Accident taught ex-Bronco true value of life

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Accident taught ex-Bronco true value of life
By Thomas George
Denver Post Staff Columnist


NFL players enjoy the enthusiasm that sprouts on the first day of training camp. But little matches their glee when the last day springs.

After four weeks of work that leaves them scorched and pooped, they bolt camp in unison. It is as if each is a world-class sprinter.

The Eagles are already at work. The Broncos follow Thursday. No team avoids camp labor by next Sunday.

The training camp I remember most was when the Raiders worked in Oxnard, Calif., in 1989. A youthful, bouncy Mike Shanahan had just completed his second Raiders camp as coach. Hopes were lofty. The players were feisty. Camp broke.

A warm August day.

That night the players celebrated in a local club that was theirs for the evening. Food was plentiful, and drinks flowed. It was a merry, together group.

Afterward, some headed back to Los Angeles.

Among them was stout safety Stacey Toran. He never made it. He died of multiple head and chest injuries in an automobile accident when he lost control of his car one block from his home.

The Raiders began the season 1-3. Shanahan was fired and the season - even with the historic arrival of an African-American, Art Shell, as coach - remained gloomy.

Speed forward to the training camp held last season in Oxnard. The Raiders were not there. Oxnard is now the home of the Cowboys' camp. It was the last day of camp.

A warm August day.

Anthony Lynn, the Cowboys' running backs coach, a running back on Denver's two world champion teams, had heard about a snappy pizza spot in town. Finally, with camp over, he thought he would get to it. Grab a slice.

As he left the place and crossed the road, a car traveling 55 mph driven by a drunken driver hit him.

"I flew 45 feet into the air," Lynn recalled. "I totaled his car. The car I landed on was totaled.

"All I remember was lying on the cold pavement and shaking. I did not know who I was or where I was. I did not know I was a father, a husband, a football coach. I started praying. The only thing that made sense to me was God."

He began recognizing voices in the ambulance. At the hospital, it was discovered both of his lungs collapsed. Three ribs were broken. Plastic surgery was required on his face.

Within 20 minutes of being in the hospital, he remembers Cowboys owner Jerry Jones standing by his bed, holding his hand. Soon his wife, Cynda, and children D'Anton (16) and Danielle (12) were by his side.

It was unclear if Lynn would walk again.

But he was up and walking in four days. Out of the hospital in a week. Back coaching a few days after that. Back for shoulder surgery earlier in this offseason. More plastic surgery last week.

He reports to Oxnard for Cowboys camp this week.

"My grandfather, Tommy Lynn, he was hard on me, worked me," Lynn said of his childhood on a farm in Celina, Texas, a city 40 miles north of Dallas. "He expected you up for breakfast, flapjacks and homemade grits, at 6 a.m. I got there at 6:05 one morning. The table was cleared. And I still had to work the farm. So, I started getting to the table at 5:55 in the morning."

He learned to work early.

And how to go about his work.

After Texas Tech football, Lynn was a free agent cut by the Giants in 1992. Denver signed him in 1993. After two 49ers seasons, he returned to Denver in 1997 and showed his teammates the value of determined work. He retired in training camp in 2000, and Shanahan found a place for him on the Broncos' staff.

Lynn, 37, has been coaching since, with the Jaguars before joining Dallas last year. He credits Shanahan for giving him the start. Lynn's passion has become coaching. His life has become more enriched.

He has a message for every single player who reports to NFL camps this week. Really, one for us all:

"Bill Parcells told me before he had his heart surgery how he was before, how sometimes he thought he was immortal, that things couldn't happen to him," Lynn said.

"How did this happen to me? Sometimes, I guess, we get a little full of ourselves. We think things can't happen to us. We are not aware. A lot of times we can see that in other people, but not in ourselves.

"Five seconds before I was hit by that car, I was living life that way. That conversation with Bill made me realize that. It hit me right between the eyes."

http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_4083994
 
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