An Army of Normal Folks - Mike Flynt: The AARP Member Playing NCAA Football (Pt 2)

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Mike Flynt got kicked off his college football team for one too many fist fights and lived with the regret of letting down his team for decades. Until, he forged one of the greatest redemption stories you will ever hear, becoming the oldest linebacker in NCAA history at 59 years old! And he's now the subject of Angel Studios’ latest film The Senior. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal folks. We continue now with part two of our conversation with Mike Flint, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the chaos of World War II, a king, dance. under mysterious circumstances, and his children never stop searching for the truth.

There's no nice way to put this. Times running out for Simeon and Maria Louisa to find answers to the question that haunts them. The Butterfly King is a historical true crime podcast from Exactly Right and Blanchard House. I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan, and I'm following the trail of King Boris III of Bulgaria, a ruler caught between Hitler and Stalin, and the shocking secrets behind. find his sudden death. If it's 1943 and you want to kill a head of state and you have access to a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons,

why wouldn't you use them? A royal mystery, unlike anything you've heard before, the entire series is available now. Listen to the Butterfly King on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane.

Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, do this, pull that, turn this. It's just, I can do it my eyes close. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devon. And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out for real.

Wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to no such thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this like overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call, said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just wanted to call on and let her know. There's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling.

And there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast, Season 2, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran. and he actually took his own life to suicide. One tribe saved my life twice.

There's a lot of love that flows through this place and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. Don't want to have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills, and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation,

like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy, which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it, if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say, like, go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore, to suppress, seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just, like, walk the other way. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials is easier. Drinking is easier. Yelling, screaming is easy. Complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

So I ended up leaving after one semester and went up to Arkansas. And because I was transferring, they couldn't give me a scholarship. Coach Burles told me, he said, if everything I'm hearing about you is true, you'll have your scholarship at the beginning of next semester. That's close to the Jimmy Jones and all that group. Yeah, they had just left. They had just left. They won national championship, I think.

I think in 60, 64. So you came in right behind that group. Yeah, I came in. I was, I came, it was in 1967. I was in Arkansas. And again, I had that training in fighting. And whenever you're in places like on a college campus where you've got a lot of athletes around, and there's alcohol involved,

there's going to, those opportunities are going to, are going to show up. And I ended up having a couple of fights, gotten a couple of fights and weren't fights that I started. In fact, there was one fight that a guy challenged. He was a third-degree black belt and karate and all this stuff, and he was going to beat up me and two other football players because we were talking to this girl. You know, she was talking to us.

You know, long story short, we're out on the football field the next day for practice. And a van comes driving across the field, out in the field. And the coaches, you know, just Coach Boyle's wanting to know what's going on. And so they called us all up. And they said, somebody beat up this guy's son yesterday,

and he said that there were two or three of you that had to do it because he's a third-degree black belt and karate. And so who did it? On up to it right now. Who did it? I raised my hand, and they said, who else? And I said, coach, we were there, but there was nobody but me. It's just me and him.

And so we went into the locker room. there and, you know, Coach Coffey, you know, he said, well, what happened? And I said, he started cussing us and, you know, and cussed me for an SOB. And my dad had always told me your shoes don't fit no SOB. And so I said it got physical and he got hurt and then we left. I said, but that was it. And he said, the other guys didn't get in. I said, no, no, it's just me and him.

He said, okay, going back out to practice, don't worry about it. But it was that kind of thing that kind of followed me. I ended up, you know, I was bound and determined that there was no way I was going to let, going to class interfere with my education. And so, you know, I ended up leaving Arkansas and wound up down at Sol Raw. Sol Ross found out that I was out, basically. Sullivan Ross State University, Saul Ross. Yeah, and they contacted me and offered me a full ride at Saul Ross.

So you started playing ball there. Yeah. End up being a good thing. I'd been out for a year, and it was crazy. I was reclassified 1A, and this was in late 68. That was right in the middle of the TED Offensive. in Vietnam, I was drafted. I went in to take my physical.

There were like 70 of us that were there for our physical. Only six of us passed. They were failing them. I mean, one guy was there for his induction physical, had a rash on his back, and they said he couldn't carry a backpack. Oh, my gosh. But I passed, and they were congratulating us, you know,

telling me and the other five guys that we had passed and they said, now is there any reason why you think you can't serve in this man's army? And he says, anybody have anything problem with that? And I raised my hand. And he said, what's the matter? And I said, I just can't stand having somebody tell me what to do all the time. He said, you're going to make a good soldier. So they said, okay, two weeks you'll receive your induction notice and then you'll go to Fort Polk, and from Fort Polk, you'll go to Vietnam. So I had already enrolled at Seoul Ross, and I told them, you know, I said,

I'm gone, two weeks, and I got to quit going to class, and three weeks, you know, I thought, I'm going to flunk out. You know, I've got to go back to class. I didn't hear anything from them. Two years later, I ran into a guy that worked for the Selective Service, and I just asked him, I said, you know, hey, this is, I didn't receive a notice, and he said, man, he said, did you change your address? I said, I didn't change anything, nothing.

He said, I'm just telling you right now, if you passed your physical during that TED Offensive, you were gone. He said, that someone put your folder in a wrong file somewhere. He said, God's looking after you. He just got lucky. It just didn't happen. All right, so. I'm a soul, Ross. And at some point, you're still being you fighting and carrying on.

And before your senior year at Sol Ross, you pretty much, I think the president of the university actually said, I've heard Mike Flint for the last time. He's just done here. Yeah, yeah. You know, things had a way of happening to me. I mean, they just did. And, you know, it's like I called up,

to reach a buddy of mine at the COED dorm, and this guy was over-served and taken over the switchboard, and he wasn't going to let anybody call in or out unless he knew who they were. And I kept, you know, I kept calling back, and finally, and he kept saying, who is this? And I said, this is Mike Flint. I said, now, would you let me have a switchboard operator? And finally, I called back, and I said, what is your name?

and he told me and I said how long are you going to be there and he said I live here and I said okay I'm going to be there in just a minute I'll be there in just a minute and he woke up in the hospital and he was saying who is Mike Flynn

but the next day I'm in a grocery store and one of my professors walks up and said is it true that I hear you with Johnny and I said I was thinking, I don't know, where's this going?

And I said, yes, sir, I did. And he said, you've got to be in my class. He said, I can't stand that bully. He said, I'm so glad somebody finally did something to that guy. And I went in to take my final, and he just wrote a big red bee on my paper. And I was proud to get that bee. Oh, and that class was human relations. How did you figure that one out?

But that was the kind of thing that the administration, you know. They'd had enough. Yeah. So two days, going into my senior year, we're eight and three in my junior year. We have everybody back. They've elected me team captain. I was all conference linebacker. And you have to realize the Lone Star Conference at that time was one of the premier conferences in the nation because we were fully integrated.

It wasn't until Jerry Levias broke the color barrier. SMU that, you know, black athletes started playing in the Southwest Conference. But we had great talent playing in the Lone Star Conference. Well, I was an all-conference linebacker. I had over 100 tackles in my junior year, my sophomore year over 100 in my junior year. Like I said, I had 24 tackles in one game. And the players had elected me Team Patten. I was the first captain that wasn't appointed by the coaches.

the players elected me. Well, two of days, I needed six hours to graduate. I came back for one reason and one reason only. Players and senior football. When a conference championship, we had everybody back. I knew we could do it. And I thought, I'm not taking that six hours. I'll take it in the fall and graduate, you know, at the end of season.

coaches had me checking rooms for curfew. Two freshmen weren't in. They'd been drinking. One of them took exception to me telling him when he could and couldn't come and go. And he came at me, he got physical, and he got hurt. And they ended up calling the president of the college, and he called head coach and said,

I've heard Mike Flint's name for the last time. It's you or Mike Flent. Who's it going to be? they got me up the next morning a couple of assistant coaches and everybody else in dorm was gone and I got over to the coaches office and I could see them all out on the field they had already gotten them up and had them out on the field they didn't want them having access to me at all or me to them and the head coach told me they got me in his office and he said I'm sorry Mike, but I've got to ask you not to be part of our team this year.

And he said, in fact, the president of the college is kicking you out of school. And I just, I said, coach, have you talked to those guys out there? He said, I don't have to talk to them, right? He said, I know what they'd say. He said, you're not talking to them either. He said, we've got assistant coaches in your room packing your things right now. And he said, we want you out of town within the hour. He said, I need you to call your dad, and we'll meet him on the highway between here and Odessa.

But you've got to go. I had to break your heart. Oh, I was devastated. That was my world. Those guys. That was your religion at that time. That was my world. Yeah.

I called my dad, and I began to explain to him that he needed to meet us on the highway. And he said, wait, whoa, what are you talking about? Meet you on the highway. And I said, you know, now I've been kicked out of someone. school, kicked off the team. And he said, for what? I said, I got in a fight last night, and he started chewing me out, and I just, I just interrupted him. I said, Daddy, I am exactly what you made me. He never brought it up again after that day. And went on with my life, moved to Austin. How some barriers end up opening other doors. You went on to Austin.

you met Aline. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. This is the right G-I-R. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely rocked my world, you know. And Aline changed my whole life. You know, she introduced me to Christ. How long y'all been married? 53 years in October. Is that all? Yeah. 53 years.

What did she see in an old roughneck? Well, I tell you. rough and tumble, hard-headed. I have never questioned that. I just, I've gone with it, you know. But, you know, I just... It's funny, the first mention of Eileen in the world of your world,

with all of the stories that your world is and where we're going to get to in just a moment, the first thing you said about Eileen is that she introduced you the Lord. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it was one of those things that for me in our relationship, she didn't force that on me. When we were dating, going through the dating process and everything,

I knew that she was a spiritual person. Had you had any introduction of faith in your life before this, really? Well, I had a neighbor that would take me to church occasionally with her family. That was it. Yeah. I never heard my dad pray. I never saw him in church. So football really was your religion.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, clearly, being good at it was what was dominating your spirit and your soul. Yeah. And so I went into the fitness business. And again, the adversity that my dad put into my life constantly trying to please him, wanting to hear him tell me he was proud of me. Doing everything that I could,

I became a fitness workoutaholic. I mean, every waking moment, I was involved in something fitness-related. And when I was 12, I got $5 out of my mother's purse and sent off for this Charles Atlas out of this comic book. And I started doing that, you know, that regimen. And there were so many things that I learned from that, that it was incredible how I realized that I wasn't hostage to any piece of equipment

or any location. I could work out anywhere, any time. I had the knowledge. I had to want to. And so I did. And I ended up going into the fitness profession. I became a strength and conditioning coach at University of Nebraska, University of Oregon, Texas A&M.

We'll be right back. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances.

Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the chaos of World War II, a king dying.

under mysterious circumstances and his children never stop searching for the truth. There's no nice way to put this. Time's running out for Simeon and Maria Louisa to find answers to the question that haunts them. The Butterfly King is a historical true crime podcast from Exactly Right and Blanchard House. I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan

and I'm following the trail of King Boris III of Bulgaria, a ruler caught between Hitler and Stalin and the shocking secrets behind. his sudden death. If it's 1943 and you want to kill a head of state and you have access to a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons, why

wouldn't you use them? A royal mystery, unlike anything you've heard before, the entire series is available now. Listen to the Butterfly King on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine that you're on an airplane

and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency, and we need someone, anyone to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this. Do this. Pull that. Turn this. It's just... I can do it in my eyes closed. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devon. And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we can. talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise, lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then, as we try the whole thing out for real,

wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to no such thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this like overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call. I said, you know, hey, I am. Jacob Schick, I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just wanted to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast, Season 2, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own mark to suicide. One tribe, save my life twice.

There's a lot of love that flows through this place and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I wouldn't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an other. upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adapted strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you.

Because it's easy to say like go you go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. it's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way avoidance is easier ignoring is easier denials is easier drinking is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving meditating you know takes effort listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts has nothing to do with your story, but just my own curiosity. What years Nebraska, A&M, and Oregon? I was at Nebraska in 76. Oh, those are some good years.

77, yeah. And then Oregon is 78. Of course, Osborne at Nebraska. Yeah, at Nebraska. And then Oregon alley, Rich Brooks. But that was before Oregon really got good. Yeah, Oregon wasn't, they were just coming around. They were starting to come around.

And Phil Knight was starting to put some money in it. Yeah, Rich Brooks ended up winning the PAC-10 and then took the pro job for the Cardinals, I think. Right, that's right. And then why'd you go, well, A&M's back home, I guess. Yeah, well, they came after me. You know, they, I wasn't even going to go interview. I was there in Oregon. I'd spent a year building that program, getting its foundation exactly where I wanted it,

because I had all men's and women's intercollegiate athletes. Oh, you had everybody. I had everybody. And so I had everything set up the way I wanted it to set up, and I was having phenomenal results because particularly with the women, oh my gosh, you take women the athletes that they are, and they've never had a structured, organized, strength training program. Oh, my gosh, they exploded.

And so, you know, I was just fabulous. And I get a call from Texas A&M. Boyd Epley called me from Nebraska. and said, hey, you're going to be getting a call of me and him. I've told them they need to hire you. They came after me. I said, no, you're guys, Mike Flint. And I was sitting there thinking I've spent a year, seven days a week,

building this program. And I got it now exactly where I want it, where I can really start to make a big difference in these athletes in their performance. I'm not going to go down to A&M to start this over it. again. I'm just not going to do it. Well, one of the assistant coaches came up to me and he said, I heard you got an offer from a call from Texas A&M and I said, yeah, I don't think I'm going to go down there and look at it. How many interviews have you been on? And I said, well, really just

won before I came here. And he said, man, do it for the experience. He said, go down and have interview. You don't have to take the job. You need the experience. Go do it for the experience. And I thought, you know, there's a lot of wisdom in that. I think I'll do that. And I flew down to A&M. And, I mean, it just, people don't understand the Aggies. I mean, Coach Wilson just told me, he said, you know, I look at their facilities. He asked me what I would do different from where they are right now. And he said, can you handle all sports and all this? And I told him, he said, I don't know what your salary is at Oregon, but we'll double it.

We'll double it. He said, we'll double your salary. And I'd been trying to get a car at Oregon. They had promised me one when they hired me because I had to do a lot of traveling back and forth and stuff. And he said, you'll get a new car every four months, every quarter. You'll have a new car. He said, we don't want to get too many miles on them.

And, you know, he said, but you'll have a new car and you'll have an expense account. A little different in Texas, isn't it? Yeah, he said, you'll have an American Express card. And he said, we want you to stay at the finest hotels. He said, we don't, you know. And he just loaded all this on me. Well, you know. That's when you call Aline and say, baby, pack your bags.

We're going to be in Bryan, Texas pretty soon. And I did. and it was just, and Coach Brooks got really upset with me. I mean, he just, but I told him, I said, coach, you know, if Southern Cal called you and offered you the same deal when he offered me, I said, you'd take it a heartbeat. And I said, you guys have been telling me for a year that you don't get me a car,

and you've never gotten me a car, and I get a new one every four months. And I said, I didn't ask for it. They gave it to me. And I said, for you, and he said, we'll match. will match what they've offered you. And I said, Coach, I said, I can't do any more than I've done. And if you do that, I feel like there's something else

and I need to do to earn that. I said, if you'd have made that offer before I left, I'd have never gone. I said, but I'm taking that offer. And so I ended up at Texas A&M. You know, it just, the things that happened that, of course, in my book, that how I met Coach Osmer and Nebraska,

was over a fight. And, you know, and the same thing happened at A&M, you know, within, you know, within two weeks. I mean, I'm in a major fight. But it was, it was bizarre. But again, it was, it was that mindset, that training that I had. And so, anyway. So here's the thing. You're doing life.

you and Ileine are married and everything's going well, and then you decide to get to business, which kind of leads you back to Sol Ross, I think. Is that about right? Yeah, you know, I ended up resigning from at Texas A&M. I went into private business. I patented a piece of fitness equipment. I went to the Pentagon, training the National Guard, doing a lot of things in the fitness arena. And when I was coaching, I always had a philosophy about my training that I would never ask one of my athletes to do something

that I wasn't willing to do myself. And so I stayed in great shape, helping, you know, my athletes get in shape. Well, after I resigned from coaching, I never stopped. I kept training. And I've told people that, you know, not every journey has to have a destination. You know, go do it. Go do something. And people would ask me when I was in my 40s and in my early 50s,

why are you running those sprints? I mean, that's got to be grueling. And I said, yeah, it is, but I enjoy doing it. I like being able to run fast. And so I'm 59. Losing my senior year at Sol Ross had. over the decades become my greatest regret in life. I'd finally reached a point where I'd learned to manage it.

See that team that had so much hope? By the way, did that team end up one on the conference? They went four, six, and one. After you left. And they should have been world beaters. We should have won it all. We should have won it all. So even that made it worse.

I shouldered that. I did. I bet you did. I bet you felt like you had something to do with that. And see, and because of who I was, I didn't share it with anyone. I didn't talk with, no one knew about it. It was internal in me.

And I finally reached a point decades earlier when I stopped crying about it. I actually would cry about it and the mistake that I'd made and how much I regretted what had happened. And so then May of 2007 rolls around, and I started getting calls from guys off that team, 1971. and they're telling me there's going to be a reunion and I need to come to this reunion and I thought, no, there's no way because I know where that's going. I mean, all these years, I've finally reached the point

where I'm, you know, I can deal with this. I go back, somebody's going to bring that up and I'll be right back where I was. And so there's no way I'm doing that. I'm not going back. Call after call after call. And Eileen finally, she's, you know, our oldest two kids are going,

gone from home. They're married. They're gone. Our youngest daughter's just graduated from high school. She's going to the University of Tennessee and getting ready for orientation. So we were downsized. We don't put the house on the market. We had a contract on her house. So we've got to be out in 30 days. And so, Eileen

says, look, I don't know what's going on with you that you won't go down to the reunion and see those guys. But, you know, go have a good time. Just go down there and have a good time. Go see them. So I thought, okay. I went there 30 minutes, and one of the guys walked up and said, Flan, God, man, what was it about that one fight to get you kicked out when you had so many?

And I just said, you know, it was straw that broke the camel's back. You know, I said, I made a lot of poor decisions when I was young. And I said, you know, that was one of them. And I said, that fight caused you guys to have the abysmal. seasonal season that you did, and I let you down. And had I been there, it would have been different. And I said, you know what gets me more than anything? I still think I can play. Well, they were laughing at me with exception of Stan. Who's Stan?

Stan Williamson, the court, he was the guy that played behind me at linebacker. He was looking at me, and he said, why don't you? And I said, I'm 59, and it was three, three, four decades ago. I said, why don't you? I said, there's no way I'd have eligibility. He said, hey, if that's the greatest regret you've got in life, you think you can run with those guys, do you think you can take the hits?

Division III, it's a whole new set of rules. You need to check it out. Well, I couldn't think about anything else. The rest of the week, too. I mean, I kept thinking, who would I call? Who could I call to give me some accurate information? It wouldn't think I was crazy, you know,

of that, and then he hit me, a linebacker coach. Jerry Larned, he was my go-to guy when I'd get arrested and put in jail for fighting. He bailed me out, run me half, took me out on the highway one time, and he said, get out and run. And I said, how far, coach? He said, till I can't see you no more. Coach, this is West Texas. That's a long way. Run to dart. But I hadn't talked. talked to him in almost 40 years, but I stayed up with his career. I knew he was in Abilene. I called directory assistant. I got a home number for him. His wife answered the phone.

And I said, Mrs. Larned, I said, this is Mike Flint. It's coach around. And she said, Mike Flint. She said, yeah, Mike, he's standing right here. Jerry, it's Mike Flint on the phone. And coach comes to the phone. He says, Mike, are you in jail? I said, yeah, coach, that's why I'm calling. I said, no, really. I said, seriously. I want to find out if I'm still eligible. I said, I want to go back and play my senior year. And he said, how old are you, Mike? And I said, I'm 59.

He said, well, I think you're crazy. And the very thing I was hoping he wouldn't say. But I said, coach, listen, I can play. And he said, if you tell me, you can play, I believe you. And I said, I can play. And he said, okay. Well, he gave me the name of the Rules Division or the American Southwest Conference, the Lone Star Conference.

And I called, the lady told me, she said, you know, we had my transcript and went through it semester by semester. And she said, now, how did you say you are? And I said, I'm 59. And she said, well, not only are you eligible, but I will come watch you play. And so, you know, then I, Aline, she's, you know. Okay, that was a big question of that. Did Aline ask you what in the hell you were thinking? Well, she's ignoring me.

Okay. That's what my wife would do. Just almost patronized me. She's so busy. And I started calling the president of the college. I started calling the head coach, the athletic director. I was calling everybody. And it was early June.

And so I was getting voicemail everywhere. And I got through to the head coach's secretary. And she said, well, he's in, but guy, he's crazy, busy. He's got all this going on. And then it hit me. I thought. I cannot do this by phone. Yeah, I've got to get down there.

If I'm a head coach and a 59-year-old guy calls me up and wants to come throughout for my team, hey, you know, I'm in that deal real quick. And so I thought, I got to go down to Alpine. I got to do this in person. So I flew to Midland, Odessa, rented a car, and drove to Alpine. And I'd check with his secretary and make sure he was going to be in. I knocked on the face of his door, head coach sitting there at his desk,

and he said, yeah, come on in, and we sit down, I told him when I'd played at Permian, the kind of player I was, all the scholarships that I had, playing here at Saul Ross, the player that I was here, that I was team captain, I'd been kicked out, and why? All the colleges where I'd coached after I left, and found out later, he was thinking I wanted to be a volunteer coach, and then I told him, I said, And Coach, I want a chance to walk on his team as a linebacker because I feel like if I can make his team as a linebacker, I can help a bunch of young men that I don't even know, but for me, it makes up for those guys I let down all those years ago.

See, I read that. And it flips it from you being a crazy guy wanting to relive glory years to a man. who is trying to erase the biggest regret of his life through serving others. That's effectively what you're trying to do. For me, I knew that I couldn't change the past, but I thought I can change the meaning of the past. If I can help a bunch of young men now

and substitute it for those guys that I let down, then for me, that changes the meaning of my past. And that was what I wanted to do. and he said, you want to play? And I said, yes, I want to play linebacker. And he said, well, wait, he said, when were you at Permian? I said, in 1965. And he said, how old did you say you are?

I said, I'm 59. And about that time that assistant head coach. Eight years older than him. Yeah, yeah. Right. Assistant head coach sticks his head in the door. And he says, coach, you got a bunch of kids down on the field waiting on you. And he said, oh, man, Mike.

He said, I totally forgot. I got a bunch freshman here for orientation that I told them to be down on the field. I want to see what kind of speed they've got and what kind of shape they're in. He said, I've got to get down there. And he thought he's rid of me. You know, and I said, well, let me run. Yeah, I said, can I go with you? So he took me down there.

He told him get stretched out, choose teams, and I said, can I join them? And he looked at the assistant head coach, and he just shrugged his shoulders. And he said, yeah, I guess you can join them. we'll be right back we'll be right back December 29th 1975 LaGuardia airport

The holiday rush parents hauling luggage kids gripping their new Christmas toys then at 633 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently the explosion actually impelled metal glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat

that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the chaos of World War II, a king dies under mysterious circumstances, and his children never stop searching for the truth. There's no nice way to put this. times running out for Simeon and Maria Louisa

to find answers to the question that haunts them. The Butterfly King is a historical true crime podcast from Exactly Right and Blanchard House. I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan and I'm following the trail of King Boris III of Bulgaria, a ruler caught between Hitler and Stalin and the shocking secrets behind his sudden death. If it's 1943 and you want to kill a head of state

and you have access to a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons, why wouldn't you use them? A royal mystery, unlike anything you've heard before, the entire series is available now. Listen to the Butterfly King on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine that you're on an airplane, and all of a sudden you hear this.

Attention passengers, the pilot is having an emergency. and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, and pull that, turn this. It's just, I can do it my eyes close. I'm Manny. I'm Noah.

This is Devon. And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise. lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then, as we try the whole thing out for real,

wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to no such thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call.

I said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just wanted to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast, Season 2, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month,

so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place. It's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission.

I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like it's easier to punch someone in the face.

When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say like go you go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering me. you and just like walk the other way avoidance is easier ignoring is easier denials is easier drinking is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving meditating you know takes effort listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your

podcasts we got out there and they're y'all aren't in pads no Oh, just in shorts. And I had on some nylon baggy jeans and a T-shirt. It was about 95 degrees. It was about 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Nice, balmy, west Texas. We're about 100 miles of Mexico. And so I basically, you know, got out there stressed out,

and then they picked teams. I was last one picked. Of course. And then we lined up, got ready to start, and he blew the whistle, and he said, wait a minute, this is going to be total chaos. He said, you guys on this side take shirts off, y'all will be skins, and you guys will be shirts. And so I was on the skinned to have to take my shirt off.

So we lined up, he blew the whistle, and we ran, and we ran, and we ran, and we ran. I mean, and it was nonstop for almost an hour. And he blew the whistle, called us up, told him, get to orientation. You guys, Mike, come on, I'll take you back to your car. He told me, he said, you be in my office in the morning at 9 o'clock. give you an answer as to whether or not you can walk on this team. He said, I got a million things going through my mind. Well, I was there next morning. His whole staff was there. He introduced me to everybody, and then he said, you know, I got to tell you, I expected total chaos when I let you

get out there with those freshmen and run. But he said, man, you blended. He said, you can run with him. He said, and I had questions in my mind that I had to have an answer for before I could give you an answer, whether or not you could walk on to this team. He said, number one is physically, could a 59-year-old guy physically play college football? He said, watching you run with those freshmen, there's no doubt in my mind that physically you can do this. And don't you ever take your shirt off around me again? He was 52. But, uh, and he said, the second thing was a reason for you to come back at your age to play your senior year, you'd have to have an incredible reason. And he said, but I've got to be honest with you.

He said, I cannot think of a better reason than the one you've given me to help a bunch of young men that you don't even know to make up for those guys you let down all those years ago. He said, I think that's an incredible reason. He said, and the third thing was desire, passion. He said, to go through what we're going to put you through. in two of days to make this team, you're going to have to have a tremendous amount of desire. He said, but I can see it in your eyes. I can hear it in your voice.

You've probably got more desire than a kid we got on this team. He said, you'd be here, August 12th. I'm going to give you a chance to make this team. What did you think when he said that? Well, it was, you know, it was hard to really imagine everything that was coming and was going to happen. I was so excited

until I got outside the building and I remembered that last hurdle that I had that had to be dealt with and her name was Eileen. And so I get back and she's got a list of houses for us to go look at and I told her, I said, honey, we're going back to college. We're moving down to Texas. Coach go give me a chance to make the team. And she really got upset with me. I bet she did.

Yeah, she told me, she said, I cannot imagine. She said, I cannot believe at 59 years old that you want to go back and try to play college football. She said, I feel like I'm married to Peter Pan. She said, and then it hit me. I had never shared it with her. I had never told her. And I sit her down and I said, look, I have spent over half my life living with a regret over a mistake that I made. and coach now is going to give me a chance to rewrite that last chapter in my athletic career

and I've got to try. I said, I may not make the team. I said, I may get down here and not make the team. I said, but I've got to go try. I said, to have a chance and not go try, for me, that'd be worse than getting kicked out the first time. And I said, and then to live the rest of my life asking myself, what if, what if I could have made that team? I said, Honey, I've got to go try. And she said, I had no idea. She said, well, if she was on another foot, you'd do it for me. So let's go play football.

Unbelievable. So tell me about it. Well, let me tell you just to let you know, I remember this story. And I hadn't thought about it in some years until Alex told me that Angel Studios was making the movie. that's basically based on your book that's about this. But I do remember it. And I remember ESPN covering it. I mean, it made a, it was a national thing.

Oh, yeah. But that's not what it was about for you. You weren't looking for headlines or any of that mess. No. And it was, for me, I didn't want anyone to know. In fact, when I announced at our church, my pastor, I told him that we were going to be gone for a few months. And he, you know, he said, you're doing what? He said, you've got to tell the congregation about this.

We need to put some hands on you. He said, we've got to tell the congregation about this. So he had me announce that I couldn't hardly get out of the church. I mean, and I told Alina, I said, let's keep talking about a book and a movie. And I said, who cares about an old man going back play college football? I just didn't get it. And then get down to Alpine and coach told me where to go.

get my physical, and I go to get my physical, and the nurse looks at my chart, and she said, okay, we're doing the coaches next week. This is the players this week. And I said, I'm a player, and she said, you're born in 1948. You're going to play? I said, yes, ma'am. And then I get down to get my equipment, and I'm standing in line with all the guys, and, you know, one of the guys is bouncing around, goofing off. Everybody keeps coming over at me, looking at me. And he said, so are you going to coach or what? I said, no. man, I'm here to play. And he said, to play.

How old are you? And I said, I'm 59. 59. He starts hollering, everybody's coming around. But. How did the kids take you at first? And they didn't know. They really didn't know.

But we put those helmets on. See, I was blessed when I was young and I was never hurt. I didn't have knee problems. I didn't have shoulder problems. I didn't. I had nobody. You weren't 59, though, bro. Yeah, that was the thing.

Yeah. And so. joints and ligaments, they age different. Yeah, the very first day, coach says, hey, listen, we're going to find out what color your blood is. Is it yellow or is it red? And if we don't find out at station one, we've got six stations. By the time you get station six, we're going to know. I mean, it was just hard-nosed football.

It was fantastic. It was just, you know, it was the game. And that's when I found out, you know, I'd never played football on a 59-year-old body before. and you don't get over the soreness like you do when you're young. When you're 18 and 19 and three or four days, you're really sore, but then you're good to go. I mean, it never stopped. I didn't think there was going to be enough ice in Alpine, Texas.

You can ace your ankle, you're going to ace your elbow, you can ace your shoulder, you're going to ice your hip, yes. Yeah, and I was halfway through the season before I finally got to a point where I could manage the soreness. But I did, I had to. After that first practice, day one, the soreness started and never left. Oh, yeah, it was incredible. It was just...

Did you get some licks in? Oh, yeah. Were you able to? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. See, that was the thing about my teammates that they respected about me. First of all, that I could run. You know, they would see me out there on the field with my helmet on.

They couldn't see. You look just like them. I look just like everybody else. But you know how it is. football with your teammates. You can, you can tell someone, you can spot them by their calves. You can tell by the way they've run. You know, they are. And they knew I was, you know, and so, but for me, it was all about, it became, number one, was preservation. You know, I knew, I could tell that my body was not, that I could not fly around like I did when I was in my early 20s.

hitting people and stuff. But in a lot of the drills, you know, I had no choice. And I bowled two discs in my neck. When? It was towards the end of two days, getting close to, I'd already made the team. Coach had announced that I'd made the team. And it's one of those really gratifying things because they came up to me and he said, hey, you earned this.

You made this team. We're not doing it for newspaper clippings. You earned it. No, yeah. And then he said that on camera. He said he legitimately made this team because there were people that were asking. Because he closed the practices. He would not.

He didn't want everybody around make a circus of it. Yeah, it was overwhelming, yeah. So how much did you actually get to play that senior year? That senior 59. You know what's funny is. You played your senior year. year is a senior citizen. Yeah, that's where Jamie Aaron, the AP Ryder is the one that came up with the name.

He said, do you have your AARP card? And I said, yeah, I do. He said, okay, so you're a senior and you're playing your senior year. So he said, I think that it's a pretty good name. So how much were you able to play? How much did you get to play? I played in the last five games of the season. Did your body heal up enough to let you play?

Yeah, it was the orthopedist told me, when I bulge those discs in my neck, he told me, he said, this is over. And he said, this is over. And I told him, I said, look, I've got a Ph.D. in Mike Flint. I know my body. And I said, you tell me what I need to do to get you to release me to play, and I'll get it done. And he said, okay. So he did, and I did.

But he told me, I had a great conversation with him about it, and he said, you know who Kevin Everett is? And I did. He was that young man for the Buffalo Bills that ruptured those same two discs that I bulged. And had it not been for cryogenics, them freezing his neck on the field, he would have died on the field. But he said, you're 59. And he said, you can't stick your head in there.

again and i said i listen i said i have enough body awareness that i can i can prevent that i i can make that choice that i'm not i won't do that i said i but i can use my shoulders i can use my hands and then uh my arms i you know i'm not going to take on people anymore and he said okay and i'll release you to play and uh coach right you know he just asked me he said what can you do you tell me and i said i coach i and play that blocking back on extra points, field goals. And I said, you know, no one will run over me. I can tell you that right now, that it won't happen.

And he said, I know that. So I played linebacker one time for about four minutes in one game. What was that like? It was surreal. I was about to say that had to have been almost a dream. You talk about Peter Pan. I mean, it almost had to be a few. fairy tale at 59 years old to be on a college football field and actually getting to play

linebacker. Yeah, it really was. It was, I was in on some tackles. I didn't, I wasn't the guy that I was when I was younger, but I was in on some tackles. And I think one of the most gratifying things for me was the young man, Fernie, the linebacker, that I took his place, how excited he was for me to be able to play, because he knew what it meant to me. We were, we were out there together in drills and everything throughout the whole, you know, the whole season. And he named him a heart. He, uh, he was, we were really close. And it was him I replaced at linebacker.

More than the football. Did you get to reach the goal of being able to serve your teammates that you weren't able to serve those four decades previous? Oh, I did. I did. Tell me about that. You know, it was, um, uh, It was so gratifying to me because we had one young man, JJ,

and I'll actually see him again for the first time in 17 years. He'll be at the premier real hothead. I mean, he just, he was extremely. Remind you of anybody? Yeah. Well, for me, I wasn't a hothead. No, that's true. Yeah, I was just, I was measured.

I was confident. I would just, you know, hey. But JJ, he would take things personal. and I was just constantly, constantly talking to him because the talent was there, the ability was there, and he had all these leadership qualities that he was suppressing because of his anger. And I was able to help him deal with that.

I was able to help him deal with that. And then Jeremy, fantastic talent, the very first, you've seen the movie. The kid that I'm walking off the field with, and I ask him, well, you know, where you study, and he said, I'm going to be a, I want to be a teacher. I want to be a third grade teacher. Well, that happened. That was Jeremy. And I asked him, I thought, that's, you know, that's unusual. I said, why third grade? And he said, because when I was in the third

grade, I had a teacher that was a father figure to me. I didn't have a father at home. And he said, was a father figure not only in the third grade, but all the way through elementary school. And he said, I want to do that for some other kids. Well, Jeremy's not at practice one day. Jeremy and I became very close friends. And I knew coach had told us, you know, hey, you don't practice, you're gone. And so I asked around, I thought maybe he was hurt,

and nobody had seen him. And next day I see him on campus. And I said, you know, Jeremy, what's up? And he said, I'm going home, Mike. I'm going to quit. And I said, Jeremy, why would you quit? I mean, the guy is unbelievable. He's got 4-4-speed, 190 pounds, tough as nails.

And he started telling me about three guys on campus that started bullying him. And he was going to square up and fight with him. And then he thought, I can't whip all three of these guys. And he said, I just went back to my room. He said, I didn't do anything. He said, I'm so ashamed of myself. He said, I just want to go. home. I want to quit. And I scrabbed him. I said, Jeremy, I said, I am so proud of you. I said,

I was never able to do that. It was always about Mike Flint, a couple of minutes of self-satisfaction, and what I wanted. I never thought about the consequences. I never thought about anyone else and how my poor decisions might impact them. And I said, Jeremy, it cost me everything. And I said, but Jeremy, you may be an all-American here at Solros because of that one right decision that you made. And I said, and what about those third grade kids that need you? I said, Jeremy, you can't quit. And he said, Mike, man, man, you said, you're making me feel great. He said, I'm not going to quit.

I am going to stay. I am going to try to be an All-American. And I said, Jeremy, for just one thing, I need to know. And it's where can I find those guys? And he started laughing at me. But Jeremy got his degree and became the third-grade teacher. That's phenomenal. We'll be right back.

December 29th, 1979, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything, changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal.

Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that has. hides in plain sight that's harder to predict and even harder to stop listen to the new season of law and order criminal justice system on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get

your podcasts in the chaos of world war two a king dies under mysterious circumstances and his children never stop searching for the truth there's no nice way to put this time's running out for Simeon and Maria Louisa to find answers to the question that haunts them. The Butterfly King is a historical true crime podcast from Exactly Right and Blanchard House. I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan and I'm following the trail of King Boris III of Bulgaria, a ruler caught between Hitler and Stalin and the shocking secrets behind his sudden death. If it's 1943 and you want to kill a head of state and you have access to a whole stock of

sophisticated synthetic weapons, why wouldn't you use them? A royal mystery unlike anything you've heard before, the entire series is available now. Listen to the Butterfly King on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone, Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane

with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, until this. Pull that, turn this. It's just... I can do it in my eyes closed. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devon.

And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then, as we try the whole thing out for real, wait, what? Oh, that's the run right.

I'm looking at this thing. Listen to no such thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this, like, overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call, said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just wanted to call on, and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there.

The Good Stuff podcast, Season 2, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place. And it's sincere.

Now it's a personal mission. Don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast.

Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say like go you go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering. you and just like walk the other way avoidance is easier ignoring is easier denial is easier drinking

is easier yelling screaming is easy complex problem solving meditating you know takes effort listen to the psychology podcast on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and there were others there are other things that happened that i was able to help those guys And then I've got to tell you this one story. Tell me. At Homecoming, 26 of my former teammates came back to watch me play. And we all met on the field before the game.

I had a group hug. One of them grabbed me. And might we keep reading about you? Said you let us down all those years ago. We knew that fight wasn't your fault. We never blamed you for that. And besides, look, because you. you came back to play, we're all back together again. So God in his mercy gave me that

forgiveness that I needed for my former teammates to overcome that greatest regret in my life. I was able to help a bunch of young men that I didn't even know when I went into it. And so God gave me everything I asked for, everything I wanted. He gave me. And I was ready to walk away with that. I was, I was ecstatic with that. And, So all of this has been a bonus. It's just a God thing. What's it like as a 59-year-old person to call a 23-year-old college kid your friend? Well, I guess it was my mindset and because of what we were doing

and the fact that I was able to get down on their level physically and do the things that we did. And for me, I've always been a huge fan of time travel movies, you know, somewhere in time, back to the future. And for me, that's what it was like. Going back on that same field that I'd played on almost 40 years before, going through all those drills with those young guys, you know, no mirrors out there for me to see the wrinkles,

And it was just like I've gone back in time. But this time I knew, I knew how fast it was going to go by. I knew I was going to turn around and it was going to be over. And I didn't waste one second of it. I mean, I was not going to wait until it was a memory to appreciate it. All the pain, all the disappointments, the setbacks that I had and things like that, the danger, all that. I rejoiced in every minute of it because I knew,

you hear people talk about, you know, we're running out of time. It's never we're walking out of time or we're jogging out of time. We're running out of time. And I knew how fast time was going to go by. And I just, my relationship with those young guys was so special to me because of how special I was to them. Other people would say,

Sol Ross, is that where that old man is? saying, hey, that old man's got a name. It's Mike. And I don't man will kick your, and they would go to bat for me because I was one of them. And that probably more than any other intangible thing was the greatest blessing that came out of it. They're going to be there for the premier. Several of them are coming back. That's phenomenal. I have a question. in college a lot of the girlfriends of the players sit together and I guess did I lean sit with him

because I assume Aileen's about to save age, that's a whole another dynamic. How did she come to all the games? How did she deal with it? Oh, yeah. Was she scared to death watching her husband out there? Yeah, she was my first call every day at practice. I mean, I got to the locker

and I called her, you know, and I'm okay, I'm okay. And, but she was scared. She had to been. Well, she was... Worried. She was really apprehensive, and she was angry at times, particularly after I bowled the disc in my neck. Because she sit in on those meetings with the orthopedist, and she heard him telling me, this is over. And she's sitting there nod, and yeah, it's over, it's over.

And you're sitting there going, no, it's not. And my son got real upset with me about that. You know, he said, Dad, you know, what if you wind up in a wheelchair? What about mom? Or worse, you know, this dream is now a nightmare. And, but I just, you know, I, you know, I just didn't feel that it was over. But as far as the baby boomers, my age group, they showed up in, I mean, huge numbers. Eileen was surrounded by, by dozens and dozens. I bet. Of friends from, you know, she's meeting all these people that I knew back, you know, all these years ago.

Alex told me that you told him that that year that enrollment went up 20%. 20% at Sol Ross. Yeah, the president of the college told me, he said, you know, he said, I went to a Division III conference in Atlanta, and he said, you know, I've gone to different conferences around the country. where they have them, and for the Division III schools. And he said, people I tell them, you know, I'm president at Sol Ross. And, you know, they was, well, where is that? What's, you know, where's that?

He said, I'm in the airport in Atlanta, and it's on the screen. There's the gate. Sol Ross State University, Mike Flint, 59-year-old football. He said, everybody knew where Sol Ross was. And he said, that's never happened before. And he told me, we've had a 20% increase in a lot. enrollment. Boy, if it's the day's in the I-O, you might have made a dollar or zero of it.

Yeah. And you and Aline, back in Franklin, living a normal life? Oh, yeah. When it all ended, we came back to Franklin. We always knew we would. And bought us house in Franklin. And, you know, I started having. Speaking engagements, you know how that is, you know, all over the country and spoke in a lot of different places and a lot of churches and got involved and doing a lot of different things.

And then with my fitness business. And so all this while the movie business is, you know, pecking away at the door, you know, like it. we begin to realize that more than likely it's not going to happen. Yeah, most people say, oh, it's a great story. Here's a book, right? Make a movie. A movie actually getting made and then brought to an audience is a miracle. Yeah. That the business of movie making, the art of movie making, and the distribution of movie

making, when those three pieces of business converge and come together, and it actually sees the light a day. It's actual miracle. I mean, most people don't understand literally there are thousands of movies every year that are canned that will never see the light of night, that never get promotion, that never get distribution, that just don't. It's a crazy business, the movie business. So when you say you come to the realization that the movie will probably never happen and

you've had a nice run with your book, you just got a great life, amazing story. probably not going to be a movie. That is not all Shucks false humility. That's just reality of that ridiculous person. Yeah, and it's a self-protection mechanism. It is too. That you just, you know, you can't ride this roller coaster, you know. But, you know, Mel Gibson, we had a group put up $25 million in escrow,

and Mel Gibson was going to play me. Then he backed out. And within the last 30 days, he just said, I can't. do it physically, I cannot do this. And Kevin Costner, same thing. He had knee surgery. And there's no way that he could do it after his knee surgery. And Kurt Russell, and he was too old. So it was a, it was just a- The reality of being 59 and playing football hit him right in the face. Yeah, finding someone, you know, Tim McGraw was going to step up and do it. And then ended up backing out.

And so I thought, you know, this is, this is just, it's just too difficult. And at some, and at one point, who cares? I've got a great life. And this has been a great experience. Whatever, move on. But Mark Chiarty, he is like a pit bull. You know, he just said, man, look, he said, I've, I have made 18 great sports movies. Tell those some of the ones he's made.

Miracle on Ice, the rookie, The Rookie, Invincible, Secretariat. Secretary, it's a great movie. Yeah, yeah. Great movie. Yeah, they were just all great, wonderful movies. And he became my barometer, you know, basically. He's very conservative. And he called me up.

He said, hey, we got a group that will put up 100% of the money. They want to make this movie. and then we'll start now. They've already got a director hired. And so that was Wayfarer, and they stepped up, and God was in the middle of the whole thing, and it was just, because in my contract, my attorney told me, I said, look, I want you to, Wayfair sent the contract,

and he looked at it, and he said, this looks great. And I said, okay, John, I want you to add, a clause stating that they will not take the Lord's name in vain in this movie and they will not use the name of Jesus in a disrespectful manner. He said, you're going to blow this. And I said, why? And he said, this is Hollywood. That's their creative license. And he said, you, they're not going to allow you to take that. And I said, well, put it in there. He called me up. He said, they signed it. He said, they signed it exactly as you have it. And so I said, okay. And the whole atmosphere of the shoot,

we were there for the 52 days that they shot the film. Where they shoot it? In the Fort Worth area, Fort Worth and Texas. And it was filmed during football seasons. So there were five different fields that we were having to jockey around depending on high schools. It's an expensive proposition making a football movie. Yeah, yeah. So tell everybody who plays your character and who directed it.

Rod Lurie directed it. Rod Lurie was basically the couple of movies that he had done the last outpost about the bloodiest battle in the Afghan war. There were two Americans that received the Congressional Medal of Honor from that battle, and that hadn't happened in over 50 years. But, and then Michael Chichliss played me and was absolutely amazing. It's believable. Yeah, Mary Stewart, Masterson played Lyleen.

Rob Cordry played the coach. And he was amazing because he's always played a comedic role. And he brought that kind of comedian background in his facial expressions and the way he would say things. Which fits because it is a little incredulous. Yeah. And so it typecasts a little. Yeah. Are you pleased with the film?

I am. I really am. And there were some things about it that were not accurate from a standpoint of all. Every movie takes, they have to take a little license. Listen, to tell a life story in two hours and ten minutes, Yeah. It's impossible to do without taking a little artistic license. But as long as the theme is right and the time frame is right.

Yeah. And so I was. And if people want to know more, they can just buy the book and read it. Yeah. And I was okay. I was okay with it. And so, you know, Michael Chickles and the effort that he put in. And here was the thing.

How old is he? He's, I think he's 61. Now, he was 59. Wow. when he played it. But here's what you'll appreciate that I recognized that was, to me, supreme and what he did was mentoring those young actors.

We have some incredible young actors that it's going to show up in this film. People are going to say, oh, my gosh, those guys are amazing. And when he wasn't doing his part, he was helping them. They were asking him questions. He was giving them examples of things in a way that should say things. And it made them so much better. And it just, it created a...

Isn't that ironic? Yeah, it just created an environment that the whole group took on. It was like it was contagious. We'll be right back. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal.

Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and Order Criminal Justice System is back. In Season 2, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. That's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio.

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the chaos of World War II, a king dies under mysterious circumstances, and his children never stop searching for the truth. There's no nice way to put this. Time's running out for Simeon and Maria Louisa to find answers to the question that haunts them. The Butterfly King is a historical true crime podcast from exactly right and Blanche. House. I'm investigative journalist Becky Milligan, and I'm following the trail of King

Boris III of Bulgaria, a ruler caught between Hitler and Stalin and the shocking secrets behind his sudden death. If it's 1943 and you want to kill a head of state and you have access to a whole stock of sophisticated synthetic weapons, why wouldn't you use them? A royal mystery, unlike anything you've heard before, the entire series is available now. to the Butterfly King on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control.

And they're saying like, okay, pull this. Do this, pull that, turn this. It's just... I can do it my eyes close. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, No Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these.

Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then, as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. See? Listen to no such thing.

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this, like, overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call. I said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation. And I just wanted to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there.

The Good Stuff Podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a nonprofit fighting suicide in the veteran community. is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I don't have to go to any more funerals, you know.

I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of The Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills, and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students who would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy, which is more.

effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you because it's easy to say like like go you go blank yourself right it's easy it's easy to just drink the extra beer it's easy to ignore to suppress seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just like walk the other way avoidance is easier ignoring is easier denial is easier drinking is easier. Yelling, screaming is easy. Complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So here's the deal, Mike. First of all, what an amazing story. And I'm so glad that people through this film are going to be able to see it. And again, everybody, it's Angel Studios, the

senior. September 19th, premiere will be in Franklin, Tennessee, and then you can go to Angel Studios once everything's out and watch the movie of Mike's incredible. It'll be in theaters across the country. How many theaters, Mike? About 2000. Yeah, about 2000. And the premiere is in Bedford between Fort Worth, Dallas, in Texas. I thought it was in Franklin. It's in Bedford. The 8th of September is the premiere. The release is the 19th.

The release is 19th. Thanks for clearing that. And all of that's cool. And I love telling your story and I love meeting you because we're football freaks. And the other reason is is because I remember the story and to come full circle. And I bet you. but as it pertains to an army of normal folks, as it retains to the work that Alex is trying to do

and the inspiration that we're doing, and certainly there's a ton of inspiration in your story. But I want to sign off with giving you an opportunity to speak to our audience about this. It's never too late. Maybe one thing, too. I don't think we covered it. I mean, none of this almost happening.

You almost ended your life at one point, too. Oh, yeah. Well, that was my salvation story. Well, that also fits with it's never too late. Yeah. So tell us about that and encourage our listeners to understand it really is never too late. Oh, yeah. It's so true.

and I had, in my relationship with Eileen, we'd been married 10 years. We had our two oldest children, and I had been patient with her, and she wanted to go to church, I'd go to church. She wanted to pray, we'd pray. I was so proud. I didn't feel like I needed anybody dying for me. and I, you know, I would go through the motions because that was what she required of me. I had no personal relationship with Christ.

And God knocked me to my knees. We'd been married. I was 34 years old. And I'd been drinking a lot and some financial things had happened. And I just told us. One Monday, we lived on a golf course in Austin, and the golf course was closed. And I told her, I said, you know, I think the easiest thing for me to do is get my pistol and go in that closet and just get this over. And with my violent past, it scared her.

And she just dropped everything, grabbed me by the hand. She said, come on with me. And we went out on that golf course, and we walked. and I never realized the depth of her relationship with the Lord. She just started quoting scripture to me. She started explaining to me about her relationship with Christ and what mine should be and what it could be. And she kept loving on me and she kept holding me and she kept talking to me.

And somehow I just knew I knew that things were going to be okay. I didn't know how, but I just knew they were. And then I realized I didn't know anything about God. I knew nothing. I'd never read the Bible. And I started to try to read my Bible, and it's like eating dry cereal. And I'd read the page, and I wouldn't even know what I read. You know, I thought, oh, my gosh.

And Eileen had bought a 16-volume set of children's Bible stories for our kids and had pictures and all the stuff. I took one down and started reading it and had all the pictures. and everything. That one made sense. Yeah. And I got it. And I read the whole 16. I read all 16 volumes of it. And then I went back to my Bible and it made sense to me. I got it. And I made a profession of faith in Christ. And I was on the Joni show in 2009. And she asked me about my relationship with the Lord. And I told that story. Well, a couple of years later, I'm in Franklin, Tennessee, in a cafe in downtown Franklin. I'm there with some guys from church, and we're in a meeting, we're talking. And this guy walks up, and I can tell peripheral vision that he's looking at me. And this is just part of my past. I know stuff like that.

I don't miss any of that. And so I know that this guy, I'm thinking this guy's looking at me, and I'm thinking he's recognized me from church, and he's not sure, everything. So finally, I looked over at him and smiled at him, and he said, are you Mike Flint? And I said, I am. And he walked over to me, and he was shaking. And he said, I cannot believe that I am meeting you. He said, I can't believe this. He said, I just moved here from San Diego. And he said, I've only been here a couple of weeks. But he said, couple of years ago, I had put a hose in the exhaust pipe of my car and had it in the window of my car, and I was getting ready to end my life. And I walked back in the garage, out of the

garage, into my kitchen, and my TV was on. And you were on a show talking. And he said, I think it was the Joni show, and I said, yeah. And he said, you told about you were getting ready to commit suicide and you gave your life to Christ. And he said, I just laid down on the floor and I said, God, if you do it for Mike, you do it for me. And he said, I just wanted you know that you played a part in saving my life. I was overwhelmed by God in His mercy showing me that, sending that man into my life. And forever from that point forward, I tell people, listen, if you're in pain, don't be ashamed to share that. You have no idea how that might help or touch somebody else's life.

The little things that you may not think are important that you may be ashamed of, but you share those. And if your motive is to do that is to help, then you have no idea how it might touch somebody else's life. me sharing the fact that I was getting ready to commit suicide, but God in His Mercy saved me. I said, that man in California heard that. And then God and His Mercy sent him to Franklin to share that with me. And the irony is you'd have never been on the Joni Show had you never come full circle with your own pain

about your last year in football and experience. Yeah. If you don't think there's a plan. Yeah. Boy, you're missing it. Yeah. All right. Finish us.

Inspire our listeners. It's never too late. Yeah, it's really, it is, it's never too late. And what I said earlier about changing the meaning of your past is that's something that you can do. And, you know, Coach, they've heard you talk about character, you know, so much in it that, you know, I tell people all the time that a reflection of our characters, our attitude. and our attitude about things and that using God's word, throughout God's word, he tells us, you know, and for Samuel, he talks about, you know,

God let none of Samuel's words fall to the ground. Because God was given Samuel the words that he needed to say. He gives us the words that we needed to say. And when we speak out loud, whenever you're trying to deal with something from your past, then you start speaking out loud because no voice has the impact on your brain that your own voice does. And whenever you speak positive, uplifting, encouraging, forgiving, amazing, incredible things, predictions, and plans about the future and all that you're going to do to overcome the things in the past, you speak it out loud. Your brain receives it differently than anything else it hears from anyone else.

That's why I tell young people, that old nursery rhyme, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me is a lie straight out of hell. Words are powerful. You use God's words. And Paul talks about in Philippians, 19 times he mentioned it's joy. Joy is a choice. Choice is attitude. Attitude, listen, attitude is, I call attitude your superpower.

Attitude, Stanford University did a study in the impact that positive attitude had on success in businesses. And they, across the board, they looked at hundreds of businesses. They came back and they said, 86% of businesses that succeeded attributed their success to a positive mental attitude. And they said, here's the thing. The attitude is the only area of your. life where you're in 100% control. Okay, you're in 100% control of your attitude. You start speaking positive things. When you're dealing with that regret, when you're dealing with something that you can't change in the past, you start talking about things that you can do now to substitute

for those regrets in the past and those dreams that haven't happened yet. It's all, it's been 18 years since I went back to play. 18 years, the movie's coming out now. I haven't given up. I haven't quit. I hadn't said, you know, well, it's never going to happen. I've been real about it, but I've never given up on it. And so you can't do that. You've got to take advantage of the positive words that you can get from God's Word

to speak into your own life and speak out loud. The great thing about today's world, you can put a couple of earbuds in and have your phone in your hand, and you can walk around talking to yourself, and everybody thinks you're on the phone. They don't think you're crazy. But you talk to yourself, and you talk to yourself like you are the important person that you are. And I can tell you right now that it works, and that it's something that it's one of those things that, you know, I call it the day, you know, our character, in my opinion, our character is like a muscle. If you don't exercise a muscle within 72 hours, it starts to atrophy.

It starts to lose strength and size. Same way with our character. Well, how do you, see, character is a private thing. Your character is a private thing. And so what you do in private, the things that you say in private, think. Those, yeah. The things you think. Yeah, as a man thinks in his heart. So is he so. So it's those things that you do in private that develop your attitude and your attitude is a reflection of your character. And so, but for you guys out there, women not so much. For you guys listening

to this, I call it being good versus being great. Because when you make the choice and you'll do it a thousand times a day or more. I'm, okay, I'm going to be good. I'm going to do this. I'm going to be a good husband. I'm going to be a good father. I'm going to be a good brother. I'm going to be a good employee.

When you make the choice to be great, because good is everybody, that's 95% of the people out there. But when you make that choice, and it's individual, there's no standard that you're measured to, it's strictly you. when you say, I'm going to be great. Okay, adversity now.

Adversity is in there between good and great. And when you overcome that adversity and that choice to be good, maybe it's something that your wife has asked you to do and you don't feel like it's necessary that you do it and you're walking away and all of a sudden you think, you know what, it's important to her, I'm going to go do that. I'm going to be great. I'm going to be great.

It's little things like that. And for men, it's pride. You'll deal with your pride a thousand times. You choose to be great. You put that pride aside. And here's, it has a cumulative effect. It starts, it's like the Navy SEAL that spoke to the University of Texas, you know, over a decade ago. He said, make your bed.

Get up and make your bed. It was one positive thing that they did that started their day that built momentum. Whenever you're making that choice to be great, you're building momentum in your life. towards accomplishing your dreams and your goal. And the thing about it is, it's controlled adversity that you're putting in your life. When that uncontrolled adversity comes against you, you're better able to deal with it because you've been overcoming the controlled adversity. That's what we do in practice with football, whatever a great athlete does,

is he goes through that controlled adversity so that at that point in time when he needs it, He can overcome that uncontrolled adversity. So don't give up. Don't quit. It's never too late. There's always something that you can do moving forward. From a guy who decided at 59 years old he could play college football, I think we could sit and listen to that kind of stuff all day long.

Get his book, watch the film, the senior, Mike Flynn, an incredible dude and a great story, and I really appreciate you driving down here, share your story with us here in Memphis. Well, Bill, it's been my honor. Pleasure, and I appreciate you having me. Thank you. And thank you for joining us this week.

If Mike Flint has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by writing your own redemption story, adopting the mantra that, you know what, It's never too late. By going to see the senior in theaters or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfolks.us, and I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social.

Subscribe to the podcast. Rate it, review it. Join the army at normalfolks. Any and all of these things that will help us grow, an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can. If a baby is giggling in the back seat, they're probably happy.

If a baby is crying in the back seat, They're probably hungry. But if a baby is sleeping in the back seat, will you remember they're even there? When you're distracted, stressed, or not usually the one who drives them, the chances of forgetting them in the back seat are much higher. It can happen to anyone.

Parked cars get hot fast and can be deadly. So get in the habit of checking the back seat when you leave. The message from NHTSA and the ad council. It's 1943. A king dies under mysterious circumstances in the middle of world. War II. Was it murder? After 80 years of lies and cover-ups, his children need answers. And, you know, kissed us and said, I'll see you tonight. And we never saw him again. From exactly right and Blanchard House, the Butterfly King is a gripping historical true

crime series that dives deep into royal secrets, wartime cover-ups, and a mystery that refuses to die. All episodes are available now. Listen to the Butterfly King on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast.