September 16, 2025 • 38 mins
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/premium
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
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. He's looking at me, and he said, why
don't you?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
And I said, I'm fifty nine. And then it was
three four decades ago for me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm a football coach in the
inner city Memphis. And the last part a few years
ago somehow led to an Oscar for a film about
team I coached. That movie's called Undefeated. I believe our
(01:04):
country's problems are never going to be solved by a
bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words
that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather
by an army of normal folks. Guys, that's us, just
you and me, deciting. Hey, you know what, maybe I
can help. Maybe I can be a solution. That's what
(01:25):
Mike Flint, the voice you just heard, has done. Mike
got kicked off as college football team for one too
many fights, and he lived with the regret of letting
down his teammates for literally decades until he forged one
of the greatest redemption stories you'll ever hear, becoming the
oldest linebacker in the history of NCAA football at fifty
(01:52):
nine years old. He's the subject of Angel Studio's latest film,
The Senior, and I can wait for you to meet
him right after these brief messages from our general sponsors,
(02:13):
Mike Flint, Welcome to Memphis. Thanks glad to be here, coach.
How was the right down just from Nashville area? Right?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, yeah, yeah, it's it's a great drive.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Drive.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, it's gorgeous day. Fall is in the air.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That means football, That's right. It's like I was telling somebody,
this past weekend was my Christmas. You know, his first
weekend for football and high school football and college kickoff
and everything else. Falls in the air. That's my Christmas. Yeah,
I do like a kidney andy store when football starts
so thanks for joining us, everybody. Mike Flint is an
(02:53):
interesting dude, and you're gonna love his story. It's it's
a little outside of our normal service stories, although his
story is packed with service to his teammates and redemption candidly,
but we talk a lot about on the Army and
(03:14):
normal Folks, how it's never too late and Army and
Normal Folks is about normal people you've never heard of,
doing extraordinary things in their communities, and we tell the
stories trying to inspire our listeners to understand that if
this average normal person can do something, we'll soak in
you and there's no need to have trepidation or fear.
(03:37):
All you need is a little bit of courage where
you match your passion and your abilities an area of
need and do things that hopefully inspire others. And then
one of the taglines to that that Alex and I
always talk about, it's never too late. Doesn't matter if
you're sixty and had involved yourself in some philanthropic project
you can. It doesn't matter if you think the opportunities
(04:01):
have passed you by to do extraordinary things. As long
as you wake up and the sun's up and there's
your lungs. It's never too late to make a difference
in your world, and I think you're the epitome of that.
I can't even believe I'm saying this. Mike Is And
I remember your story. I remember watching on ESPN and
(04:22):
thinking you were half out of your mind but also
cool and crazy too. Mike Flint, everybody is the oldest
linebacker in the history of NCAA football. At fifty nine
years old. He used his last year of college eligibility
playing for Sullivan Ross State effectually known as Soul Ross
(04:46):
State in Alpine, Texas. There have been people that have
kicked and punted that were old, but this dude played
the linebacker. He is now the subject of Angel Studio's
latest film, The Senior, which is in theaters on September nineteenth.
And I think it's opening in your hometown of Franklin,
(05:06):
tennes See. Right, Oh yeah, which is awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, ideos, it really is. You know, that's pretty special.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So we're going to get to your story, and we're
going to start at the beginning, because I think a
lot of the way you came up really unpacks what
you ended up doing. But you also wrote a book,
and the book is titled The Senior My Amazing Year
as a fifty nine year old college football linebacker. I
(05:33):
just I can't even match. I just turned fifty seven,
and I think if somebody hit me hard right now,
I would disintegrate fifty nine. But to give everybody a
glimpse into the world of the book, your story, the movie,
and what led to it all, I think I'm going
(05:56):
to read the ford to your book. It was written
by this some guy named Lebron Shames, some dude named
Lebron James, that was him. Yeah, before I read it.
How did Lebron James write the forward of your book?
How'd you make that connection?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Lebron and his Maverick Carter, who was manager of lr
MR Marketing, contacted me during the season that you know,
amazing season that I had in two thousand and seven,
approached me about coming back to Cleveland to a game,
watched Lebron play. They wanted to talk to me about
(06:34):
a management contract.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
So that's how the relationship started. And then it was
in two thousand and eight, after I had signed a
management agreement with Lebron's company that I was working with
Don Yaeger that was co writing my book with me,
and we reached out to Lebron asked if he would
(06:58):
you know, we sent him some you know, act chapters,
you know, from the book, so he would get an
idea of where things were going with it. And he
loved it, and he said absolutely he had write the forward.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So here's what Lebron James writes. When I grab a
book or magazine in search of a little mental escape,
I'm always looking for a good story. I want to
read about others who have overcome obstacles, about people who
have shown that limits are something you place on yourself.
I read to be inspired. That's what drew me to
the story of a fifty nine year old man trying
(07:32):
to make a college football team in South Texas. As
soon as I read the story in a magazine, I
wanted to know more about him and why he was
taking the risk. The more I learned about Mike Flint,
the more I wanted to learn. The more of the
story I knew, the more I wanted to help him
tell it. When I started my management company in two
thousand and five with childhood friends, I knew exactly what
(07:52):
I wanted to do. I wanted our approach to be
seen as visionary in the business world and totally different
than any other management company out there. I had complete
confidence in my plan, but I knew I needed to
surround myself with people who shared my values, people of
character who inspire and help others to be better. That's
why Mike Flynn's story is one that I chose to
(08:14):
highlight as the first of many we hoped to be
associated with our company. Mike never gave up his dream,
even at fifty nine. He never allowed anyone to take
away that dream, no matter how old he was or
what he went through, and that's why I was so
inspired by his termination. I first first met Mike at
(08:34):
one of my Cleveland Cavaliers home games in November of
two thousand and seven. I had a chance to talk
to Mike after the game, and I told him I
thought he had an incredible story. To return to college
and finish his long delayed senior season of football after
nearly four decades was amazing to me. Here was a
grandfather who was eight years older than his head coach
(08:57):
and had two children older than his team mates. Readings
Mike's story reminded me a lot of my own story.
Had many obstacles, to overcome in my youth, and like Mike,
always believed that one day my dreams hauld come true. Still,
there are so many people across the country who need
what Mike has to offer in this book to help
them win their own personal vitals. I'm about the same
(09:19):
age as many of Mike's most recent college teammates, so
I can relate to the impact he had in their lives.
I know that in my busy life someone might tell
me something valuable and it may go in one ear
and out the other. But when you tell me a
great story, you have my attention. This is not just
a feel good story. This is a story of redemption
and giving back. Pretty high praise from Lebron James.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Well, it was very humbling in what he wrote.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And the thing about about Lebron that kindred spirit that
we had. As I said, I spent a lot of
time with Maverick, and Maverick grew up with Lebron, and
Maverick told me about an.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Eight year old boy.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
The first day of third grade.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
The teacher had everybody sit down and she passed out
a three by five card everybody in the class, and
she told them she wanted to just number one, two
three on the card. Put their name on that card,
just number one, two three, and then write down their
first choice or second choice and their third choice for
what they wanted to do when they finished with their schooling,
(10:32):
and pass passed the cards.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Forward, and she would talk about them. Well.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
She was going through the cards, talking about different occupations
that the kids had written down and how much schooling
was required for those different occupations, and then she comes
to this one card and she looks at it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
She looks at the class. She looks back at the.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Card and she said, Okay, someone has written NBA, NBA,
NBA for all three choices. He should I need to
know who wrote this card. And he raised his hand
and she said, first of all, you have any idea
how difficult it is to make it in the NBA,
(11:12):
to even make the college basketball team, but to make
it in the NBA is almost impossible. And she said,
you've got it listed as all three of your choices.
Why is it all three of your choices? And he said,
for me, there are not any other choices. That's what
I'm going to do. Lebron James knew when he was
(11:34):
eight years old what he wanted to do and he
was sold out to it and living on the streets,
the things that he went through as a young boy.
To date, he has no idea who his dad is.
He had no idea he was going to be six
or nine weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. His mother,
(11:56):
I've met his mother, a small woman.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Lebron was always studying, always took care of class work,
but he was always on a basketball court somewhere, no
matter where he lived, in different Foster homes, there were
a group of people that actually took care of him.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
But out of high school he was drafted.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Number one by the Cleveland Calvaliers. And so, you know, Lebron.
Whenever Lebron wrote what he did in my forward, I
didn't appreciate it to the degree that I did after
Maverick told me that story, and then it took on
a whole new meaning for me, because this was a
guy that everything he described in me, he was basically himself.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
He was in spades.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You know that he just saw so much of his
relentless pursuit of his goals in the story of a
fifty nine year old guy Inlet's pursuit.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Of this, And I was so honored umbled by what
he wrote.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
He's just he's an amazing guy.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And now a few messages from our gender sponsors. But first,
I hope you'll consider signing up to join the army
at normal folks dot us. By signing up, you'll receive
a weekly email with short episodes summaries in case you
happen to miss an episode, or if you prefer reading
about our incredible guests, we'll be right back. Pretty cool.
(13:43):
That sets up your story already. Our listeners are going, Bill,
are you talking to a crazy person? And yeah, I
think all of us have a little crazy in us,
but you have to be a little crazy to just
go after it. But set us up. Even how your
parents met kind of an interesting story, I think, and
kind of how they met and where you come from
(14:05):
and how you were raised, because I think that's your
maine to a lot of what happened later in your
life when you're married. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Absolutely, My dad was born and raised in in Mississippi.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Old Miss. I'm an Old Miss guy. Yeah, And but
I think he was from Hattisburg, so he was alster
to Southern miss Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Well, you know, he had a third grade education and
so you know he loved He loved football and always
thought that he would be a good football player, but
that was never in the cards for him. World War Two, Uh,
you know, he enlisted, was shipped to England in preparation
(14:49):
for the D Day invasion. During that time period they
were there for almost a year. He met my mother.
She's I was born in Nottingham, raised there.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
In Robin Hood And yeah, is that not? Is that
the same Nottingham same, noting him, Yeah, I'll be that go. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
And uh, so they met in London.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
He came in on uh you know, various they would
get time off leave or whatever and they would they
would come into to London. And he always told me
that she was like porcelain doll. The first time you
ever saw her, he just you know, he absolutely fell
in love with her English rose. Yeah, and so uh
(15:30):
they uh spent a lot of time together and then
he was shipped out for D Day. Uh went over
uh the D Day in Normandy. Uh then on into
the Battle of the Bulge and he.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Was with your father was in the Battle of the Bulow. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
He ended up losing a leg to the uh injuries
he had from the Battle of the Bulge and but
he was shipped back to London for rehab, and he
reconnected with mother and uh they got married. Then he
would shipped back to the US. Mother had to wait
(16:09):
until the wives and children and whatnot of soldiers and
American soldiers that had married married foreign women.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Could be before they could be shipped.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
To the US.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
And I remember him telling me that he received a
telegram that morning saying when mother would be in, when
the boat would be getting in and in New York.
And he received a telegram that night saying that Patricia,
their daughter, had been run over and killed by a
(16:41):
truck in England.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
And England, yeah, your sister.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, my older sister. Yeah, how old was she she was?
She was only uh two, She just had started walking
and she my aunt was watching her.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Reconstruction was going on.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
It was just chaos all over London and mother was working.
Patricia got out, a truck backed over and killed her,
and so terrible.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
My mother.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Left her country, everybody that she knew, moved to a
foreign country with only my dad there. And my dad's
family did.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Not accept her because she was English.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Because she was foreign. They felt like she had basically
tricked my dad into a relationship in marrying her.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
But it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Until I was probably five six years old that I
kept looking at this little girl picture of little girl
on my mom's dresser, and I knew it wasn't my
older sister. And I knew it wasn't my younger sister,
and so I asked my mom, I said, who is
this little girl? And then she sent me down and
told me about Patricia what I just shared with you.
(18:02):
And that was the first time that I realized my
people have asked me, you know, throughout my life, you know,
who are your heroes? You know, It's never been a
doubt in my mind, it's my mom. It's always been
my mom because of everything that she went through, what
(18:23):
she was able to overcome and deal with u through
the loss of her daughter and moving to a foreign
country where she wasn't you know, embraced with open arms.
And I've never known anyone that worked as hard as
she did. You know, worked two jobs, and she was
always happy, always. You know, she was the favorite of
(18:48):
all my friends. They love just sit and listen to
her talk.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Engli.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, and uh, it was it was so funny that
she taught us all how to play play cards, and
the guys had come over and they mom had to
be there to play it, mainly because they wanted to
get their money back.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It's interesting I think of this, this rough and tumble
guy from Mississippi with a third grade education who came
up blue collar and probably with very little means and
the Battle of the Bulge and all the toughness that
you think of when you think about but in hindsight,
maybe it's your mom with the real toughness she was.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
She was amazing, she really was.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
But that that was how my my parents got together.
My dad worked in a cabinet shop there in Hattisburg
and things were slow and he was hearing about West
Texas and the old boom that they were having out there,
and you know, people needed cabinets, and so he loaded up.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
They moved Odessa.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It doesn't get any more west than it.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Does not, so we were right in the middle of
the old fields and uh.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
But that's that's high school football country, right. Yeah. A religion.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, we didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
After we got there, you know, it was it was
still not a parrot at that time, but it was
big because we put the pads on in the third grade.
When I was in the third grade, they had the
head Hunter Award and it was a new helmet. There
were three guys selected off the third grade team that
(20:41):
got new helmets if they were a head hunter. And
I got one of those helmets. I got one of
those helmets.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
And uh, you know, I think I read or Alex
told me or something that your dad actually had you
boxing at six or seven years old.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Well, yeah, he. My dad loved me very much. And
my uncles, his three brothers, told me after I was,
you know, a young man grown in my twenties, in
talking with them, how World War II had changed him
and that he was a totally different man when he
(21:22):
came back from.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
And they certainly didn't have what they have for service
members today in terms of mental health help. It was
called shell shock back then, and you just gritched your
teeth and buried it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Well, what he did is he he took so many
things that he learned in the military, and he felt
like that it was his responsibility in West Texas because
you've got cowboys out there in abundance, you've got the
roughnecks in the oil field, and then you got football.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
It's tough, and so, yeah, there's there's fistfights.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I mean, I mean it's a it's a regular occurrence
West Texas at that time. And so he he's gonna
train me. And when I was six, he handed me
I can't call me in. I was out playing with
some of the neighborhood guys. They'd call me in and hem,
he boxing clothes and we started that day. It went
on for seven years. And at time he called it
(22:20):
boxing and I was young, but I was pretty sure
what we were doing was fighting.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Really Uh yeah, yeah, he because.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
What did your mom say about all that?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
She would intervene some Yeah, when blood, when my nose
would be bleeding, or he'd bust my mouth, and uh,
she would step in and she'd get upset and everything.
He would, you know, get him a drink of beer
and say he's tough enough, he can take this.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
And I could.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
I was always okay, I you know, I knew that
I could. But we we boxed for uh for.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Seven years, no kidding.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Now, But Bill, the thing that had the most lasting
impact on me was it wasn't the physical training.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
It was the mental training. We would sit.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Sometimes for hour two hours, and he would I called
it mind games. I named it that years later, but
he just called it being ready, and he would sit
and groom me. Here, I'm eight, nine, ten years old.
The only bar I've ever been in is at the
(23:36):
American Legion. One that'd take us out there with them.
He would start telling me about where I needed to sit.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
If I go in.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Someplace and there's a crowd of people and there's people drinking,
you sit.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
In your booth. To the law, you sit in the booth.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
You don't sit on the inside. You sit on the
outside where you can get on your feet.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
You never respond.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
If you're sitting down as somebody says something and to you,
you sit there and just ignore it whatever they say
until they step away where you can get on your feet.
It was always about positioning and things that I would
need to do to recognize who troublemakers were, because Daddy was.
He was hard and fast about troublemakers. He said, if
(24:19):
I hear of you starting to fight.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Well you're getting whipping when you get home.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And if I hear somebody starting to fight with you
and you don't fight, you're getting a whipping you get.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
So if you fight and don't win.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You're getting a whipping you get home.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
And so I had to mind, don't start to fight.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
If someone starts with you, you better win, got to win,
otherwise you're getting a whipping.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
It's old school yeah stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
And I never ever condone the idea of me justifying
starting to fight.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
It wasn't there. That just it's it's not there.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
But if somebody needs your help, if you you see somebody,
one of your sisters or somebody somebody's bullying them or
trying to hurt them, you better jump in. You better
take care of business.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
We will be right back, you know. On the face
of it. When I heard you boxed from six to
thirteen with your dad, here's an admission. I boxed. I
(25:36):
wasn't six or eight. I was more thirteen fourteen, and
I actually enjoyed it. It made me more confident attendidly
because I didn't really fear getting into a fight because
i'd been hit. I know what it tastes like to
munch on aluminum foil. If you've ever been hit in
the face, you know what that taste tastes like. And
(25:58):
I wasn't great, but I felt like some jackass on
the road. I could defend myself, you know, So that
was good, and so I wanted my children to learn. Well,
I wasn't going to box with them, but I did
buy my kids boxing gloves when they were eleven and
just had to spar with each other, and Lisa would
come out raising hell if anybody got a bloody lift.
But I just wanted them to learn how to just
(26:21):
be able to defend themselves and everything else. And we
had some of the same rules. You never start anything,
but I don't think I took it to the extreme
your dad did. But anyway, on the face of it,
it seems extreme, but candidly when I hear the rules,
they're just old school do the right thing rules. Really.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
He was so clear in the pictures that he painted
and where I wasn't here. Again, I'm a kid. I've
never been in a bar, you know, I don't know,
but he had been in plenty of them. And then
he would tell me stories about different things that he
had done, fights that he had been in, how he
won those fights that maybe he should never have won.
(27:01):
And so I had all this stuff that I was
processing and and I learned that it didn't start to
kick in for me until Actually, I was almost out
of high school because I never drank. I was I
was such a puritan in my body and working so
hard always to try to improve myself that the last
(27:24):
thing I was going to do was drink, you know, alcohol,
you know of any kind. But then when I stepped
into that environment, into that world, all of that came back,
all of those mind games, all those things, and I
began to find myself. When I'd walk in someplace, I
could tell you in five minutes where the troublemakers were. Really,
(27:47):
I could tell I could pick them out. I atually
was or a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Well it was.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
From from a mental standpoint, it was.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
It was a good thing when I learned to channel,
because there were so many of the other areas that
I could use that same technique that same I did
it in football, I had twenty four tackles in one game.
But what I finally learned to do as a linebacker
is once I had game film which I could watch
(28:18):
the offense in the quarterback, then I have my own
game films. I have my own mind games that I'm playing.
Every step that I make. Everything that I.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Do is successful.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I sacked that quarterback again and again, I get into coverage,
I intercept passes, I do all of that in preparation.
So now when I go out on the field, I've
already got this mental approach.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's funny I've always talked to when I coach football,
I almost think mental reps are more important than physical
reps in a football game.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yeah, it's it's especially first score players. You know the
thing about the mental reps as you always.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Win, That's right, you win.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Now, you win every time, and the mental reps you
can do again and again, and once you become disciplined
in it, you take advantage of those opportunities where you're
alone to do just that. And it served me well
in that regard. There were other times that I feel
like in looking back on my life and people have
(29:24):
asked me if I regretted a lot of the things
my dad did, and I don't. I really don't, because
of God working all things, you know, together for good.
And you know that verse train of a child and
the way she go when even when he's old, and
I'll not depart from it.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Well, that's a double edged sword that is do ed.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
And so you know that was something as I got older,
and particularly when I got it and my relationship with
the Lord. I had to change some things about the
way that I looked at things. I could no longer
walk in a room and start saying, okay, that negative
approach that when I was younger was dominant.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Had to retrain your brain.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
The last thing that I was going to allow happen
was to someone surprise me. I knew better than to
walk into that environment and not know who it was
that I was going to be dealing with.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So you were thirteen and you had your last boxing
match right with her dad? How'd that? Why was thirteen
the magic number?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
It was really baseball game of the week. It was
a Saturday that he was trying to watch. He was
still down on his knees boxing with me because I
was too I was still too small for him the box.
With standing up, I begin to notice that every time
that he would look over.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
At the TV set, he had separated his guard.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
And so you know, I set my feet and I waited,
and he looked, and I unloaded on him. I mean
I hit him full and flushing the side of the face,
and he had to catch hisself keep them falling, and
he got up, shook off his gloves and looked at
me and he said, Okay, that's it. You know, you're
not big enough for me to box with standing up,
You're too big meet a box with on my knees.
(31:11):
He said, we're not We're not boxing.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
You trained up well enough. Yeah. So then high school football, Yeah,
tell me about your world and high school football.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Well, we had a group of coaches that had been
there for a couple of years at Permian High School.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
That's Friday night lights. Yeah, yeah, the real live Friday
night lights, the real deal. Wow.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And so I was not getting the attention that I
felt like that I should have because of the player
that I felt.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Like that I was.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
But I was at that time. I was maybe five eight,
about one hundred and forty pounds, And.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You might have been Hilasius in high school, but that
doesn't equate Division one tight linebacker.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Now, and well I was a defensive back in.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
High but still even so, yeah, five eight, you know,
they there's just not a lot of five eight guys
playing Division one Division one football.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
And going into my senior year, Jeen Mayfield comes in,
they fire the whole coaching staff. Jeen Mayfield comes in
and calls a meeting, team meeting, he tells us. He said, Okay,
we're gonna be a defensive football team. If you can't
(32:36):
score on us, you can't beat us. So we're gonna
play defense. And he said, I want to tell you
right now the stories I've been hearing about this football
team and the players on this team. The country club
set is what people call you sit around the pool
and drink beer. He said, no more. He said, You're
(32:58):
gonna everybody in this room is going to have chance
to start on this football team. Everybody's gonna have to
prove that they have earned their spot. The minute he
said that, I thought, Okay, this is all I've been
waiting for. I was the starting defensive back, all district
(33:20):
defensive back on that first state championship football team at
Permian High School that started Mojo and that winning tradition
that inspired the book in the movie Friday Night Lights.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
No kidding, Yeah that is so cool. Yeah all right,
so football, you're in it. You're taking care of your
body everything else, and you want to go play college ball. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I don't have a lot of guidance at home. Daddy's
a workaholic. Mom works as well, and you know, they're
so excited about me, and I've got multiple scholarship offers
and I ended up going to a junior college.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
One day at practice, we were having the coach Coach
Hensley and in fact, Coach Hensley is going to be
my last living high school coach is coming to the premiere.
Uh soetemporary and say, yeah. He called me yesterday. Uh,
he's gonna be able to be he and his wife
are gonna be able to make it to the premiere.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
But he called me, I'd already, you know, finished my eligibility.
We won state championship and they were having spring practice
and he uh called me into the into the coach's
office that morning and he said, do you think you'd
have time to come out to practice early today? We
need a defense. We need some guys to play defense.
We're going to have you know, running backs and everything
(34:42):
going through drills and we want somebody. I want somebody
to pop them. And they said you've come out here.
I said, huge, Yeah, absolutely, I love to see that.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So I'm out there. Well, coach Robinson from University of.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Houston is there and I didn't I had no idea
he was there Billy Dale, all state running back that
we had that was a all conference running back at
the University of Texas on their national championship team.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
They handed him the ball.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
It was a you know, a fake pass, the hand
off to the running back, and I read it, you know,
and I mean I was at full tilt when he
hit the line of scrimmage and he went one way,
ball went the other and anyway. I jumped up and
they were helping Billy Dale up and I looked and
(35:29):
Coach Robinson was walking off. He just left left practice
and I thought, well, that's weird. Did he just get
to leave practice?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I think that's all he needed. I said, it was it.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Coachingsley came up to me after practice, he said, Coach
Robinson said that you've got a full ride University of Houston.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
He said that one tackle was all he needed to see.
He said, the year's guy, Well, I ended up going
to Ranger Junior College.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Why didn't you go to Houston? G I r L
I'll do it. Yeah, yeah, And that is not an acronym.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
I'm telling you it was.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
It was one of the stupidest decisions that I've ever made,
because I had other offers too, you know, and where
well Arkansas and uh then s m U.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
You could have played at s m U or Arkansas Houston.
You went to junior college over a g I.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
R L Coach Fry told me at at s m U.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Hayden Fry, Well there's a that's a legend.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, yeah, he said, you can play. You can play
for us. He said, uh, have you had any other offers?
And I said, yeah, I just got an offer from
the University of Houston. He said, University of Uston offered,
made you a full offer. And I said yes, sir,
And he said, can will you come to s m U.
And I said, well, you know, I see, I have
all these plans with this girl, and she was going
(36:53):
to go to a junior college. I was going to
go to the junior college and then we were going
to go off together. And so that last one semester
I went to this junior college and it was a nightmare,
it really was. But the thing about it was is
I met for the first time, I met a bunch
(37:14):
of black athletes that see, I had never in West Texas.
We didn't have any black athletes playing on any of
our teams.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, there weren't many black people in West Texas. Noway no.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
But so I get to range your junior college and
we've got half of our team or black guys, and
then we've got the basketball players that are all black,
that most of them are from New York.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
And so this is a whole new.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Life for me.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Here's a kid that's dad is from Mississippi, that's raised him.
So all of a sudden, I'm in this environment. It
was amazed. I realized that all the things that I'd
been told as a young man about that in the
racial issues, it was a lie. It was all a lie.
It totally changed me as a man and as a person.
(38:07):
And so that one semester, you know, I said, was
a absolutely abysmal decision from a athletics standpoint. It was
one of those life lesson opportunities that I wouldn't trade
for anything.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
It was.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And that concludes part one of my conversations with Mike Flint,
and trust me, you don't want to miss part two.
It's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can
change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see
in part two
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. He's looking at me, and he said, why
don't you?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
And I said, I'm fifty nine. And then it was
three four decades ago for me.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm a football coach in the
inner city Memphis. And the last part a few years
ago somehow led to an Oscar for a film about
team I coached. That movie's called Undefeated. I believe our
(01:04):
country's problems are never going to be solved by a
bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words
that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather
by an army of normal folks. Guys, that's us, just
you and me, deciting. Hey, you know what, maybe I
can help. Maybe I can be a solution. That's what
(01:25):
Mike Flint, the voice you just heard, has done. Mike
got kicked off as college football team for one too
many fights, and he lived with the regret of letting
down his teammates for literally decades until he forged one
of the greatest redemption stories you'll ever hear, becoming the
oldest linebacker in the history of NCAA football at fifty
(01:52):
nine years old. He's the subject of Angel Studio's latest film,
The Senior, and I can wait for you to meet
him right after these brief messages from our general sponsors,
(02:13):
Mike Flint, Welcome to Memphis. Thanks glad to be here, coach.
How was the right down just from Nashville area? Right?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, yeah, yeah, it's it's a great drive.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Drive.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, it's gorgeous day. Fall is in the air.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That means football, That's right. It's like I was telling somebody,
this past weekend was my Christmas. You know, his first
weekend for football and high school football and college kickoff
and everything else. Falls in the air. That's my Christmas. Yeah,
I do like a kidney andy store when football starts
so thanks for joining us, everybody. Mike Flint is an
(02:53):
interesting dude, and you're gonna love his story. It's it's
a little outside of our normal service stories, although his
story is packed with service to his teammates and redemption candidly,
but we talk a lot about on the Army and
(03:14):
normal Folks, how it's never too late and Army and
Normal Folks is about normal people you've never heard of,
doing extraordinary things in their communities, and we tell the
stories trying to inspire our listeners to understand that if
this average normal person can do something, we'll soak in
you and there's no need to have trepidation or fear.
(03:37):
All you need is a little bit of courage where
you match your passion and your abilities an area of
need and do things that hopefully inspire others. And then
one of the taglines to that that Alex and I
always talk about, it's never too late. Doesn't matter if
you're sixty and had involved yourself in some philanthropic project
you can. It doesn't matter if you think the opportunities
(04:01):
have passed you by to do extraordinary things. As long
as you wake up and the sun's up and there's
your lungs. It's never too late to make a difference
in your world, and I think you're the epitome of that.
I can't even believe I'm saying this. Mike Is And
I remember your story. I remember watching on ESPN and
(04:22):
thinking you were half out of your mind but also
cool and crazy too. Mike Flint, everybody is the oldest
linebacker in the history of NCAA football. At fifty nine
years old. He used his last year of college eligibility
playing for Sullivan Ross State effectually known as Soul Ross
(04:46):
State in Alpine, Texas. There have been people that have
kicked and punted that were old, but this dude played
the linebacker. He is now the subject of Angel Studio's
latest film, The Senior, which is in theaters on September nineteenth.
And I think it's opening in your hometown of Franklin,
(05:06):
tennes See. Right, Oh yeah, which is awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, ideos, it really is. You know, that's pretty special.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So we're going to get to your story, and we're
going to start at the beginning, because I think a
lot of the way you came up really unpacks what
you ended up doing. But you also wrote a book,
and the book is titled The Senior My Amazing Year
as a fifty nine year old college football linebacker. I
(05:33):
just I can't even match. I just turned fifty seven,
and I think if somebody hit me hard right now,
I would disintegrate fifty nine. But to give everybody a
glimpse into the world of the book, your story, the movie,
and what led to it all, I think I'm going
(05:56):
to read the ford to your book. It was written
by this some guy named Lebron Shames, some dude named
Lebron James, that was him. Yeah, before I read it.
How did Lebron James write the forward of your book?
How'd you make that connection?
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Lebron and his Maverick Carter, who was manager of lr
MR Marketing, contacted me during the season that you know,
amazing season that I had in two thousand and seven,
approached me about coming back to Cleveland to a game,
watched Lebron play. They wanted to talk to me about
(06:34):
a management contract.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
So that's how the relationship started. And then it was
in two thousand and eight, after I had signed a
management agreement with Lebron's company that I was working with
Don Yaeger that was co writing my book with me,
and we reached out to Lebron asked if he would
(06:58):
you know, we sent him some you know, act chapters,
you know, from the book, so he would get an
idea of where things were going with it. And he
loved it, and he said absolutely he had write the forward.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So here's what Lebron James writes. When I grab a
book or magazine in search of a little mental escape,
I'm always looking for a good story. I want to
read about others who have overcome obstacles, about people who
have shown that limits are something you place on yourself.
I read to be inspired. That's what drew me to
the story of a fifty nine year old man trying
(07:32):
to make a college football team in South Texas. As
soon as I read the story in a magazine, I
wanted to know more about him and why he was
taking the risk. The more I learned about Mike Flint,
the more I wanted to learn. The more of the
story I knew, the more I wanted to help him
tell it. When I started my management company in two
thousand and five with childhood friends, I knew exactly what
(07:52):
I wanted to do. I wanted our approach to be
seen as visionary in the business world and totally different
than any other management company out there. I had complete
confidence in my plan, but I knew I needed to
surround myself with people who shared my values, people of
character who inspire and help others to be better. That's
why Mike Flynn's story is one that I chose to
(08:14):
highlight as the first of many we hoped to be
associated with our company. Mike never gave up his dream,
even at fifty nine. He never allowed anyone to take
away that dream, no matter how old he was or
what he went through, and that's why I was so
inspired by his termination. I first first met Mike at
(08:34):
one of my Cleveland Cavaliers home games in November of
two thousand and seven. I had a chance to talk
to Mike after the game, and I told him I
thought he had an incredible story. To return to college
and finish his long delayed senior season of football after
nearly four decades was amazing to me. Here was a
grandfather who was eight years older than his head coach
(08:57):
and had two children older than his team mates. Readings
Mike's story reminded me a lot of my own story.
Had many obstacles, to overcome in my youth, and like Mike,
always believed that one day my dreams hauld come true. Still,
there are so many people across the country who need
what Mike has to offer in this book to help
them win their own personal vitals. I'm about the same
(09:19):
age as many of Mike's most recent college teammates, so
I can relate to the impact he had in their lives.
I know that in my busy life someone might tell
me something valuable and it may go in one ear
and out the other. But when you tell me a
great story, you have my attention. This is not just
a feel good story. This is a story of redemption
and giving back. Pretty high praise from Lebron James.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Well, it was very humbling in what he wrote.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And the thing about about Lebron that kindred spirit that
we had. As I said, I spent a lot of
time with Maverick, and Maverick grew up with Lebron, and
Maverick told me about an.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Eight year old boy.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
The first day of third grade.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
The teacher had everybody sit down and she passed out
a three by five card everybody in the class, and
she told them she wanted to just number one, two
three on the card. Put their name on that card,
just number one, two three, and then write down their
first choice or second choice and their third choice for
what they wanted to do when they finished with their schooling,
(10:32):
and pass passed the cards.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Forward, and she would talk about them. Well.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
She was going through the cards, talking about different occupations
that the kids had written down and how much schooling
was required for those different occupations, and then she comes
to this one card and she looks at it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
She looks at the class. She looks back at the.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Card and she said, Okay, someone has written NBA, NBA,
NBA for all three choices. He should I need to
know who wrote this card. And he raised his hand
and she said, first of all, you have any idea
how difficult it is to make it in the NBA,
(11:12):
to even make the college basketball team, but to make
it in the NBA is almost impossible. And she said,
you've got it listed as all three of your choices.
Why is it all three of your choices? And he said,
for me, there are not any other choices. That's what
I'm going to do. Lebron James knew when he was
(11:34):
eight years old what he wanted to do and he
was sold out to it and living on the streets,
the things that he went through as a young boy.
To date, he has no idea who his dad is.
He had no idea he was going to be six
or nine weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. His mother,
(11:56):
I've met his mother, a small woman.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Lebron was always studying, always took care of class work,
but he was always on a basketball court somewhere, no
matter where he lived, in different Foster homes, there were
a group of people that actually took care of him.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
But out of high school he was drafted.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Number one by the Cleveland Calvaliers. And so, you know, Lebron.
Whenever Lebron wrote what he did in my forward, I
didn't appreciate it to the degree that I did after
Maverick told me that story, and then it took on
a whole new meaning for me, because this was a
guy that everything he described in me, he was basically himself.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
He was in spades.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You know that he just saw so much of his
relentless pursuit of his goals in the story of a
fifty nine year old guy Inlet's pursuit.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Of this, And I was so honored umbled by what
he wrote.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
He's just he's an amazing guy.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And now a few messages from our gender sponsors. But first,
I hope you'll consider signing up to join the army
at normal folks dot us. By signing up, you'll receive
a weekly email with short episodes summaries in case you
happen to miss an episode, or if you prefer reading
about our incredible guests, we'll be right back. Pretty cool.
(13:43):
That sets up your story already. Our listeners are going, Bill,
are you talking to a crazy person? And yeah, I
think all of us have a little crazy in us,
but you have to be a little crazy to just
go after it. But set us up. Even how your
parents met kind of an interesting story, I think, and
kind of how they met and where you come from
(14:05):
and how you were raised, because I think that's your
maine to a lot of what happened later in your
life when you're married. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Absolutely, My dad was born and raised in in Mississippi.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Old Miss. I'm an Old Miss guy. Yeah, And but
I think he was from Hattisburg, so he was alster
to Southern miss Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Well, you know, he had a third grade education and
so you know he loved He loved football and always
thought that he would be a good football player, but
that was never in the cards for him. World War Two, Uh,
you know, he enlisted, was shipped to England in preparation
(14:49):
for the D Day invasion. During that time period they
were there for almost a year. He met my mother.
She's I was born in Nottingham, raised there.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
In Robin Hood And yeah, is that not? Is that
the same Nottingham same, noting him, Yeah, I'll be that go. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
And uh, so they met in London.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
He came in on uh you know, various they would
get time off leave or whatever and they would they
would come into to London. And he always told me
that she was like porcelain doll. The first time you
ever saw her, he just you know, he absolutely fell
in love with her English rose. Yeah, and so uh
(15:30):
they uh spent a lot of time together and then
he was shipped out for D Day. Uh went over
uh the D Day in Normandy. Uh then on into
the Battle of the Bulge and he.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Was with your father was in the Battle of the Bulow. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
He ended up losing a leg to the uh injuries
he had from the Battle of the Bulge and but
he was shipped back to London for rehab, and he
reconnected with mother and uh they got married. Then he
would shipped back to the US. Mother had to wait
(16:09):
until the wives and children and whatnot of soldiers and
American soldiers that had married married foreign women.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Could be before they could be shipped.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
To the US.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
And I remember him telling me that he received a
telegram that morning saying when mother would be in, when
the boat would be getting in and in New York.
And he received a telegram that night saying that Patricia,
their daughter, had been run over and killed by a
(16:41):
truck in England.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
And England, yeah, your sister.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah, my older sister. Yeah, how old was she she was?
She was only uh two, She just had started walking
and she my aunt was watching her.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Reconstruction was going on.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
It was just chaos all over London and mother was working.
Patricia got out, a truck backed over and killed her,
and so terrible.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
My mother.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Left her country, everybody that she knew, moved to a
foreign country with only my dad there. And my dad's
family did.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Not accept her because she was English.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Because she was foreign. They felt like she had basically
tricked my dad into a relationship in marrying her.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
But it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Until I was probably five six years old that I
kept looking at this little girl picture of little girl
on my mom's dresser, and I knew it wasn't my
older sister. And I knew it wasn't my younger sister,
and so I asked my mom, I said, who is
this little girl? And then she sent me down and
told me about Patricia what I just shared with you.
(18:02):
And that was the first time that I realized my
people have asked me, you know, throughout my life, you know,
who are your heroes? You know, It's never been a
doubt in my mind, it's my mom. It's always been
my mom because of everything that she went through, what
(18:23):
she was able to overcome and deal with u through
the loss of her daughter and moving to a foreign
country where she wasn't you know, embraced with open arms.
And I've never known anyone that worked as hard as
she did. You know, worked two jobs, and she was
always happy, always. You know, she was the favorite of
(18:48):
all my friends. They love just sit and listen to
her talk.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Engli.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, and uh, it was it was so funny that
she taught us all how to play play cards, and
the guys had come over and they mom had to
be there to play it, mainly because they wanted to
get their money back.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It's interesting I think of this, this rough and tumble
guy from Mississippi with a third grade education who came
up blue collar and probably with very little means and
the Battle of the Bulge and all the toughness that
you think of when you think about but in hindsight,
maybe it's your mom with the real toughness she was.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
She was amazing, she really was.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
But that that was how my my parents got together.
My dad worked in a cabinet shop there in Hattisburg
and things were slow and he was hearing about West
Texas and the old boom that they were having out there,
and you know, people needed cabinets, and so he loaded up.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
They moved Odessa.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It doesn't get any more west than it.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Does not, so we were right in the middle of
the old fields and uh.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
But that's that's high school football country, right. Yeah. A religion.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, we didn't know that at the time.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
After we got there, you know, it was it was
still not a parrot at that time, but it was
big because we put the pads on in the third grade.
When I was in the third grade, they had the
head Hunter Award and it was a new helmet. There
were three guys selected off the third grade team that
(20:41):
got new helmets if they were a head hunter. And
I got one of those helmets. I got one of
those helmets.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
And uh, you know, I think I read or Alex
told me or something that your dad actually had you
boxing at six or seven years old.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Well, yeah, he. My dad loved me very much. And
my uncles, his three brothers, told me after I was,
you know, a young man grown in my twenties, in
talking with them, how World War II had changed him
and that he was a totally different man when he
(21:22):
came back from.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
And they certainly didn't have what they have for service
members today in terms of mental health help. It was
called shell shock back then, and you just gritched your
teeth and buried it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Well, what he did is he he took so many
things that he learned in the military, and he felt
like that it was his responsibility in West Texas because
you've got cowboys out there in abundance, you've got the
roughnecks in the oil field, and then you got football.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
It's tough, and so, yeah, there's there's fistfights.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I mean, I mean it's a it's a regular occurrence
West Texas at that time. And so he he's gonna
train me. And when I was six, he handed me
I can't call me in. I was out playing with
some of the neighborhood guys. They'd call me in and hem,
he boxing clothes and we started that day. It went
on for seven years. And at time he called it
(22:20):
boxing and I was young, but I was pretty sure
what we were doing was fighting.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Really Uh yeah, yeah, he because.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
What did your mom say about all that?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
She would intervene some Yeah, when blood, when my nose
would be bleeding, or he'd bust my mouth, and uh,
she would step in and she'd get upset and everything.
He would, you know, get him a drink of beer
and say he's tough enough, he can take this.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
And I could.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
I was always okay, I you know, I knew that
I could. But we we boxed for uh for.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Seven years, no kidding.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Now, But Bill, the thing that had the most lasting
impact on me was it wasn't the physical training.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
It was the mental training. We would sit.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Sometimes for hour two hours, and he would I called
it mind games. I named it that years later, but
he just called it being ready, and he would sit
and groom me. Here, I'm eight, nine, ten years old.
The only bar I've ever been in is at the
(23:36):
American Legion. One that'd take us out there with them.
He would start telling me about where I needed to sit.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
If I go in.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Someplace and there's a crowd of people and there's people drinking,
you sit.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
In your booth. To the law, you sit in the booth.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
You don't sit on the inside. You sit on the
outside where you can get on your feet.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
You never respond.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
If you're sitting down as somebody says something and to you,
you sit there and just ignore it whatever they say
until they step away where you can get on your feet.
It was always about positioning and things that I would
need to do to recognize who troublemakers were, because Daddy was.
He was hard and fast about troublemakers. He said, if
(24:19):
I hear of you starting to fight.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Well you're getting whipping when you get home.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And if I hear somebody starting to fight with you
and you don't fight, you're getting a whipping you get.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
So if you fight and don't win.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You're getting a whipping you get home.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
And so I had to mind, don't start to fight.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
If someone starts with you, you better win, got to win,
otherwise you're getting a whipping.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
It's old school yeah stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
And I never ever condone the idea of me justifying
starting to fight.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
It wasn't there. That just it's it's not there.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
But if somebody needs your help, if you you see somebody,
one of your sisters or somebody somebody's bullying them or
trying to hurt them, you better jump in. You better
take care of business.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
We will be right back, you know. On the face
of it. When I heard you boxed from six to
thirteen with your dad, here's an admission. I boxed. I
(25:36):
wasn't six or eight. I was more thirteen fourteen, and
I actually enjoyed it. It made me more confident attendidly
because I didn't really fear getting into a fight because
i'd been hit. I know what it tastes like to
munch on aluminum foil. If you've ever been hit in
the face, you know what that taste tastes like. And
(25:58):
I wasn't great, but I felt like some jackass on
the road. I could defend myself, you know, So that
was good, and so I wanted my children to learn. Well,
I wasn't going to box with them, but I did
buy my kids boxing gloves when they were eleven and
just had to spar with each other, and Lisa would
come out raising hell if anybody got a bloody lift.
But I just wanted them to learn how to just
(26:21):
be able to defend themselves and everything else. And we
had some of the same rules. You never start anything,
but I don't think I took it to the extreme
your dad did. But anyway, on the face of it,
it seems extreme, but candidly when I hear the rules,
they're just old school do the right thing rules. Really.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
He was so clear in the pictures that he painted
and where I wasn't here. Again, I'm a kid. I've
never been in a bar, you know, I don't know,
but he had been in plenty of them. And then
he would tell me stories about different things that he
had done, fights that he had been in, how he
won those fights that maybe he should never have won.
(27:01):
And so I had all this stuff that I was
processing and and I learned that it didn't start to
kick in for me until Actually, I was almost out
of high school because I never drank. I was I
was such a puritan in my body and working so
hard always to try to improve myself that the last
(27:24):
thing I was going to do was drink, you know, alcohol,
you know of any kind. But then when I stepped
into that environment, into that world, all of that came back,
all of those mind games, all those things, and I
began to find myself. When I'd walk in someplace, I
could tell you in five minutes where the troublemakers were. Really,
(27:47):
I could tell I could pick them out. I atually
was or a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Well it was.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
From from a mental standpoint, it was.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
It was a good thing when I learned to channel,
because there were so many of the other areas that
I could use that same technique that same I did
it in football, I had twenty four tackles in one game.
But what I finally learned to do as a linebacker
is once I had game film which I could watch
(28:18):
the offense in the quarterback, then I have my own
game films. I have my own mind games that I'm playing.
Every step that I make. Everything that I.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Do is successful.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I sacked that quarterback again and again, I get into coverage,
I intercept passes, I do all of that in preparation.
So now when I go out on the field, I've
already got this mental approach.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's funny I've always talked to when I coach football,
I almost think mental reps are more important than physical
reps in a football game.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yeah, it's it's especially first score players. You know the
thing about the mental reps as you always.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Win, That's right, you win.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Now, you win every time, and the mental reps you
can do again and again, and once you become disciplined
in it, you take advantage of those opportunities where you're
alone to do just that. And it served me well
in that regard. There were other times that I feel
like in looking back on my life and people have
(29:24):
asked me if I regretted a lot of the things
my dad did, and I don't. I really don't, because
of God working all things, you know, together for good.
And you know that verse train of a child and
the way she go when even when he's old, and
I'll not depart from it.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Well, that's a double edged sword that is do ed.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
And so you know that was something as I got older,
and particularly when I got it and my relationship with
the Lord. I had to change some things about the
way that I looked at things. I could no longer
walk in a room and start saying, okay, that negative
approach that when I was younger was dominant.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Had to retrain your brain.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
The last thing that I was going to allow happen
was to someone surprise me. I knew better than to
walk into that environment and not know who it was
that I was going to be dealing with.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So you were thirteen and you had your last boxing
match right with her dad? How'd that? Why was thirteen
the magic number?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
It was really baseball game of the week. It was
a Saturday that he was trying to watch. He was
still down on his knees boxing with me because I
was too I was still too small for him the box.
With standing up, I begin to notice that every time
that he would look over.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
At the TV set, he had separated his guard.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
And so you know, I set my feet and I waited,
and he looked, and I unloaded on him. I mean
I hit him full and flushing the side of the face,
and he had to catch hisself keep them falling, and
he got up, shook off his gloves and looked at
me and he said, Okay, that's it. You know, you're
not big enough for me to box with standing up,
You're too big meet a box with on my knees.
(31:11):
He said, we're not We're not boxing.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
You trained up well enough. Yeah. So then high school football, Yeah,
tell me about your world and high school football.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Well, we had a group of coaches that had been
there for a couple of years at Permian High School.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
That's Friday night lights. Yeah, yeah, the real live Friday
night lights, the real deal. Wow.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And so I was not getting the attention that I
felt like that I should have because of the player
that I felt.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Like that I was.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
But I was at that time. I was maybe five eight,
about one hundred and forty pounds, And.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You might have been Hilasius in high school, but that
doesn't equate Division one tight linebacker.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Now, and well I was a defensive back in.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
High but still even so, yeah, five eight, you know,
they there's just not a lot of five eight guys
playing Division one Division one football.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
And going into my senior year, Jeen Mayfield comes in,
they fire the whole coaching staff. Jeen Mayfield comes in
and calls a meeting, team meeting, he tells us. He said, Okay,
we're gonna be a defensive football team. If you can't
(32:36):
score on us, you can't beat us. So we're gonna
play defense. And he said, I want to tell you
right now the stories I've been hearing about this football
team and the players on this team. The country club
set is what people call you sit around the pool
and drink beer. He said, no more. He said, You're
(32:58):
gonna everybody in this room is going to have chance
to start on this football team. Everybody's gonna have to
prove that they have earned their spot. The minute he
said that, I thought, Okay, this is all I've been
waiting for. I was the starting defensive back, all district
(33:20):
defensive back on that first state championship football team at
Permian High School that started Mojo and that winning tradition
that inspired the book in the movie Friday Night Lights.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
No kidding, Yeah that is so cool. Yeah all right,
so football, you're in it. You're taking care of your
body everything else, and you want to go play college ball. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I don't have a lot of guidance at home. Daddy's
a workaholic. Mom works as well, and you know, they're
so excited about me, and I've got multiple scholarship offers
and I ended up going to a junior college.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
One day at practice, we were having the coach Coach
Hensley and in fact, Coach Hensley is going to be
my last living high school coach is coming to the premiere.
Uh soetemporary and say, yeah. He called me yesterday. Uh,
he's gonna be able to be he and his wife
are gonna be able to make it to the premiere.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
But he called me, I'd already, you know, finished my eligibility.
We won state championship and they were having spring practice
and he uh called me into the into the coach's
office that morning and he said, do you think you'd
have time to come out to practice early today? We
need a defense. We need some guys to play defense.
We're going to have you know, running backs and everything
(34:42):
going through drills and we want somebody. I want somebody
to pop them. And they said you've come out here.
I said, huge, Yeah, absolutely, I love to see that.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So I'm out there. Well, coach Robinson from University of.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Houston is there and I didn't I had no idea
he was there Billy Dale, all state running back that
we had that was a all conference running back at
the University of Texas on their national championship team.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
They handed him the ball.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
It was a you know, a fake pass, the hand
off to the running back, and I read it, you know,
and I mean I was at full tilt when he
hit the line of scrimmage and he went one way,
ball went the other and anyway. I jumped up and
they were helping Billy Dale up and I looked and
(35:29):
Coach Robinson was walking off. He just left left practice
and I thought, well, that's weird. Did he just get
to leave practice?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I think that's all he needed. I said, it was it.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Coachingsley came up to me after practice, he said, Coach
Robinson said that you've got a full ride University of Houston.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
He said that one tackle was all he needed to see.
He said, the year's guy, Well, I ended up going
to Ranger Junior College.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Why didn't you go to Houston? G I r L
I'll do it. Yeah, yeah, And that is not an acronym.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
I'm telling you it was.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
It was one of the stupidest decisions that I've ever made,
because I had other offers too, you know, and where
well Arkansas and uh then s m U.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
You could have played at s m U or Arkansas Houston.
You went to junior college over a g I.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
R L Coach Fry told me at at s m U.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Hayden Fry, Well there's a that's a legend.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, yeah, he said, you can play. You can play
for us. He said, uh, have you had any other offers?
And I said, yeah, I just got an offer from
the University of Houston. He said, University of Uston offered,
made you a full offer. And I said yes, sir,
And he said, can will you come to s m U.
And I said, well, you know, I see, I have
all these plans with this girl, and she was going
(36:53):
to go to a junior college. I was going to
go to the junior college and then we were going
to go off together. And so that last one semester
I went to this junior college and it was a nightmare,
it really was. But the thing about it was is
I met for the first time, I met a bunch
(37:14):
of black athletes that see, I had never in West Texas.
We didn't have any black athletes playing on any of
our teams.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, there weren't many black people in West Texas. Noway no.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
But so I get to range your junior college and
we've got half of our team or black guys, and
then we've got the basketball players that are all black,
that most of them are from New York.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
And so this is a whole new.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Life for me.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Here's a kid that's dad is from Mississippi, that's raised him.
So all of a sudden, I'm in this environment. It
was amazed. I realized that all the things that I'd
been told as a young man about that in the
racial issues, it was a lie. It was all a lie.
It totally changed me as a man and as a person.
(38:07):
And so that one semester, you know, I said, was
a absolutely abysmal decision from a athletics standpoint. It was
one of those life lesson opportunities that I wouldn't trade
for anything.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
It was.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And that concludes part one of my conversations with Mike Flint,
and trust me, you don't want to miss part two.
It's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can
change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see
in part two
Host
Bill Courtney
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!