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.
Good observations, Todd....yeah, rare high numbers for QBs. Those numbers also matched their ages at the time---Bernie would turn 21 only two days later. This was the day after Thanksgiving, hence the unusual Friday night action. Also, hence why I was working on a Friday instead of being at school! I usually worked only on weekends during the school year. I want a Baskin-Robbins story from you by Friday---350-500 words, please :-)
p.s. I've added the Boston Globe's page 1 sports too....I hadn't dug that one up already, which was an oversight. I surely must have read this account way back then, since I consumed it voraciously for years by that point.
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).
Even among New York third graders, I can tell you that the excitement around Flutie and the miracle pass were remarkable....I see a real parallel between Tim Tebow and Flutie. Both were inspirational college stars and Heisman winners around whom the public formed an obsession. There were believers in both as potential pros, while most people fashioned themselves as serious and maintained self-respect because they understood this faith as utter nonsense.
Josh McDaniels was apparently one of the third graders at heart, taking Tebow in the first round. He continued pulling off miracles in the pros in his second year, although putting up woefully bad statistics, and descended from there, first to the bench, then to other positions, and then out of the league.
Where Flutie would have gone in the NFL draft if the Generals hadn't interceded, I don't know. He certainly had his struggles there and with the Bears, where he was largely blamed for not allowing the '85 team to repeat. But then, later in his career, as you say, he wrote a very different story, and found a way to succeed.
I know with Tebow mania there was some more there, namely the religious element. But I am interested in the way in which previous figures influence our perception of later ones. It's like we don't separate them, don't manage to see them as new people. I think the Flutie storyline was in people's minds when it came to Tebow, whether they realized it or not. Tebow played the Flutie role. But maybe this is the perspective of someone speaking who was in third grade when Flutie was doing his thing, and doesn't realize that Flutie himself came in the wake of others. The college football mythical quarterback hero is obviously a thing.
Politics is where I really see this transference. I would say the real Hillary Clinton was hard to see because the history of Eleanor Roosevelt so dominated the way that people saw her. They imagined this threat and these transgressive steps that Hillary really didn't represent. And I know that HC, in turn, has been in people's mind when they've evaluated more recent female politicians, but you never heard them say it.
You make some good points. But this is where I disagree with you regarding Tebow playing the "Flutie" role. What ever role Tebow played, it was not the Flutie role. Flutie was an inspiration because he, a "small" man, was succeeding beyond expectations, in a game played by very big men. Now if you ever looked at Tebow with his shirt off and realized he was almost 240# of solid muscle, there was absolutely no comparison. Physically Tebow was a beast. The knock on Tebow which proved prescient was that he had terrible throwing mechanics. Perhaps the average fan was hoping that Tim would prove the experts all wrong, as often happens. Not this time however.
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
Good observations, Todd....yeah, rare high numbers for QBs. Those numbers also matched their ages at the time---Bernie would turn 21 only two days later. This was the day after Thanksgiving, hence the unusual Friday night action. Also, hence why I was working on a Friday instead of being at school! I usually worked only on weekends during the school year. I want a Baskin-Robbins story from you by Friday---350-500 words, please :-)
p.s. I've added the Boston Globe's page 1 sports too....I hadn't dug that one up already, which was an oversight. I surely must have read this account way back then, since I consumed it voraciously for years by that point.
Jack in the Box for me, circa 73 to 76 though. Before they left the Chicago market. I heard they're returning!
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).
Soon to be HOFer Drew Breese is short too I think. 6' Google says.
Even among New York third graders, I can tell you that the excitement around Flutie and the miracle pass were remarkable....I see a real parallel between Tim Tebow and Flutie. Both were inspirational college stars and Heisman winners around whom the public formed an obsession. There were believers in both as potential pros, while most people fashioned themselves as serious and maintained self-respect because they understood this faith as utter nonsense.
Josh McDaniels was apparently one of the third graders at heart, taking Tebow in the first round. He continued pulling off miracles in the pros in his second year, although putting up woefully bad statistics, and descended from there, first to the bench, then to other positions, and then out of the league.
Where Flutie would have gone in the NFL draft if the Generals hadn't interceded, I don't know. He certainly had his struggles there and with the Bears, where he was largely blamed for not allowing the '85 team to repeat. But then, later in his career, as you say, he wrote a very different story, and found a way to succeed.
I know with Tebow mania there was some more there, namely the religious element. But I am interested in the way in which previous figures influence our perception of later ones. It's like we don't separate them, don't manage to see them as new people. I think the Flutie storyline was in people's minds when it came to Tebow, whether they realized it or not. Tebow played the Flutie role. But maybe this is the perspective of someone speaking who was in third grade when Flutie was doing his thing, and doesn't realize that Flutie himself came in the wake of others. The college football mythical quarterback hero is obviously a thing.
Politics is where I really see this transference. I would say the real Hillary Clinton was hard to see because the history of Eleanor Roosevelt so dominated the way that people saw her. They imagined this threat and these transgressive steps that Hillary really didn't represent. And I know that HC, in turn, has been in people's mind when they've evaluated more recent female politicians, but you never heard them say it.
You make some good points. But this is where I disagree with you regarding Tebow playing the "Flutie" role. What ever role Tebow played, it was not the Flutie role. Flutie was an inspiration because he, a "small" man, was succeeding beyond expectations, in a game played by very big men. Now if you ever looked at Tebow with his shirt off and realized he was almost 240# of solid muscle, there was absolutely no comparison. Physically Tebow was a beast. The knock on Tebow which proved prescient was that he had terrible throwing mechanics. Perhaps the average fan was hoping that Tim would prove the experts all wrong, as often happens. Not this time however.
That goes without saying. I never implied the cases were identical!