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5'9 3/4 tall, 21 seasons in the pros, countless doubters proven wrong
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
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00:08Hello I'm Chris Fowler and welcome to SportsCentury. Standing five nine and three quarters in his
00:14socks, Doug Flutie has made a career at approving he can play with the big boys. Yes sir. In the
00:19process he's silenced some of his critics and done some amazing things including one fortuitous
00:24game-winning pass in college that'll be watched for generations. But in the years since that
00:29Hail Mary was answered Flutie has built a legacy of defying the conventional wisdom. It begins
00:35with the purity of his athleticism. The dynamic that he brought to the game was great athleticism
00:47in the classic schoolyard sense and a chip the size of a lumber yard. I think that's
00:53what drove Doug. Flutie! Flutie! Flutie! Flutie! Touchdown!
01:25Doug's career is about winning. All this other stuff is sort of secondary that folks talk about.
01:31Is he big enough? Can he throw it downfield? Doug is really wired to win. Doug Flutie is a natural
01:38and naturals come in all sizes. He's instinctive, he's mobile, he can focus downfield and throw an
01:46accurate ball. He just has a way of getting out into the open, getting the ball downfield and he
01:58has that thirst at zero to sixty and five yards he can take off. He always was aggressive, always had
02:12that killer instinct, but he also had the intellectual capacity to understand the game. For great
02:19quarterbacks, the game moves in slow motion. You would never want your kid to learn how to play
02:24quarterback watching Doug Flutie. However, put him in a ballgame, make a play break down, and that's
02:30when he's at his best. At-libbing was his time.
02:33Oh, wow. Nice move. He made it to cut back inside on Clemens, and now he's going to go all
02:37the way!
02:39You know, one of the first times he played, he started running down the field with the ball,
02:44and all of a sudden he just threw it backwards to Thurman Thomas on the side. He's already ten yards
02:48down the field. And Thurman made about 15 more yards, and everybody just went, ah!
02:53That's smart. I think a lot of the things that Doug carried on the field, you know, he was confident,
02:58to borderline arrogance, and he made plays out there that most quarterbacks wouldn't even think
03:04of making. But a lot of times, I think it carried over to arrogance. He rubbed a lot of people
03:08the
03:08wrong way. To do what Doug has done over all these years, I think you have to... Doug Flutie's a
03:14good
03:14guy. If people were rubbed the wrong way by him, that's tough. He scrapped and fought for everything he
03:24got.
03:25Played with a certain passion and a certain motivation, but I think the problem with that is Doug took it
03:31to
03:31another level to where anything critical said of him, he became very insecure about and would rarely
03:37accept the blame. A typical comment from Doug would be, yeah, you know what? I really shouldn't have
03:43thrown that ball on that interception. But there would always be a but. And I think that rubbed a lot
03:52of
03:52his teammates the wrong way. Doug expected so much of himself, that translated into him expecting so
03:58much out of his team. And if others fell short, it may have been that a perception of observers that
04:06Doug didn't feel they were worthy and have anything to do with personalities, had everything to do with
04:12competition, wanting to win. Success is almost his reason for living. It was almost an insecurity that if
04:19I don't do it, I'm not worthy.
04:24In November of 1984, Doug Flutie became part of college football lore when Boston College engaged in
04:31a shootout with defending national champion Miami in the Orange Bowl. Either defense could not stop
04:37the offense. And it was really a situation where the last team that had the ball was probably going to
04:45win
04:45the game. Down 41-38 with less than a minute to play, Miami with Bernie Kosar at the helm drove
04:52deep into
04:53B.C. territory. Doug comes up and I'm on the sidelines and he says, Barry, tell coach to let him
04:59score. I said,
05:01what do you mean let him score? He said it was a straight. He says, they're going to score anyway.
05:04They've been
05:04scoring all day. Just give me the ball back with enough time.
05:09Kosar, takes, Bratton, down. Touchdown, Miami! Miami leads it 44-41! 28 seconds left in the game!
05:18You can underline all his leadership after Bratton scored and the famous shot of him on the sidelines.
05:28Just kind of smiling, nodding his hand. Okay, time to go to work. I can remember being in the stands
05:35and
05:35I gotta admit everybody in this section thought the game was over, packing up, walking out. But I have to
05:40tell you this, 28 seconds left with Doug Cluney is an eternity! After 22 seconds had elapsed, Boston
05:50College trailing 45-41 stood at the Hurricanes 48. Well, Miami one play away from a big win over B
05:57.C.
05:58Unless Doug Flutie in the final play of this game can pull off another miracle. We just jumped into
06:04the huddle and there was really no conversation other than the call of the play. We called it flood tip.
06:09My own twist on it is to hang on to the ball as long as I could. Let the receivers
06:13get down. Everybody
06:15is in the end zone looking up at the ball together. So that's why I scrambled out to the right.
06:20I got out on the...
06:24Rip. Flutie is back. Four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one second. This game is over.
06:31Hail Mary, team! Let's go. He got it! He got it! He got it! Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown Boston College!
06:42He did it! He did it! He did it! Flutie did it!
06:49I assumed the ball was incomplete and all of a sudden I saw the official's arms go up in the
06:53back
06:54of the end zone and I started kind of laughing to myself like you gotta be kidding me.
06:58I don't believe it! Boston College has won! Oh my goodness! Miami... Oh that's the...
07:05The arm strength somebody has to have to throw it 65 yards and it drops into the receiver's hands.
07:12Overall the defenders dropped into the receiver's hands without being tipped.
07:17He didn't need a tip to to get it to the receiver.
07:22It was basically a 65 yard pass to one guy.
07:27Oh that's awful!
07:30The play passed into sports history under the title of Hail Mary and its creator was tagged with the
07:37rep of a miracle worker. When you heard the name Doug Flutie right away in your mind, you know,
07:43that game, the heroics, the winning when things were at the optimal worst, all that leaped into your mind.
07:49And that's never going to go away.
07:59Born in Baltimore on October 23, 1962, the third of four children to Joan and Richard Flutie,
08:06Doug was six when his family moved to Melbourne Beach, Florida, where he soon began to show signs of the
08:12future.
08:13Doug is the type of person that if he walked off the field, he's lost a game. He's just absolutely
08:18miserable.
08:19He replays every play what he could have done better.
08:22He was very analytical. Did you see this? And did you see that? And you know what would have happened
08:27if this had happened and that had happened?
08:31But concerns in the Flutie home weren't always limited to such simple matters.
08:36Money was really tight when we were growing up. My father worked long days. My mother was home with us.
08:43And I don't want this to sound wrong, but it made you strive for something a little bit more.
08:49I remember Doug organizing his siblings and they'd go out and go around and collect bottles and get
08:58money for it because dad's paycheck wasn't coming in until Friday.
09:03In high school even, he gave up baseball for a year to work to help the family out.
09:09We wouldn't pay a bill a couple months just so they could have their baseball shoes.
09:15I didn't realize that everybody else didn't fight these issues at times. Leaving bath water, you know,
09:21leaving it in there for the next guy to take a bath or things like that.
09:27In 1976, the Fluties moved again, this time to Natick, Massachusetts, a working class suburb of Boston.
09:34In high school, Doug started a quarterback as a sophomore. Although he earned all state honors as a senior,
09:40Boston College was the only division one ace. Doug Flutie was born in 63 and this footage is like from
09:48the late 70s. Why does it look like it's from the 30s?
09:54school to offer him a football scholarship. When we saw him on tape, we saw him kick a winning
10:00field goal. He had never kicked a field goal in his life. Saw him have two interceptions in a game.
10:04Saw him run for two touchdowns in another game. All he did was make plays. So we knew
10:10he would play someplace for us.
10:15Flutie started his freshman season as BC's number four quarterback. During a shellacking by Penn State,
10:22he entered the game in the fourth quarter and threw for 135 yards and a touchdown.
10:26This is Flutie, touchdown Boston College. Well, I'll tell you that Flutie boy can cock and fire the
10:33football and I put it back. Doug's great good fortune at Boston College to have Jack McNeil as a coach.
10:39And he had not the slightest hesitation in giving the keys to the car, to the daring young man who
10:45was going to be driving it at 85 miles an hour. You always knew when he was on the field,
10:52you had a chance to win or you were going to win. That's what Doug Flutie did is he raised
10:58the level
10:58of talent around him. As a softball, too, Flutie led the Eagles to their first bowl game since New Year's
11:08day 1943 and then took them to two more, including a win over Houston in the 1985 Cotton Bowl.
11:15Flutie was a phenomenon. He played in a professional market and made himself the second biggest star in
11:25town over a two-year period, the biggest being Larry Bird. Boston College is the hottest campus
11:31in America today in terms of applications. Kids want to go there and there's been an explosion of
11:37building. He's responsible for the building of not one, but two athletic complexes that have followed
11:43him. If you had removed Doug Flutie from the equation, I can assure you that their athletic program would
11:47look nothing like they do today. Flutie's fame was not limited to New England. While leading the Eagles to
11:5527 victories in his last three seasons, he became the first division 1A quarterback to pass for 10,000
12:01yards. As a senior in 1984, Flutie won the Heisman Trophy. Yet the 175-pounder was not viewed by the
12:09NFL
12:09as prime material. People looked at him and said, A, he's too short. B, he hates playing in the pocket.
12:18He'll never take him because of either of those things. Will you wait for the NFL draft? I'd like
12:24to wait. Chances are that I will wait, but if New Jersey were to come around and make the offer
12:31something that I felt the NFL couldn't compete with, then maybe I wouldn't wait. Soon after,
12:37Flutie signed a six-year, $8.3 million contract with the New Jersey Generals of the USFL and in 1985
12:44led them into the playoffs by throwing and running for more than 2,500 yards in 15 games.
12:50Yep. But in August of 1986, the USFL folded, leaving Flutie to look for a new home.
13:01It's a game that I can excel at, and I hope I do.
13:04In 1990, after two unsuccessful stops in the NFL, Doug Flutie headed north to the British Columbia
13:10Lions of the Canadian Football League, where the larger fields and different rules would free up
13:16his scrambling style. With only three downs to work with as opposed to four, Doug was able to
13:22simulate information, understand the defense, use his athletic ability with the unlimited motion
13:27in short periods of time and run all day long and wear out defenses. I think the number one reason
13:34I had fun in Canada was the coaches recognized an ability that I had on the field and let me
13:42go.
13:45During eight seasons with three teams in Canada, Flutie won six most outstanding player awards and led
13:51Calgary and Toronto to three CFL championships. He came up to Canada, he set records, he won championships,
13:59but people weren't taking him seriously because they were saying,
14:01well, that's in Canada, Doug. You've done nothing in the national football league.
14:07In 1986, Flutie's NFL career began on a sour note when the defending champion Bears acquired him
14:14following the dissolution of the USFL. Quarterback Jim McMahon would become vocal in his derision of
14:20Flutie's relatively small stature by calling him Bambi and America's Midget.
14:26I think there's a lot of unhappy ballplayers here right now.
14:28I know it's not sitting well with a bunch of players.
14:31We were very cliquish at that time. We really didn't absorb outsiders very friendly, especially
14:38quarterbacks. The worst thing that could have happened to Doug was that Coach Dicker really liked
14:42Doug. He loved the fact that Doug was a winner and he made no bones about it. He talked about
14:47it in the
14:47media, he talked about it in the press. He told us and I think some guys resented that.
14:51Flutie was traded to New England in October 1987, but played little. The next season, he came off the
14:58bench to spark the Patriots to a comeback win and then led them to six victories over his next nine
15:03starts. But after completing only 36 of 91 passes in 1989, he was released.
15:10He was very upset. He would have loved to have his career in New England. It'll always be home. But
15:18more
15:18than that, more than the proximity to home, it was the idea that he never felt he got the chance.
15:27After conquering Canadian football, Flutie got a third chance to make his mark in the NFL. In 1998,
15:34he signed with Buffalo.
15:35I was convinced that they believe in me. There's no prejudices or thoughts going into it that I'm
15:44going to get a legitimate opportunity.
15:45Flutie came to Buffalo feeling he was going to be the starting quarterback and they surprised him by
15:51bringing in Rob Johnson. Doug Flutie didn't like that. I mean, why would he want somebody to be
15:56brought in that could take away his playing time?
16:00In game five, Flutie replaced the injured Rob Johnson and led the Bills to victory.
16:05The following week against the undefeated Jaguars, he finished his first NFL start in nine years with
16:11a game-winning flourish. I remember asking John Butler, who was the general manager in the locker
16:24room after that Jacksonville game, do you believe in Flutie magic? And he said, you know, he said,
16:28I do now. It was absolutely insane. They called it Flutie Mania. Right before that, we had launched
16:34what was called Flutie Flakes. They predicted that cereal box to sell about 60,000 units in year one.
16:39It sold out in week one. Little old ladies came out of the woodwork to wear Doug Flutie jerseys at
16:45Bills games. He was little, he was fun, and suddenly they started winning. You could argue that Doug saved
16:53the franchise in many respects because they started winning and the sales of the club seats and the
16:57premium seats picked up. Had he not been in there playing and they had they not been winning,
17:01I don't know if that would have taken place. After leading the Bills into the playoffs in 1998,
17:07Flutie took his team to a 10-5 record the next season. With another postseason berth assured,
17:14head coach Wade Phillips replaced him with Johnson in the season finale.
17:18As soon as I played Rob against Indy, I knew something was up. I feel like they're always
17:23trying to replace you and always put the other guy in and that's just the way I am. He kept
17:29saying to me,
17:30they're going to start Rob in the playoffs. They're going to start Rob. And I'm like, Doug,
17:34there's no way they're going to start Rob.
17:36They started Rob in the playoffs.
17:38When Johnson threw for 287 yards and two touchdowns in a 31-6 route, Phillips announced Johnson would
17:45start against the Titans in the playoffs. After a stunning 22-16 loss,
17:50Flutie was embroiled in the bitter and very public quarterback controversy.
17:55It was beyond a soap opera. You had a city that was divided on the issue. I mean,
18:00if you didn't know any better, you'd swear there was an election going on.
18:02When I left, it got worse than I thought it ever could possibly get. The relationship with these
18:08two guys really put a strain on this football team because that's what everybody's talking about.
18:12A lot of the players got fed up with it. Guys were choosing sides. I think that yeah,
18:17a lot of the offensive linemen wanted Doug in there because they didn't give him any sacks because
18:20Doug always got the ball out of his hands. And yeah, some guys wanted to keep Rob in there for
18:24the simple fact that, you know, he was probably going to be the starter. They needed to find out
18:29once and for all, is Rob the quarterback of the future or isn't he the quarterback of the future?
18:34They knew they weren't going to the Super Bowl. They knew they were in salary cap problems. So why go
18:40with a 38-year-old quarterback when you're rebuilding? After winning 21 of his 30
18:46starts with the Bills, Clutie was released following the 2000 season. In March of 2001,
18:52he joined his fourth NFL team when the Chargers signed. They released him for a guy who had been
19:008-10 as it started with the Bills to that point. Rob Johnson proceeded to go 1-7 the next
19:11season.
19:14I'd like to talk to the 80 who made that decision to cut Clutie.
19:20Clutie bind him to a $30 million six-year contract. Though his professional life was on the upswing,
19:26Clutie was engaged in a far more serious long-term battle.
19:33These are people who can get the job done.
19:40In 1985, Clutie married his high school sweetheart Laurie. They had two children,
19:45Alexa and Doug Jr. Before their son's third birthday in 1994, the Fluties began to notice
19:53behavioral changes in him. Dougie actually developed very typically until he was about two and a half.
19:58Happy birthday! Happy birthday! He had talked in full sentences. He was playing sports, walking,
20:06running, doing everything. And then all of a sudden he just stopped talking.
20:11Sentences became phrases, phrases became words, words became nothing.
20:15At the very beginning, we thought maybe it was just a phase that he was going through.
20:19Then we thought, you know, maybe there was something wrong with his hearing. As it turned out,
20:24that was all fine. And at that point, they told us that we should probably bring him to a neurologist.
20:31We started to, you know, to tell the doctors, you know, oh, he used to do this, used to do
20:36that,
20:36he doesn't do this anymore. And we got a tape, a video tape of what we called the Dougie Highlight
20:41film. And we showed him, you know, hey, yeah, he used to do this.
20:48And we realized ourselves at that point, without a diagnosis,
20:53all of a sudden it hit us how far he really had regressed.
21:00Doug Jr. was suffering from childhood disintegrative disorder, a form of autism
21:05that affects the part of the brain that controls social interaction and communication skills.
21:10When the diagnosis came, I mean, it hit you like a ton of bricks.
21:14Here's our little boy. He's still inside there. We just got to pull him back out.
21:18And they're telling us, you know, that this is going to be a lifelong disorder. And they don't
21:23really know how much he's going to progress. It was just kind of a lot to take in all of
21:29a sudden.
21:30We were shocked and disappointed and all that. But right away, it was like, okay, what do we do to
21:35move forward? How do we treat this? How do we give him an opportunity to be the best he can
21:41be?
21:44In 1998, the Fluties established the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism. By 2005,
21:52the charity had raised more than $7 million.
21:55Through us, Dougie is helping people and raising awareness of autism and raising money for research
22:03and helping other families get computers, bicycles, whatever it is they need.
22:08I want him to progress and get all he can out of life. But we love Dougie for the way
22:15he is,
22:15and he's helping a lot of other kids because of it.
22:17He's the happiest child you'll ever meet in your life. He's always smiling. We have to have a lot
22:23of patience with him, but he's come a long, long way. If he's anything like his father,
22:28he'll jump over all those obstacles.
22:33Running the two-minute drill. Flutie. Passes! Flutie's been in for three plays,
22:41and the Patriots have scored two touchdowns.
22:45In 2005, Flutie, after being released by the Chargers, signed with the Patriots as Tom Brady's
22:51backup. He was home again. Back where memories of the Hail Mary still burn brightest. Doug Flutie
22:57returning to play for the Patriots is absolutely a closing of the circle. It's a dream. The whole
23:02identity stems from what he did a few miles away from where he played.
23:10After playing one season for the Patriots, Flutie retired.
23:15Since day one, I've always felt like I gained strength from the fans being behind me.
23:24It's a fun atmosphere in this community, and I was just glad to be a part of it.
23:29He gave you a lot of joy because you realized that he wasn't so different from you, and yet he
23:35was
23:35doing incredible things. That is the most important thing that he brought to us, especially as a New
23:40Englander. It's a great ending to a fairy tale.
23:48An avid Red Sox fan, Doug Flutie supports his team in the flesh whenever he can. Occasionally,
23:54he becomes part of the action. At Fenway Park in April of 2005, he caught a ball for the fourth
24:00straight time at as many games that he attended, including a home run atop the Green Monster.
24:06You have to wonder if luck really has anything to do with it.
24:10For SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
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