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Carroll County Times
Sports |
| In Remembrance: Flynn a coach that sincerely cared |
| By Josh Land, Times Staff Writer
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Friday, January 19, 2007 |
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Good people like Bob Flynn don’t deserve a funeral before a 50th birthday.
It doesn’t seem right or fair that the McDaniel men’s basketball coach — a genuine, selfless and passionate person — died Friday at the young age of 49, leaving behind his wife and three children.
I met Flynn about 1 1/2 years ago, but have only really known him personally since September.
In that short time, we developed both a working relationship and something a little more, which is rare in this business and in my own experiences.
He loved talking about basketball. But we would also delve into other things.
We would talk about family, discussing such subjects as his planned move to Carroll County from Catonsville and whether he’d send his 12-year-old twin sons to Cardinal Gibbons, his alma mater, or through the county’s public school system.
We spoke about his players, who he loved as people. He always seemed to most enjoy discussing the personalities on his team rather than their basketball attributes.
That’s who he was.
He truly seemed to care.
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I most appreciated the way he treated me. He never treated me like only a reporter closely scrutinizing his team, frequently asking me about my goals in life and offering his own.
He’d go out of his way to say something encouraging about the way we covered his team, even after reading something “negative.”
(And for those at McDaniel: He loved it there. He told me multiple times that he had no designs of looking at a bigger job in the distant future, not even at Division I, not at a school he attended or anything. Flynn spoke like he was comfortable as Green Terror head coach and that it was a job he could see himself occupying for many years.)
I got to experience first-hand the distinctive quality that made Flynn who he was — he had this way of boosting people’s self-esteem, making them feel good about themselves and making them feel like they are special in his eyes.
His players have said they felt that. His assistants, too.
I felt that. Almost every day I saw him.
All that was true despite my job.
I didn’t always write the most positive things about his program, as I set out to objectively cover the team. And Flynn more than understood.
He was as cooperative as any coach I’ve ever dealt with — more friendly, accommodating, accessible and open. He was always upbeat, even after tragedies in his life that would’ve had a crippling effect on many.
Flynn influenced countless lives, as evidenced Thursday by the standing-room-only turnout at his funeral and the mile-long processional to the cemetery which followed.
I respected Flynn for his grasp of basketball’s place. He seemed more intent on using it to better the lives of others than to win for personal benefit.
His involvement in the sport, in educating players, was never about him.
Flynn’s loss is a great blow to McDaniel College, and to area basketballers in general. He had the Green Terror on an emotional upswing, getting the community involved with a program that had become largely irrelevant.
Covering Bob Flynn and his team never felt like a job.
Because he was a friend.
And along with his wife, Tina, his his three children and the rest of family, all the players he coached, all the coaches he worked with or against, and the hundreds who overfilled St. Mark Roman Catholic Church in Catonsville on Thursday, I will miss him.
Josh Land is the Times’ college sports beat writer. Reach him at 410-857-7875 or jland@lcniofmd.com.
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