in the Oxon Hill/Fort Washington area.
“He was a unique guy for Suitland,” said Tom Green, head coach of Eleanor Roosevelt, in an interview with the Washington Post.
“It takes a special guy to work and be effective at Suitland, and he was that guy.”