And now, in the lineup -- hey, it’s Grandpa

ALPINE, TEXAS â€”  Mike Flynt is a very senior linebacker -- a real upperclassman.

Thirty-seven years ago, back when Richard Nixon was president, Flynt was a junior footballer here at tiny Sul Ross State University with a hard head and a nose for fighting.

After one scuffle too many, he got booted from the team he loved. It was a fall from grace that became one of his life’s great regrets.

So when Flynt, 59, was reminiscing over some beers at a school reunion a few months ago, and a pal said that maybe he could get his last season of playing eligibility back, it wasn’t a punch line to the AARP member -- it was a eureka moment.

On Saturday night, Flynt capped a personal fairy tale of second chances and redemption when he returned to the gridiron as his aging ex-teammates, his grown children and his grandson cheered him on.

A highlight-reel performance it was not -- Flynt knocked helmets on special teams with young men a third his age during Sul Ross’s 45-42 double-overtime win against Texas Lutheran University. But he competently made his blocks and survived intact, becoming one of the oldest men ever to play NCAA football. A decade ago, Edgard Barreto took the field at age 60 for Ohio’s Ashland University, but only for one play.

After the game, holding his towheaded 20-month-old grandson, Collin, Flynt addressed a pack of reporters in the middle of the field and proclaimed his comeback complete.

“The hitting was great,� Flynt said, adding, “Isn’t this a good-looking boy?�

The spectacle of the Ultimate Senior, as the retiree has become known, may be the biggest story ever to hit Alpine, population 5,786. Nicknamed the Alps of Texas, this picturesque town sits nearly a mile above sea level in the foothills of the Davis Mountains, about three hours east of El Paso.

Texas newspapers and most of the major television networks dispatched journalists to Alpine to watch No. 49 -- “the old dude� to some of his teammates -- take the field for the Lobos. Flynt was recently interviewed by Jim Rome on ESPN and even got mentioned in Sports Illustrated. Naturally, AARP: The Magazine ordered up a story.

“The coach has lost his mind,� said Alpine resident Charley Cooke, 79, adding that he hung up his basketball shoes in the 1940s and is not contemplating a comeback. “But if Mike Flynt can really cut it, more power to him.�

A fitness freak who developed his own line of exercise products, Flynt learned the hard way that his body won’t move as nimbly as it once did. Groin pulls and neck stingers (a form of nerve injury) that used to heal in days kept him off the field for weeks.

But Flynt, who is 5-foot-10 and about 200 pounds, thinks he can still sack a quarterback. He hopes to get some playing time at outside linebacker before the season ends.

Yet Flynt quickly added that it’s the small moments, like the time he stared down a running back in practice before tackling him in the open field, that he treasures now. He wants to remember them all.

“When I was a young snot-nosed kid, practice was a chore to me. The coaches annoyed me. I hated all of that,� Flynt said. “Now, I savor every wind sprint. I know how fast this can all end.�

Back in the day, Flynt was a pretty good player -- but perhaps not such a good person. He was on the first state championship team at Odessa Permian, the Texas high school immortalized in “Friday Night Lights.� After bouncing around junior college, he wound up at Sul Ross State, which at the time competed in the tougher NAIA division (it is now a Division III school).

Flynt was an emotional leader on the 1969 Sul Ross team, which scored the only victory that season against Texas A&I;, winner of two straight national championships. But a brawl in the dorms before the start of the 1971 season -- which by Flynt’s admission came after more than a dozen other scraps -- ended his playing career.

The man Flynt had knocked silly jumped out of an ambulance at a stop sign, saying that he had a gun and was going to go shoot Flynt dead. Police were summoned. The college president was awakened past 1 a.m. and heard a name -- Flynt -- that he already knew too well.

“There were a bunch of cowboys down there who liked to drink beer and fistfight,� argued Randy Wilson, 58, Flynt’s friend and former teammate. “We didn’t look for fights, but we didn’t run from them.�

Travis Hendryx, the school’s sports information director, told a less sanitized story. “Flynt was a real hell-raiser,� he said.

Flynt stayed in sports, working as a strength coach at Texas A&M;, Oregon and Nebraska. He embraced Christianity because of his wife, Eileen -- with whom he has raised three children in their more than 35 years of marriage. But he never got over the feeling that he had let his football dreams slip away.

During this year’s reunion, he said, he confided in his former teammates: “Do you know how many times I cried over that? The funny thing is, I still feel like I can play.� One told him he should try. Soon, Flynt was begging for a fresh shot.

Former teammate Wilson warned him that he might get his rear end kicked. His wife thought he was kidding. But when they figured out that he was sincere, they got behind him.

“I was frustrated with him one day and said, I feel like I’m married to Peter Pan!� Eileen Flynt said. “But I realized how much it meant to him. And I knew that if something meant that much to me, he’d support me all the way.�

Flynt is working toward a master’s degree and is enrolled classes in management and the history of sports.

Still, the comeback never would have been possible without Sul Ross Coach Steve Wright, a politically incorrect prankster who preaches an Oakland Raiders-style philosophy of second, third and fourth chances.

As he chipped golf balls on the field prior to Friday’s practice, Wright was asked what style of offense he runs. “Hmm,� he said, and summoned a linebacker to answer the question. He coaxed a defensive tackle with a mohawk to sneak up and bear-hug a reporter, then introduced the scribe to another player by saying, “This guy’s from L.A. But that don’t mean he’s gay.�

Wright turned old-school serious, though, when asked whether playing Flynt was a gimmick. He said the Sul Ross Baby Boomers, an alumni group, was pressuring him to play Flynt to publicize the little-known Lobo football program.

But Flynt had to earn his playing time, just like anyone else, Wright said -- and his determination to prove he belonged seemed to have impressed his teammates much more than his 25 chin-ups or 40-yard dash time.

Flynt, they said, reminded them the game was all about passion.

“He gives me hope that you can always do the things you love,� said Jacob Warden, a 19-year-old wide receiver who was on crutches after breaking his leg during the season’s fourth play. “My problems are nothing compared to what he’s gone through to get back on the field. He’s had a much bigger impact than some of the players concede.�

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