CHRIS LYNCH

Richard Dunn

Within the concept of playing team sports, an athlete builds

character and gains insight toward others -- also a recipe for

success in the real world, according to former Corona del Mar High

basketball star Chris Lynch.

“For me, athletics was always an avenue for developing

friendships,” Lynch said. “Sports were never an end for me. It was an

opportunity to develop, and I think the qualities you develop being

part of a team helps you to be a good human being and a good member

of a company.”

Lynch, an All-CIF Southern Section 3-A selection as a two guard

under legendary and late former CdM Coach Jack Errion, played highly

competitive basketball until three years ago, when structural

problems in his feet forced him to retire from the hardwood.

Lynch’s San Francisco-based Olympic Club team, which would often

feature former NBA players and recent college standouts from Bay area

schools like Stanford and the University of Santa Clara, enjoyed

great success in Amateur Athletic Union tournaments.

“I went from a guy who shot a lot at Corona del Mar, to a guy who

never shot and passed a lot,” said Lynch, who started as a junior on

Errion’s celebrated 1981 squad that captured the CIF 3-A championship

with Mark Spinn, Jeff Pries, Steve Moore and sophomore point guard

Mike Hess.

Sometimes life’s best lessons, Lynch believes, are learned while

competing in team sports, and Lynch, who at 38 is expecting to become

a first-time father to a baby boy in late November, hopes to

encourage his future son to play team sports one day.

“Sports gives you such fellowship and an outlet for

competitiveness,” Lynch said. “I’m amazed at all those

characteristics you learn from playing team sports and how it makes

you a valuable member of something outside of sports. How a guy acts

on the court is how he’s going to act in a company situation or

personal dispute. That’s how people act in real life. You know who

you can trust, or you know if a guy shoots all the time, or if a

guy’s willing to play defense or if a guy’s willing to practice

hard.”

Lynch, an attorney by trade who played two years at Dartmouth

before transferring to Stanford (where he did not play basketball),

is thankful to have played competitive basketball until age 35, when

his sore feet told him to take up cycling or surfing. “Those are

solitary things, which is nothing like team sports, like basketball

and baseball,” he said. “I’m not pushing my kid into those sports,

but it would be nice if he did play team sports, because you learn so

much.”

In the 1980-81 season, Lynch (Class of ‘82) was part of an

established lineup early in the campaign under Errion, who called up

Hess from the junior varsity at midseason for the final piece of the

Sea Kings’ puzzle. They would finish 22-5, including victories over

their then-CIF rival, La Quinta, in the 3-A semifinals, 48-29, and

Tustin, 69-54, in the title game. La Quinta had defeated CdM in the

1980 CIF 3-A championship game, 63-52, behind the Aztecs’ standout

junior center, Johnny Rogers, who later played professionally after

an All-American career at UC Irvine.

In Lynch’s senior year, the Sea Kings completed a 20-5 mark as

they captured their second straight Sea View League championship --

sharing the ’82 title with Estancia -- and reached the CIF 3-A

semifinals, losing to St. Bernard, 34-28.

At Dartmouth, Lynch felt isolated in the White Mountains of

Hanover, N.H., a small Ivy League town. “I think I could have been

happy there if I was enjoying playing basketball,” he said. “My

freshman year, only one guy (completed four years in the program) by

the time they were seniors.”

After transferring, Lynch majored in history at Stanford and

graduated in ‘86, then attended Stanford Law School and graduated in

‘89, and has been practicing law ever since, including once working

for the California Supreme Court.

Lynch played one season of basketball in England for a club team

while working for a large London law firm, and spent most of the

1990s playing for the highly respected Olympic Club. “I matured

later,” Lynch said. “I improved more and played more and had more fun

(as an adult) than in college. Paul Akin, another former CdM

basketball standout, plays for the Olympic Club’s masters 40-and-over

team. Akin and Lynch played in the backcourt together on the club’s

traveling squad the last few years Lynch was able to play.

“It was like we found our soul mates (in each other on the court)”

Lynch said. “There was someone who thought the same way about sports

and team work.”

Lynch, the latest honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame,

lives in Seal Beach with his wife, Jill.