Perhaps best known for his Hail Mary pass that lifted Boston College over Miami in 1984, former Heisman Trophy winner and longtime professional quarterback Doug Flutie was the featured guest at the Little Rock Touchdown Club’s meeting Monday at the DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Little Rock.
Flutie, 63, played 21 seasons of professional football across three different leagues: 12 years in the NFL, eight in the Canadian Football League and one in the now-defunct United States Football League.
Flutie played at Boston College college from 1981-84, where he became the program’s all-time leader in passing yards with 10,579. Along with winning the Heisman Trophy in 1984, he also received the Maxwell and Davey O’Brien awards and earned unanimous All-America recognition the same year.
At just 5-9 and 175 pounds, Flutie was lightly recruited by major college programs coming out of Natick High School in a suburb of Boston. He originally thought he would play at either the Division I-AA level or at an Ivy League school before committing to Boston College, which was his only offer from a major program.
“I saw on Boston College’s (schedule), they played Penn State, they got Alabama on the schedule, they got Clemson,” Flutie said. “I wanted to be a part of that, so that’s kind of what made the decision.”
Flutie quickly worked his way up the depth chart, starting seven games as a freshman. As a senior in 1984 he led Boston College to a 10-2 record, a 45-28 Cotton Bowl win over Houston and the No. 5 spot in the final Associated Press poll of the season.
The game against Miami his senior year was played at the Orange Bowl. Flutie completed a 48-yard touchdown pass to Gerard Phelan on the final play of the game that gave the Eagles a 47-45 victory. The play is known as the “Hail Flutie” and thrust the quarterback into the national spotlight.
“The safety was in position to make a play, the backside corner(back) drifted across, they jump up, bump into each other, ball goes through and Gerard catches it,” Flutie said as he recounted the play. “On the way to the locker room, I run into our strong safety and I’m like, ‘Who the hell caught the ball?’ He (says), ‘Gerard caught it.’ Of course he did, Gerard catches everything.”
Following his standout senior season, the USFL’s New Jersey Generals selected Flutie in the 1985 territorial draft and the Los Angeles Rams took him in the 11th round of the NFL Draft. His NFL draft stock had fallen because he had already agreed to a five-year, $7 million contract with the Generals, making him the highest-paid rookie in the history of professional sports at the time. President Donald Trump owned the team at the time.
“I was a 22-year-old kid scared stiff,” Flutie said. “Donald Trump was already a big name at that time, and I’m in New York City, we’re a Trump Tower, the golden staircase. Honestly I was, ‘Yes sir, no sir,’ all through that time. … When I was young I was so intimidated. When I was on the football field I was at home, otherwise I was a quiet, shy kid that was afraid to talk to anybody, so it was different.”
The USFL folded operations after Flutie’s rookie season and the Rams traded him to the Chicago Bears, where he spent the 1986 season. Flutie spent three years with the New England Patriots from 1987-89 before signing with the BC Lions of the CFL in 1990.
He played for the Lions from 1990-91, the Calgary Stampeders from 1992-95 and the Toronto Argonauts from 1996-97.
Flutie won three Grey Cup championships (1992, 1996-97), and he was named MVP of each title game. Flutie was also named the league’s Most Outstanding Player six times, passing for 41,355 yards and 270 touchdowns in eight seasons. His 48 passing touchdowns in 1994 remain a CFL single-season record.
“My first year, they didn’t start me right away, so I didn’t start until halfway into the season, so that year was a wash,” Flutie said. “We were 8-0 while I was in Calgary (1995) and I tore the tendon and had to have Tommy John surgery, so I had a half of a season there. But the other six years were absolutely the most fun I’ve ever had.”
Flutie passed up a lucrative contract extension in 1998 to remain with Toronto, instead electing to take significantly less money to return to the NFL and sign a deal with the Buffalo Bills.
“The Buffalo people, if you go play your heart out for them they are the most amazing fans,” he said.
He played for the Bills through the 2000 season before signing with the San Diego Chargers, where he played from 2001-04. Flutie returned to New England in 2005, his final year, to be future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady’s backup.
“The thing about Tom was that he made everybody on the roster feel like, ‘You were the reason we won,’ ” Flutie said. “He included everyone all the time.”
Flutie finished his NFL career with 14,715 passing yards and 86 touchdowns. He made a Pro Bowl appearance with the Bills in 1998, the same season he was named NFL Comeback Player of the Year.
Flutie corrected LRTDC founder David Bazzel when he said his career passing yardage was around 15,000.
“You got another 40,000 up there (in Canada),” Flutie said.
A member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame, Flutie became the first major college quarterback with 10,000 career passing yards. He is also the only CFL quarterback to pass for 6,000 or more yards in a single season twice. Flutie was in 2007 the first non-Canadian player to be inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Flutie has been married to his wife, Laurie, for 41 years; the couple has a daughter and a son. Their son, Doug Jr., at 3 years old was diagnosed with childhood disintegrative disorder, a late-onset form of autism that left him non-verbal as an adult.
The family started the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism that is designed to assist others that have family members with autism. The Flutie family currently resides in Florida.
“(Doug Jr.) was on par speaking in full sentences and all that,” Flutie said. “At age 2, 2 1/2, (he) started to regress (and) lost all speech. He’s 33 years old now living with us.
“I don’t want to get political with it, we feel vaccinations had a lot to do with his regression, with the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella vaccine) and all that went on at that time. They had started the MMR, combining all these shots, started just filling our kids with vaccinations. And we honestly feel that was a big part for him.
“So we started a foundation in Dougie’s name. It’s been going now for 28 years I believe and we’ve raised over $50 million dollars.”
