|
Flynt talks about Sul Ross, life and a book
By Mike Perry / mikeperry@alpineavalanche.com
Mike Flynt, who spent much of last year under a media microscope as he played out his final year of eligibility, talked with me at length earlier this week about his life and his new book, “The Senior: My Amazing Year as a 59-Year-Old College Football Linebacker.”
The text of Mike’s Q&A session with me follows this introduction.
A Permian High School and Sul Ross State graduate, Mike is back in Texas promoting the book and the Sul Ross Lobos.
Talking to him, it’s hard to figure out which means most to him: the Lobos or book sales. Well, now that I think about it, the Lobo family — past and present — means a lot more to him.
Mike made national news during the 2007 collegiate football season when he returned to the Sul Ross State football team, 37 years after he was asked to leave. Mike will be signing books at the HEB in Odessa on today, and the Sul Ross Bookstore on Friday from 3-5 p.m.
Most of us know the basic plot: Mike was swapping stories with some old football buddies when he brought up the biggest regret of his life: getting kicked off the college team before his senior year. So, one of his pals said, “Why not do something about it?”
Mike not only returned to college football, but also made the team at Sul Ross. Now, with the assistance of New York Times best-selling author Don Yaeger, he has authored his memoir.
I read the book last week before talking to Mike. I intended to merely skim the book but I was hooked from the first, staying up late and reading every page. I loved it. The book is an insightful, no-holds-barred look into a tough, but rewarding life. And it’s a great slice of West Texas.
I like Mike. I like his first name, which is about as good as they come. And he went to my old high school back in the old days when I did. He’s an oilfield rat like me, brought up in a damned good place. Yes, I am talking about Odessa.
The book jacket says “Mike’s remarkable account begins with a tough upbringing by a violent father who trained him to fight at every opportunity. His aggressive behavior took him in and out of jail several times and led to his eventual removal from [the Sul Ross] football team before the start of his original senior season.”
After reading the book and talking to Mike, I’d say that assessment is mostly accurate. I also came away with a couple of other conclusions:
Mike learned from his mistakes. And believe me, his mistakes were not a lot different from a bunch of other real good people I knew back then. Life’s tough and the maturing process is even tougher. I think we can all speak to that.
Mike firmly believes he had a good upbringing; yes, a tough one, but not a lot different from the rest of us. His parents loved him and provided for him; they were also tough products of where they came from.
Mike grew up in Odessa, graduating from Permian High School in 1966. In 1965, he was first team, all-district defensive back for the first state championship football team for the Permian Panthers, starting the winning tradition at the school, and later inspiring the movie and television show “Friday Night Lights.”
I read “Friday Night Lights” and thought it did a fairly decent job of capturing a moment in the mid-1980s. My only quibble with the book was that the author, Buzz Bissinger, misled some people about his intentions. Buzz would disagree with me, but that’s OK.
In its own way, Mike’s book is at least the equal of “Friday Night Lights.” No, it doesn’t quite have Bissinger’s gift for prose, but it nails West Texas much better.
So, all that said, here’s the Q&A with Mike:
Mike Flynt: I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to give back to Sul Ross and Alpine. It’s such an amazing school and community. And it’s just the beginning and will grow from and will be something that is received in a positive way.
Avalanche: What is the biggest difference between the Mike Flynt, the young man at Sul Ross, and Mike Flynt today?
Mike Flynt: It’s Jesus Christ in my life and the influence that God’s word has had on my life and continues to impact my life every single day.
The Mike Flynt in ’69, ’70 and ’71 was a good young man, like most every kid growing up back then in West Texas. But I was very prideful and felt like it was my responsibility to right on all wrongs at any expense, mine or other people’s, just didn’t matter. It was a set reaction that I had that was always violence.
It got to the point where I had 10 fights in a two-year time period in Sul Ross. I go out of my way today to avoid any type of confrontation.
I guess because of the competitive nature of the times, but that was so foolish; foolish then, foolish now. God knew exactly what it was because I was so headstrong. It was after my profession of faith that I realized what I did from studying His word and the way it could affect me and my life.
I had to turn my life around and by the grace of God, I was able.
Q: Talk about growing up in the Odessa of the ’60s (even the late ’50s), an oil-boom town. What did it do for you? What were the limitations that it might have placed on you?
MF: Not being able to judge growing up anywhere else, I think it was a very positive experience because of the isolation. It was a healthy atmosphere as far as values. The emphasis on football was pretty strong, and that’s just America.
The thing I remember most are the guys that I grew up with through elementary and junior high and high school. We all just seemed to come together in our senior year. We’d been together since the third grade.
To me, there were lots of things to do. My dad spent a lot of time with me and we’d go down to the Pecos River and fish. I’d hear some of the things guys would talk about in college and I think I had it pretty good as opposed to growing up in a big city environment.
Q: Can you talk about the “runt” episode you describe in the book? How old were you? What did it do for you immediately, what did it do for you long-term? (In the book, Flynt describes how his Dad, maybe as the result of too much alcohol, had said to him, “You’re just a runt and that’s all you’ll ever be.”
MF: Daddy had become quite the chef at the American Legion. He’d wind up cooking for 1,100 to 1,200 people. When you do that, you get exposed to a lot of beer. It (what his Dad said) was the kind of thing that totally changes a life. I laid in bed that night thinking about it all night. If anyone else had said that, it would have been hurtful. But I made a commitment in my mind that I would not be a runt. I didn’t know at the time what that entailed, I just simplified. The very next day, I started training in the privacy of my bedroom. I’m 60 years old and I still work out.
There was no Parenting 101 [for my parents]. They did the best they could.
Q: Talk a bit about Gene Mayfield, the football coach who turned things around at Permian in the mid-’60s.
MF: I still remember the very first meeting with coach and his staff. They brought us into the auditorium and he just got up and introduced himself. His philosophy was defense: “If they can’t score on us, they can’t beat us,” he said. He said he’d been hearing things about us, that we were known as the country club set. He said there was a lot of talk but that was going to stop. I was thinking: “I’d never been to the country club in my life.”
In the first few days of practice, everything changed. He was in total command, it was obvious that they expected complete focus; no talking while drills was going on. [The previous coach Jim] Cashion had had his favorites and predeteremined before the season who would play. But Mayfield, he said, “Listen, everybody in here is going to have a chance to be a starter, I don’t care what you played, or whether you started, everyone is starting from square one.”
That was the first I knew I would have a chance. From then on, it was the way I judged every coach all the way up to Tom Osborne at Nebraska when I was the strength coach there. Of the great coaches I’ve been around, it’s amazing how many were just like Coach Mayfield. They stressed fundamentals: You had to block, you had to tackle, you had to run. It was a mindset.
Later, I fully realized that the most difficult job that a head coach has is to motivate players and keep them motivated.
That’s the No. 1 responsibility a head coach has. That was Mayfield, that was Osborne.
Q: Talk about the intervening years. The years between getting sent packing from Sul Ross to the year you went to that reunion?
MF: I was kind of bouncing around a little bit and after the indictment in 1982 that led to that conversion experience. I moved Colorado, visited Mike Campbell in Franklin, Tenn. (Campbell had been the quarterback on that 1965 championship team).
I started getting back into volunteer coaching; started to get back to the things I enjoyed doing. The indictment, which hung on for almost five years before I could clear my name, kept me from going back into straight coaching.
So I put together a program to help kids with fitness, that would provide them with something they could do without having to buy equipment and go to a gym.
I started out working with home-schooling families, then started traveling all over the nation marketing a video, which led up to the invention of the PowerBase system.
Q: Can you talk about the best of times last year at Sul Ross?
MF: I really think that for the most part they were all fond memories; some difficult memories, but for the most part you have to hunt and peck for the difficult memories.
For me, the most difficult part was overcoming the injuries.
I had gone back with a mindset that I’d always been a starter and this will be no different; I’d never had injuries. I’d never missed a game; it was just stuff that was “tape ’em and go.” Even at age 59, I was telling myself that my knees and shoulders were fine,
So I got in there and started having to deal with injuries. And then came the totally unanticipated pressure to play. Everyone wanted to see me play. However, that became a positive and had me refocus about my true reason for being there.
I wanted to play. No athlete tries out so he or she can stand on the sidelines. I began to see so many negatives that were being put on my teammates about the type people they were.
I’ve been at some top quality programs and my job at those programs was to evaluate and develop talent. So, I’m looking at my [Sul Ross] teammates and saying, “These guys have talent.” I decided to focus on the positive not the negative, so I began to think it was more important to help these young men.
I was grateful for all my experience, so I had to make a choice: Do I go all out and risk the possibility of a major injury? Who remembers if I’m gone the first game of the season? How can I help if I’m not here?
The upside was beyond anything I could ever describe in words. Every single day, there was something one of my teammates would say to me, to let me know that they were being helped by what I was doing.
That’s all I really wanted to do; I simply wanted to help a bunch of young players.
Q: What have you been up to since last year?
MF: Company in Hollywood is looking at making a reality show. Spring Hill Productions is looking at producing a movie, which I’d love see filmed here.
Q: What’s in store for the Flynts; you’ve hit the 60 mark, does that mean anything?
MF: I’m going to concentrate on PowerBase, which I feel is the way to help a tremendous number of kids. And I have another fitness book coming out in April. I’m doing some public speaking and working with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
And I’m going to do everything I can to help Sul Ross on a continuing basis.
|
