Doug Flutie, Retiree

For New Englanders of a certain age, Doug Flutie will be forever young, flinging a football impossibly down the field as time ticked away in the Orange Bowl, a ball that would nestle in the arms of Gerard Phelan, establishing one of the truly iconic moments in the history of college sports. It is thus hard to imagine that the ageless sprite who almost singlehandedly brought Boston College to national football respectability, who dominated the Canadian Football League for eight seasons, and who tantalized just enough in the NFL to make his fans wonder what he might have been able to do in the right system with the right coach, has announced his retirement.

Flutie was a new Englander through and through. Part of a legendary family of Natick athletes, Flutie resonated with the joy of playing, as Bob Ryan so well illustrates today when he talks about the diminutive quarterback in the same breath as Bill Russell, Bobby Orr, Larry Bird, Tom Brady and Ted Williams. Obviously Flutie never achieved the status of those legends in his time in boston, but as an icon he came damned close. Many of us would have loved to have seen Flutie take his farewell tour as a backup with the Pats. But we'll forever have him in our minds, white jersey flowing as he rolls left, prepared to launch a pass that will in turn produce a legend. That was one of the great plays of my life, produced by an everyman legend. I feel old today.