Carmen Policy joined KNBR 1050’s The Audible Thursday morning for a marathon 30 minute interview touching a variety of topics.
The former 49ers CEO spoke eloquently of Dwight Clark, his battle with ALS and how strong of a family the 49ers have built throughout the years — a must listen portion of the interview.
The segment steered to the current regime and Policy could barely contain his excitement about new general manager John Lynch — and even said San Francisco came close a couple of times to acquiring him.
“I’m somewhat upbeat about the moves for a couple of reasons,” Policy began. “Number one, I remember John Lynch when he was playing at Stanford — we always had him on our board. We always had him on the personnel board, the draft board. We always watched him. We were very close to the Stanford football organization, as well as the university. We would pick up all of the information that would filter down from Palo Alto relating to John Lynch and it was all positive. All positive. Just what you’ve been reading about him, that’s what they used to say about him back when he was in college.
“Then I got to know him a little bit. We kind of came close a couple of times to grabbing him — when I say we, I mean the 49ers. When this whole business started emerging about him being possibly considered, my friends at FOX gave me a rundown on him, which was very impressive. They said, ‘This guy always showed up prepared, he was ready, he worked hard.’ He was a good team player. If there were things outside of his purview that he could do to help with the overall process with all the other announcing teams, he said he would do it. They said he was the ideal model employee.”
And what about Kyle Shanahan? Policy said he remains close with Mike Shanahan from his days as offensive coordinator with the 49ers. Kyle would hang around the team during the summers, but he wasn’t the typical coaches son.
“He paid attention a lot,” Policy remembered. “He wasn’t just the kid spending time with the team during the summer. They used to tell me — and I have to be honest I wasn’t in a position to form this evaluation firsthand — but they said he was like, ‘What’s going on here? Why is it going on?’ And he paid attention. And it was like he was truly absorbing what was going on in an almost intellectual way.
“I think he’s got the right situation for his personality. Having John Lynch there — let John Lynch be the face, let John Lynch be the spokesperson for the team and so forth. And yet we both know, John Lynch is not going to go in there and tell him how to coach the team. So I think for the first time, in a long time, there seems to be harmony in that front office. And with that harmony you have the opportunity and the environment to build something solid.”