Join radio host Dr. Chrysandra Brunson as she welcomes Mike Flynt, a celebrated leader in strength and conditioning, to discuss his groundbreaking journey of returning to college football at age 59. In this heartwarming episode, Mike shares the inspiration behind his recent film ‘The Senior,’ exploring themes of redemption, overcoming life’s greatest regrets, and rekindling dreams that lay buried in the past.
Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to The Calling’s radio show to all the dreamers. I’m your radio host, Crisandra Brunson, founder and CEO of The Calling. And it is such an honor to be with all of you today. You know, at The Calling, we have realized that so many people are afraid to go after the dreams that God has put inside each one of our hearts. because they are afraid to fail and that is just plain wrong because if God has given us a dream and we’re not living it out we are wasting it and we do not want to die with regret that’s why at the calling we love to inspire empower and equip people to go after God’s calling on their lives to reap the best kind of eternal legacy to have immediate impact on themselves and their families and And we love to do this through having custom tools of programs, including global conferences, workshops, seminars, activation kits, books, tools, even inspirational products. And especially this incredible radio show to all the dreamers. Today is no exception. You’re in for such a treat. We have the one and only Michael Flynn in with us. Mike, welcome to the show.
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Hi, Cassandra. Thank you. I appreciate you having me.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
We’re so honored to have you, Mike. And, you know, I think everyone has recognized this name even more so recently. But for those that may not know, can you just tell us a few of the leadership positions that you have held and a little bit about your background?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
OK, I have been a captain of my football team, which was extremely important to me. I became a strength and conditioning coach at the University of Nebraska, University of Oregon, Texas A&M. And I was in charge of all men’s and women’s intercollegiate athletics and their strength training programs. I have patented fitness equipment. I’ve trained the National Guard at the Pentagon. and so my career for the most part has been involved in fitness and helping other people improve their lives physically and so um then a god thing happens in my life and a movie is released and so now uh this story uh about the past that i i dealt with in growing up and um you know Bill Reeves, the former CEO of Caleb Radio Stations, told me all the way back in 2011, he said, there will be a movie made about your story because it’s about daddy issues. Wow. And everybody has them. And so, yeah, he was a prophet, I guess.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yes, he was. And that movie that you’re referring to, Mike, is The Senior that just released recently.
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Yeah, I was 59 years old. Jamie Aaron was an AP writer that asked me, he said, are you a card-carrying member of AARP? And I said, I am. And he said, and you’re going back to play your senior year of college football. And I said, I am. He said, The Senior. What a perfect name. And so that’s how it that’s how it all started. And for me, it was stepping back in time, doing something that I dearly loved. And God gave me an opportunity to overcome that greatest regret I had in life. And that was losing my senior year 37 years before.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Wow. Well, we want to be able to hear so much more of this moving and the details of it. And we know that it does cover quite a bit of your personal story. But take us back to when you were a child and this dream of being an athlete and all these different pieces that started unraveling later in life. Did you see those threads being knit in your childhood?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
I did not. It was my dad was a World War II veteran and D-Day in Battle of the Bulge and actually lost a leg in the Battle of the Bulge. And he brought that mindset with raising me in West Texas. And when I was six, he handed me a pair of boxing gloves. and we started that day a ritual that went on for seven years. He called it boxing. I was young, but I was pretty sure what we were doing was fighting. And because again, I was a good person. I wasn’t a troublemaker. But I became a trouble seeker. You know, I didn’t figure anybody was going to hit me as hard as my dad did. And so if you don’t mind fighting, there’s lots of opportunities. And so I was I’d never I’d never seen my dad in church, never heard him pray. I was not raised, obviously, in a Christian home, in a Christian environment in any way, form or fashion. And that was the young man that was kicked out of Sol Ross State. University in 1971. The man that came back in 2007 was a born again Christian and Jesus Christ was Lord of his life.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
I think we all have goosebumps when you say that. And that process and that journey, that transition, we would love to hear more. How did you overcome all of those different obstacles? Just take us to that moment where you were on the team and then you got kicked out. What happened?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Well, I needed six hours to graduate going into my senior year of eligibility. I could have graduated the previous summer, but I came back for one reason and one reason only. win a conference championship. We had gone 8-3 the year before. We had everybody back. That was my team. They would play for me. I was their captain. I was an all-conference linebacker. I was the leading tackler on that team. And the coaches appointed me to check curfew at the dorm, at the athletic dorm, to make sure everyone was in during two days. A couple of freshmen were late. I confronted them about it, and one of them took exception to me telling him when he couldn’t come and go. It got physical, and he got hurt. The difference in this scenario was the president of the college was called, and the next morning, the head coach told me the president had called him and told him, I’ve heard Mike Flint’s name for the last time. It’s your Mike Flint. Who’s it going to be? So I was kicked off that team, and that team, those guys that I loved so much and cared so much about, they ended up going four, six, and one. They didn’t even have a winning season. And I knew if I’d have been there, we’d have won the conference championship. Right. So I went on with my life.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
And tell us about that next part. How did family life ripple out after that?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Well, soon after I was kicked out, I moved to Austin, Texas, and met a beautiful young co-ed going to school at the University of Texas. And we started dating, fell in love. And we’ve been married now in just a couple of weeks, 53 years. 53 years? You have to applaud that. But Eileen, Eileen changed my whole life. You know, she led me to faith in Christ. It was through that that time period that I that I again that I went into the fitness business. And then, you know, I had a philosophy about my life. my coaching that i would never ask one of my athletes to do something i wasn’t willing to do myself and so i stayed in great shape helping other people get in shape and so when the opportunity after 37 years came along to walk onto the team um by the grace of god i was ready
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Wow. Mike, did you ever think in the back of your mind that you would go back one day throughout those, you said 37 years?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
37.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yeah, 37 years. Did you have that, like a little dream in your heart that maybe one day, or it was just kind of put on the shelf and you said, well, that’s passed by?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Yeah, no, I did not, mainly because of it was ignorance on my part concerning the eligibility rules, because, you know, I was thinking after all those years, there was no no possible way that I could have eligibility. And I had contacted the president of the college that had kicked me out. And asking it because I needed to take those last six hours and you have to get your last 30 hours from the college or university you received your degree from. And I asked him, I asked him about I said, look, I’m offered a job at the University of Nebraska under Coach Osborne. But I’ve got to get those last six hours. I have to have my degree. And he said, right. You can go to any accredited college or university in this nation and we’ll give you your degree from Sol Ross, but you can never come back to Sol Ross. And so going back was never on the radar. It just wasn’t. It was a regret that was buried deep in my heart that I dealt with alone for so many years. And I didn’t share it with anyone, but I had no idea that this would happen. So went to a reunion, told former teammates that I saw that greatest regret in my life was letting them down. And that I said, what gets me more than anything is I still think I can play. And they were laughing at me just like that. Aww. But one of them said, why don’t you? And I said, you know, there’s no way. After 37 years, there’s no way I have eligibility. And he said, hey, it’s Division III now. If that’s the greatest regret you’ve got in life, if you think you can run with those guys and take the hits, it’s a whole new set of rules. You need to check it out. And so – That’s what I did. I checked with the NCAA, found out I had eligibility. I walked on as a linebacker and made that team.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Mike, oh my goodness, we have so many questions. We need to take a short break. You guys, we have the one and only Michael Flynn on with us, and he has just come out with the movie The Senior. We are going to hear all about it when we come back. Stay tuned.
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CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
We are back. Thank you for listening to all the dreamers radio show. I’m your radio host, Dr. Cassandra Brunson. And we have the one and only Mike Flynn on with us. Mike, welcome to the show. We’re back. And you were just telling us this huge transition, this regret that you had in your heart and that it was a buried dream. and someone revived it they gave you a a way forward and a path forward and we are just we all have goosebumps because i think each one of us have a dream that perhaps we have buried or that we have regrets and not pursuing can you just tell us just real real quick kindle that moment of When your friend was saying that they changed the rules, and if the biggest regret was not finishing out the season with your teammates, what did it feel like when you had hope to a path forward? What were all the emotions that you thought of?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Well, it was a kaleidoscope of emotion. And first of all was doubt that there would be eligibility. But then I thought, this is a chance. I’ve got to go forward. And I’ve told people that not every journey has to have a destination. If you’re just moving forward, if you’re doing positive things, then things will fit in place, things will work out. So I found out, I went through the NCAA, found out that I did have the semester of eligibility left. And then all of a sudden that regret that I had suppressed for so many years, it was always there. it’s resurfaced. And then there was that thought that now, now that I have eligibility, that maybe I can do something about it. And, you know, I’ve told people, particularly young people about about their dreams to write their dreams down in pencil, because that dream is going to change over time. But it’s still a dream. And and there’s a big difference between wishing and dreaming because when you when you have a dream and someone lays everything out for you and says okay this is what you have to do to accomplish this dream if it’s a true dream then go i’m ready but if you’re just wishing and they say you know here’s what you have to do you think well maybe i don’t want to do that and so right You determine what’s, you know, like you hear somebody play the piano and you’re thinking, oh, my gosh, I wish I could play the piano like that. I’m going to do that. Then you find out work goes into that and you think, no, no, I don’t want to do that. Well, I had paid my dues. I had stayed in shape. And so coach gave me a chance. He said, you know, you show up, be here, be ready. I was ready. And so… And I tell people that there are so many of us that have regrets in life, things that we’ve done that we could give anything to be able to undo or overcome. And we can’t change the past, but there are things that we can do. now to change the meaning of that past. And for me, I felt like if I could make the team as a player, I had to be a player. I couldn’t be a coach. I had to be in the same context that I was kicked out in because I felt like if I could help a bunch of young men that I didn’t even know at the time, for me, it made up for those guys I let down all those years ago. And so that was my motivation.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Mike, so when you showed up for tryouts, what were the other students like? In real life, tell us all the dynamics as a 30, was it 37 years removed?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Yeah, first of all, the nurse that was doing the physicals looked at my chart and she said, Mr. Flint, we’re doing the coaches next week. This is the players this week. I said, I’m a player. And she said, yeah. She said, you’re born in 1948 and you’re going to play? I said, yes, ma’am. And then the players, you know, they didn’t know what to think. And the coach was trying to keep this under wraps, you know. And, you know, I was a very good football player when I was young and I was blessed and I didn’t have any injuries. And so when we put those helmets on, they knew it wasn’t a publicity stunt. I’d never played football in a 59-year-old body before. Right. I didn’t think there was going to be enough ice in Alpine, Texas to get to today’s. It was unreal. You just don’t have the recovery time. Yeah. And it was West Texas football. The coach told us the first day, we’ve got six stations set up in circuit fashion. We’re going to find out what color your blood is. Is it red or is it yellow? And if we don’t find Station 1 by the time you get to Station 6, we’re going to know. So that’s the kind of environment that was there. But it was everything I knew it would be. It was football in West Texas, and I loved it. And so by the grace of God, I made it through.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Oh, my goodness. Well, I think, you know, just that process for any dream is so relevant of God bringing us forward. And oftentimes, you know, it’s hard for us to truly walk by faith and wholeheartedly plunge straight forward. It’s usually a scenic route towards it. And just knowing that it really is from Him.
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
how did you know that this was a god dream and not a mike’s dream well everything about the whole process there were any number of things that could have happened to derail it in other words when i went to the ncaa they the lady went through semester by semester my transcript and finally she said Mr. Flynn, how many years has it been, did you say, since you played? And I said, well, it’s been 37 years. She said, well, not only are you eligible, but I will come watch you play. And then had I not been in the shape that I was in, because I showed up – I tried to call, couldn’t get a hold of anybody, but then I thought, oh, my gosh, if I’m a head coach and a 59-year-old guy calls me and wants to try out for my team, I can hang up that deal real quick. And so I showed up in person. And, again, these are all hurdles that I have to be able to overcome for me to be able to realize this dream. And so I’m taking these hurdles one at a time, trusting God.
MIKE FLYNT (Guest):
Yeah.
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Trusting God every step of the way to let me know. And I showed up. It just so happened that there were 13 freshmen down on the field, middle of the afternoon. It was 95 degrees. Coach allowed me to get out there and run with them. And then he told me, he said, I had a question in my mind. Could a 59-year-old guy physically play college football? He said, you know, watching you run with those freshmen, he said, there’s no doubt in my mind that physically you can play this game. And so he told me, he said, you’ll be here August 12th. I’m going to give you a chance to make this team. And so, you know, all of that was falling in place. And so every step along the way, I was prepared physically If God said no, I wasn’t going to fight it. I was just going to embrace that and move on. But if if I didn’t try, if I didn’t go and step out in faith and try, then I would never know. And so. I tell people that I got knocked down so many times, but you get up every single time and you keep going and keep trusting God through all the failures.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Well, Mike, I think the heartbeat of the calling is wanting people not to die with regret. And so your story is such a testament of that. persevering through i think one of the biggest hurdles as we do continue to grow older we think that things will you know just stop and god doesn’t want us he just says this is just the beginning and so we’re just so grateful for your example in that and can you just tell us some of the fruit that you’ve seen from walking in obedience to this god-given dream
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Well, my motive was to help a bunch of young men that I didn’t even know at the time for me to make up for those guys that I let down. And I was able to do that. I was able to speak into their lives in a way that I never could as a coach. But as a player with them, I was able to help all of these young men in different ways, personally, on the field, athletically, and different things. And so that was a huge plus for me. And then 26 of my former teammates came back to watch me play at homecoming. They did?
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yeah.
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
The guys that were on that 1970-1971 team and we all met on the 50 yard line and had a group hug and one of them grabbed me and said, Mike, we keep reading where you said you let us down all those years ago. We never blamed you for that fight. We knew it wasn’t your fault. And besides, look, because you came back to play, we’re all back together again. And so God in his mercy gave me the forgiveness that I needed from those teammates to overcome that greatest regret in my life. And then I was able to help a bunch of young men that I didn’t know. And so for me, everything that has happened since has been God and it’s been a huge bonus because he answered all my prayers.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Well, Mike, we are just so grateful for your example. And we don’t know where time goes. It goes by so quick. We’re coming up towards the end of our show. But before we go, we have some questions. We would love to know wisdom on what you would tell someone if they’re feeling afraid to go after God’s calling on their lives. And then we want to hear all about this new movie that just released in theaters all around the world.
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
i think the the experiences that god has given me um is that you know there’s so many things in our lives that we question our you know whether or not we can do something or whether or not we should even try to do something and uh god gives all of us talents and abilities and you have god-given strengths and god puts adversity allows adversity into our lives and Whenever you, to me, for people, particularly for young people, but for anyone, there are multiple decisions that you make throughout the day. And this is all has to do with your character, your reputation. It’s who other people say you are. Your character is who you are when no one else is around. And so your character, you know, and I’ve told people this before, your character is like a muscle. If you don’t exercise a muscle within 72 hours, it begins to lose strength and size. And your character, you have to continually be using opportunities throughout the day, little things that no one knows about but you, decisions that you make. Am I going to be good or am I going to be great? But between those two decisions is the word adversity. And so you’re going to have to overcome adversity. You just look at it as a positive. You embrace the negative things that come against you and choose to be great and overcome those. And there’s no pass or fail. It’s something that you do individually. And then you be thinking about the strengths, the God-given talents and abilities that come to you, things that are easy for you to do that are difficult for other people. And then you focus in that area, trusting God to open the door to what it is that he would have you do.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
I think we need a devotion on that and we need to sink in that because that’s a life-changing wisdom and prudence. If we took it to heart, it really would change our lives. Thank you so much for that. Can you tell us where to find this new movie called The Senior that is based on your story? Where can we find this movie? And tell us about the producers and what you’re most excited about about it.
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
Well, the movie is The Senior. It’s in theaters all over the nation, 2,400 theaters right now. Wow. They’re able to increase that around the nation. The producers, Mark Ciardi that did Secretariat, Miracle on Ice, The Rookie, Invincible, Game Plan with Dwayne Johnson, all these great sports movies. Yes. And Mark came back to watch me play. And so it’s a movie about redemption, overcoming regret in life, chasing your dreams. And it’s all about perseverance. And so I hope that everyone can find a theater somewhere close. If not, it’ll be there soon.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Yes, yes. And I’ve watched it and it brought me to tears, Mike. And I know it shifted my heart posture and just how you tapped on character. But that is the most important thing to be able to know that it’s all about who we’re becoming and wanting to be more like Jesus every single second. And most of the time it’s with no one watching. And we thank you so much, Mike, for being that person and that role model. We would love to have you back sooner than later. As said before, how can everyone get in touch with you, Mike, and the senior movie?
MIKE FLYNT (Guest) :
OK, you can go to Mike Flint and it’s F-L-Y-N-T. It’s Mike Flint dot com. And there’s a trailer there that you can watch of the movie, my book, everything about me and everything that you’ll want to know about me and how to contact me. It’s all there on Mike Flint dot com.
CHRYSANDRA (Host) :
Thank you. Thank you so much, Mike. Well, we just thank you so much for being God’s dreamer. And everyone tuning in, we challenge you to know that God has such a huge dream on your life. And please follow Mike’s example. It’s never too late. Do not die with regret. Today is the day to be able to shift and change and go in the direction of obedience of where God is calling you to. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Till next time, dreamer. Keep dreaming big.
