Hail Flutie
On this day 40 years ago, I was bummed out about a Boston College football loss. Only, I hadn't heard the game until the very end.
“I didn’t think he could throw the ball that far. For a little kid, he throws the thing like a monster.”
~Gerard Phelan, wide receiver, referring to his roommate, Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie, November 23, 1984
On this day 40 years ago, on break from my McDonald’s restaurant shift in the Boston suburbs, I listened to the end of the Boston College-University of Miami football game.
Well, it was close enough to the end, I figured.
There were six seconds left and I had to get back to work. The ball was around midfield. Miami was up 45-41. Crestfallen, I turned off the radio and returned to the grill.
I’d attended Boston College football games several times over the years and had grown into a big fan. Like just about everyone else, I was also smitten with the Eagles’ dynamic quarterback, Doug Flutie.
An hour or so later, I saw a friend come into the lobby. I came up to the counter from the kitchen and greeted him: “Hey, Dan. Too bad about B.C., huh?”
“What do you mean?” he replied with a smirk. “They won!”
Memories get more deeply embedded when they are tied especially strongly to an emotion. The unexpected joy I felt in that moment was so deep that it remains to this day, nearly 15,000 days later.
Nine months later, as I punched out from my last shift at McDonald’s, my expression resembled my reaction to this extraordinary news. (Just through that doorway behind me was the breakroom where I’d lamented Boston College’s apparent loss.)
Though I was late to the news when it first happened, I’ve since compensated for that by replaying it countless times, both in my mind and on various electronic devices. Whether you’ve never seen it, make it a part of your daily routine, or are somewhere in between, I invite you to check it out here:
And below is a longer version, which includes this bit of intrigue that I’d forgotten: moments before the final play, referees whistled that play dead after a Hurricane defensive lineman jumped into the neutral zone and caused an Eagle to jump.
The ref’s microphone was barely audible when he made an explanation moments later. Curiously and disappointingly, the broadcast team made no attempt to explain the ruling—perhaps they couldn’t hear what the zebra said, either.
In any event, the ball was neither moved forward nor back five yards; the officiating crew essentially punted on rendering judgment.
Who’s to say with any certainty what would have happened if a whistle had not been blown and that action had been allowed to unfold? Would the game have ended in a different type of “Hail Flutie,” as the game was christened? I really doubt it.
As it turned out, the fateful final play was snapped from the same spot, the Miami 48-yard-line. If it had been the Eagles’ 47-yard-line (had B.C. been flagged for a false start), it’s doubtful the desperation heave1 would have made it a few yards deep into the end zone where a tumbling Gerard Phelan hauled it in.
Phelan being the one who caught the pass was an extra special layer for me as a 16-year-old: the previous fall, he had been the keynote speaker at my high school football team’s post-season banquet, creating a quasi-personal connection.
The following weekend, Flutie won the Heisman Trophy. He went on to a successful professional football career for 20 years in the upstart USFL, then the NFL, then the CFL in Canada, and finally back to the NFL where he was a Pro Bowler one year.
Before finally retiring at 43 years old, Flutie had long since won over skeptics who doubted the potential for someone with his 5-foot-10 frame to play professionally. “Hail Flutie” was not just one game, but the theme of his entire career.
As for me, I have become much more diligent in watching (or listening) to games until the very end.
After Flutie scrambled away from pressure 14 yards behind the line of scrimmage, the pigskin traveled 64 yards through the Miami air. The distance is what prompted Phelan’s remark that appears at the top of this column.
Hi, Matt. I have a few reactions to this post:
1. Flutie's jersey number was 22 and Kosar's was 20. I don't ever recall seeing QBs with numbers that high.
2. Your image of the Trib's sports front shows that the game was played on a Friday. That surprised me; I thought Friday-night college football was a relatively new thing.
3. Interesting that a game between two faraway schools led a Chicago sports section. I'd be curious to know how and why that decision was made.
4. While you were grilling Big Macs in Boston, I was making milkshakes in Minneapolis. I worked at a Baskin-Robbins.
--Todd
At the time I did not pay attention to how far he threw it. Yeah, 64 yds in the air. Amazing.
As far as being short, yeah, that is a problem. But then again HOFer Sonny Jurgenson - the best "pure passer" of his generation - was only one inch taller as is future HOFer Russel Wilson (to say nothing about Davy O'Brien and Eddie LeBaron who were several inches shorter).