Stanford Makes Best of the Unexpected : Football: George planned to turn pro. Lynch once hoped to be a quarterback. Now they key the Cardinal defense.

If Stanford linebacker Ron George doesn’t succeed in the NFL, he has an alternate career choice.

George would like to be a fireman.

“I’m dead serious,” George said. “I don’t know what I want to do with my whole life. I know I don’t want to sit behind a desk for the next five years and waste energy when I could be doing something that’s concrete and based in some sense of reality.”

George, who has ridden along with the Stanford Fire Department, likes the excitement and the danger of fighting fires.

“I’m actively pursing this dream,” George said. “This is not just media talk. This is something I really want to do.”

A 6-foot-2, 220-pound senior, George has helped the Cardinal defense extinguish a lot of backdrafts since transferring from the Air Force Academy in 1989. Named to the All-Pacific 10 Conference team last season, George has led the conference in sacks for two of the last three seasons.

Led by George and strong safety John Lynch, a 6-2, 215-pound senior, Stanford’s defense has helped the No. 11 Cardinal (4-1) win four in a row going into Saturday night’s game against No. 19 UCLA (3-1) at the Rose Bowl, including last week’s 33-16 victory at Notre Dame.

Lynch, a converted quarterback, made nine tackles and forced a fumble that led to a touchdown and intercepted a goal-line pass as Notre Dame was threatening to take the lead in the fourth quarter. Lynch also knocked out Notre Dame’s leading receiver, Lake Dawson, and tailback Reggie Brooks as Stanford blanked Notre Dame in the second half.

Lynch suffered a slight concussion when he was hit by Notre Dame offensive tackle Mike Jerish and sat out three series, during which the Irish scored most of their points.

The conference’s top-ranked defense, Stanford has given an average of 202.8 yards per game, including only 94.2 yards rushing. This is Stanford’s best defense since the 1971 season, when the “Thunderchicken” defense, led by linebacker Jeff Siemon and defensive tackle Dave Tipton, now a Stanford assistant coach, led the team to a 13-12 victory over Michigan in the 1972 Rose Bowl.

“We’ve been talking and it’s about time we get our own nickname if we keep putting up numbers like this,” Lynch said. “This defense is something that has evolved from a defense that wasn’t very good. But we stuck with it and now we’re successful.”

The son of a career Air Force officer, George grew up on an Air Force base in Heidelberg, Germany.

George, who played soccer at Heidelberg American High, didn’t begin playing football until he was a junior. A tight end/defensive end, George developed quickly, making the All-Europe team as a senior.

“Being All-Europe is like being all-state in Vermont,” George said. “It wasn’t like being a California prep All-American. I wasn’t even raw when I came out of high school. I was like the seed they plant to grow sugar cane.”

Recruited by the Air Force Academy on the recommendation of a general who saw him play, George nearly made the Falcons’ traveling squad as a special teams player as a freshman.

A probable starting linebacker as a sophomore, George decided to leave the Academy because he found it difficult to combine academics, football and the military.

“The Academy structures your entire life in a much different manner than any job would or any university or even the military,” George said. “It was a little bit too much. There were too many things going on. I was asked to be a student and a cadet and then I was trying to be a football player. I had three full-time endeavors, but I wasn’t drawing any real experience or knowledge from any of the them. I knew that I had to limit the menu, so I could better taste the food I was being offered.”

Set to transfer to Harvard, George decided to attend Stanford after meeting with former Stanford coach Dennis Green.

“My father came out to Stanford with me and he said, ‘Let’s go see if anyone is in the football office,’ ” George said. “By chance, Denny Green was in his office and he had time and we sat down and talked. Within a half-hour, he sold me on his dream of Stanford football.”

After sitting out the 1989 season because of NCAA transfer rules, George led the Pac-10 in sacks and tackles-for-loss in 1990.

George finished third in the Pac-10 in sacks and second in tackles-for-loss last season as Stanford went 8-3 to earn its first bowl appearance since 1986. The Cardinal won its final seven games, its longest winning streak since 1951, before losing to Georgia Tech in final 14 seconds of the Aloha Bowl.

George was set to give up his final season of eligibility to enter the NFL draft after Green quit to become coach of the Minnesota Vikings last January, but he decided to return when former San Francisco 49er coach Bill Walsh returned to Stanford.

“I had my bags packed,” George said. “I was out the door. Denny Green was leaving and I felt like I’d given Stanford all I could and it was time to play in a Sunday league.”

But George is glad he stayed because he has learned a lot from Walsh, who led the 49ers to three Super Bowl victories.

“We thought he’d just sit up in a tower wearing dark shades and direct coaches who were going to coach us,” George said. “But he’s out there every day teaching. He’s out there on the dummies teaching the linemen how to scoop block and showing the running backs how to find the better hole.”

One of the nation’s most heavily recruited prep quarterbacks after playing at Torrey Pines High, Lynch signed in 1989 with Stanford, where he thought he would be the next John Elway.

But after playing in only eight games during his first two seasons at Stanford, Lynch asked to be moved to strong safety.

“It was a tough situation,” Lynch said. “You come in here pumped up by the recruiting process and you expect to be a world beater right away. I came in thinking I was going to start as a freshman and when that didn’t happen it was a letdown. I just didn’t feel like I was contributing and it crushed me. When I’d get in the game it was basically garbage time.”

Lynch’s father, John, a former linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers who is chairman and chief executive officer of the company that owns San Diego sports radio station XTRA, was shocked when his son moved to defense. Lynch, who coached his son in football and baseball as a youth, had consulted with him on every major decision.

“He didn’t even ask me about it,” the elder Lynch said. “He just called and said he was the starting safety and I was really quite upset about it. It was one of the most frustrating parts of our lives because John was one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks in the country.

“But John just got frustrated, so he made a decision he felt he’d be happy with. I guess that’s what growing up is all about.”

After starting Stanford’s first two games at strong safety last season, Lynch became a reserve, playing in the Cardinal’s pass defense.

“My knowledge of the game as quarterback helps a lot,” Lynch said. “I know how offenses operate. But I had some growing pains last year. It was tough to step in when you haven’t played defense in four or five years, and I made a couple mistakes just from lack of experience last season.”

But Lynch has developed into one of the top defensive backs in the Pac-10. Stanford’s leading tackler, Lynch is tied for the team lead with two interceptions.

Lynch is perhaps Stanford’s best two-sport athlete since Elway, who played in the New York Yankees’ minor league system before he gave up baseball to play for the Denver Broncos.

After pitching, playing in the outfield and serving as the designated hitter for the Cardinal baseball team for three seasons, Lynch was drafted in the second round (66th pick) by the expansion Florida Marlins last June. A starting pitcher for the Marlins’ Class-A team in Erie, Pa., last summer, he compiled an 0-3 record with a 2.13 earned-run average.

“It’s terribly tough to play baseball and football at Stanford,” Lynch said. “Playing both I don’t think I ever fully developed in either one because I could never spend full time on each of them. I think there’s athletes like Bo (Jackson) and Deion (Sanders) who are so good that they can do whatever they want. But I felt I was becoming a jack of all trades and a master of none.”

He may be mastering football.