Local sports anchor visits Harrington School

LYNN – Swampscott native and Channel 5 Sports Anchor Mike Lynch was back on the North Shore Thursday, reversing roles as fifth graders from the Harrington School had a chance to interview him as part of a project for the Boston Globe.Lynch, who has been trolling the sidelines and locker rooms of area sports teams for Channel 5 for 25 years, visited the school’s Project Summit fifth grade class to tell his story and put inquiring minds at ease about his life and career.The Project Summit class, which consists of “academically talented” fifth graders from several schools across the district, is working on an article for the Boston Globe Fun Pages, a section of the paper that is sponsored by a local school each week.While the main purpose of Lynch’s appearance was to take questions, he kicked off his visit with some words of wisdom for the students. Much to their dismay, he explained that homework does not end after they are out of school, as employees in every profession – especially sports and the media – must do homework every day.”That is the one thing that a pro athlete has in common with all of you is that the homework never stops,” he said, going on to explain how Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez puts in a surprising amount of work before each game. “For a game that starts at 7 at night, Manny will be at the park around 11, hitting balls in the cage. Then he will look at tape of the pitcher he will face that night and study the pitches he will throw with a notebook on his lap. It is not like Manny just shows up five minutes before a game and hits home runs.”The moral of the story is that everyone should remember Lynch’s five P’s, “Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.”Before each broadcast, Lynch said he will sit in the bleachers at Fenway Park or Gillette Stadium by himself, jotting down notes and planning out exactly what he is going to talk about so that he is prepared when the time comes to stand in front of the camera for a live shot.”There are three types of people,” he went on to say. “The people who make things happen, the people who watch things happen and the people who wonder what happened.”The fifth graders followed Lynch’s talk with a slew of questions, ranging from whether or not he gets nervous – only once, when he wasn’t prepared – to his thoughts on the possibility that Yankees Manager Joe Torre could be fired – nice guy, but headed for the unemployment line.Lynch said he always wanted to be a sports broadcaster, despite attending Harvard as a government major with the intent of becoming an attorney, and although long trips prevent him from seeing his family at times, he loves the job because it is always different.”When you are young everybody thinks they are going to be a professional baseball or football or basketball player, but sooner or later some of us realize that is not going to happen, so broadcasting was the next best thing,” he said. “It is a fun job, and I am very lucky to get to do this in the area that I grew up in.”Lynch said that reading as much as possible is essential if students want to follow in his footsteps, because having a large vocabulary and understanding of the language is extremely beneficial to the position.Responding to other questions, Lynch exposed the hazards of the job, from getting clocked in the head with a basketball during a live shot at the Boston Garden, to a chronic inability to clearly say the name of former Kansas City Royals second baseman Frank White.Following his meeting with the Project Summit class, Lynch migrated to the gym where he used to play CYO basketball as a kid to speak to the other fourth and fifth grade classes.After reviewing his five P’s with the other students, he showed an inspirational video from 1997 where he profiled a handicapped student at Tewksbury High School who made the cross-country team in a wheelchair.