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Flutie Won 1984 Heisman Trophy
POSTED: 6:35 am PDT May 16, 2006
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- Doug Flutie has plenty to keep him busy: dance recitals for his daughter Alexa, fundraisers for autistic children like his son Doug Jr., and games his nephews play in.
And he has more time to devote to them now that he's retired from the job he did with a rare flair for nearly half his life.
He captivated fans in three football leagues and two countries with a one-of-a kind style that showed critics he wasn't too small or too much of a scrambler to succeed. There are other activities awaiting the 43-year-old ex-Patriots quarterback with the energy of a teenager.
He'll play in a spring baseball league with his brothers, maybe some hockey and basketball and -- as he did at Boston College basketball games in recent years -- perhaps sit in on drums with the school band.
"I'm just a big kid," Flutie said, wearing jeans and sneakers at his retirement news conference Monday. "I enjoy playing. ... It could be in the backyard as far as I'm concerned."
He won the Heisman Trophy and threw one of college football's most famous passes in 1984, a 48-yard desperation touchdown to Gerard Phelan as time expired in BC's 47-45 upset at Miami.
Phelan, an executive with a Boston printing company, said Monday, "If he knew he was going out there to play and start, he would not retire, (but) Sundays are frustrating."
Flutie is returning to the college game as a studio analyst for ABC on Saturdays and will appear on ESPN shows. He also may cover games.
As a quarterback, he was the six-time most outstanding player in the Canadian Football League. He played in one Pro Bowl in 12 NFL seasons with Chicago, Buffalo, San Diego and New England. He threw for 14,715 yards and 86 touchdowns in the NFL.
In all, he played 21 pro seasons, including one in the U.S. Football League and eight in the CFL, where he won three championships.
He returned to his home state for his last season as backup to Tom Brady with New England.
"To finish it up by getting back here was very special," said Flutie, a resident of nearby Natick who revealed Monday he was one-eighth inch shorter than his listed height of 5-feet-10.
He threw 10 passes in five games last season, found the preparation tough without the fun of playing in a game and was concerned about his knees after undergoing arthroscopic surgery twice in the past two years.
And there's his family.
Alexa has an internship with the Boston Ballet. At Monday's news conference, Patriots owner Robert Kraft presented a check from his family for $22,000 to the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism.
Flutie, his knees feeling better, plans to run this weekend in a race to raise money for the foundation.
"I talked to Alexa today and she's like, `You don't have to do this. Play one more year. I'm 18 years old. I can be a Patriots cheerleader,"' Flutie said. "I'm at the point where I enjoy watching my nephews play ball actually more than stepping on the field myself."
One of them will be a freshman quarterback at BC in the fall, like his uncle 25 years earlier.
But in his last four seasons, the first three with San Diego, Flutie played in just 15 games.
"That emotional tie to the other players on the team isn't always there when you're not in the battle," Flutie said.
He regained that on the final play of his career when he made the NFL's first drop kick since the 1941 title game. He leaped for joy and hugged smiling coach Bill Belichick in the season finale against Miami.
"The last three or four years, it really hasn't been a lot of fun," Flutie said. "Bill putting that drop kick in for me kind of threw the fun back into the game.
"Finding a way to win and having fun doing it," he said. "That's been my approach throughout my life."
Watching him was fun for fans.
The way Flutie "has taken over this region as an athlete," Belichick said, "has been remarkable."
Kraft called Flutie "a young man who loves the game, who always entertained us."
Flutie returned from the CFL to play for Buffalo in 1998, the year he made the Pro Bowl after other NFL coaches wouldn't gear their offenses toward his running ability.
"I came back from Canada with a fresh new outlook and really didn't care what (critics) thought as much," Flutie said. "At that point, it was all gravy. I felt, honestly, at 35 years old, I was ready to retire and decided, oh, let's give it a shot, two more years."
A.J. Smith, Buffalo's director of pro personnel at the time and now San Diego's general manager, said, "I just thought he was just a terrific player, an exception to the rule."
Thirty of his 66 NFL starts came with Buffalo but he was far more successful in the CFL, where he called his own plays and scrambled on bigger fields.
Still, Flutie spent his farewell news conference with smiles and no sign of regrets.
And with a recitation from "Lucky Man," a Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
" `If I did it all again, I'd be happy until the end. I'm a lucky man,' " Flutie said, "and that is exactly how I feel."
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | |
