Mike Flynt was a linebacker for Division III Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas and wore the number 49. Flynt was a strength coach by trade and was a strength coach at Nebraska, Oregon, and Texas A&M. He is the inventor of the Powerbase Fitness exercise equipment. Clients for the Powerbase system include school systems and the military. Part of his life story includes being the son of a Battle of the Bulge survivor and having invented and marketed fitness equipment.
Early career
In 1965, he was on the first state championship team at Odessa Permian, the high school featured in Friday Night Lights. Flynt, as an All-District player for Permian High School, was offered several full football scholarships at places like the University of Houston and Sul Ross State University. However, he initially attended Ranger Junior College for one semester instead. He later attended Sul Ross State in 1969, which was a member of the NAIA. The Sul Ross State Lobos were in the Lone Star Conference with East Texas State, a school that featured future NFL stars Harvey Martin and Dwight White. Another rival at the time was Texas A&I, which was starting a two-year run as national champions. The Lone Star Conference was one of the premier conferences in the nation, at that time, because the Lone Star Conference was integrated and had many great black athletes playing in the conference. The athletic highlight of Flynt's two years at Sul Ross was participating in a victory against A&I, which went on to win a National Title, with its only loss in '69 being to Sul Ross. Flynt had been a team captain, All-Conference Linebacker and the leading tackler on the Sul Ross team as a junior. Starting his senior year in 1971, Flynt was involved in a fist fight with a freshman on the football team that was breaking team rules. School officials decided that due to his history with fights on campus, he would be expelled. He only needed 6 hours to graduate and he earned his degree from Sul Ross State by taking his remaining classes elsewhere. At a reunion of former Sul Ross students from the 1960s and '70s, and while speaking to a former college roommate, Stan Williamson, Flynt mentioned how losing his senior year at Sul Ross had become the greatest regret in his life. Stan suggested he make a comeback. He told Flynt, "if that is the greatest regret in your life, if you think you can take the hits and run with those guys, then you need to check it out, it's a D-3 school now and a whole new set of rules. Mike accepted the challenge and ended up walking on at Sul Ross, as a linebacker, making the team and becoming the oldest college linebacker in NCAA history.
Division III football
His motivation to return to football occurred while he was swapping stories with some old football buddies. He brought up the biggest regret of his life: Getting kicked off the college team before his senior year. Flynt found out he was eligible to return to Sul Ross State. Flynt, who was living in Franklin, Tennessee, at the time, told his wife about the idea. They sold their home in Franklin and moved, temporarily to Alpine, Texas a town of about 6,000 residents near the Big Bend National Park, a three-hour drive from the nearest major airport. Mike is a grandfather and is active as a motivational/inspirational speaker at various organizations throughout the nation. When Flynt went back to play, his youngest child was a freshman at the University of Tennessee. Two of his children were older than any of his teammates. Flynt was eight years older than his own coach, Steve Wright. He played his last collegiate game for the Sul Ross State Lobos in 1970. In 1971, he was thrown out of the university. One of his original college coaches was Jerry Larned, and he has counselled him at the start of his comeback. Despite the fact that he is over 35 years older than his teammates, Flynt, a career strength and conditioning coach, told the publication Sports Illustrated that he can still do some things in the weight room that the other players cannot. Flynt says he can still do 25 consecutive pull-ups and he won a bench press competition with a 45 lb plate, at the beginning of the 2007 season. He missed the first two games of the 2007 season with a pinched nerve which turned out to be 2 bulging discs in his neck. In a game on September 15 versus rival Mary Hardin-Baylor, the Lobos were down by a score of 55-14. Flynt's fan club, known as the "Sul Ross Baby Boomers", along with Mary Hardin-Baylor's "Couch Cru" student section chanted for number 49 to come into the game. Once he plays, he will become the oldest college linebacker in NCAA history. Neither the NCAA or NAIA keeps age as a statistic, but research in 2007 had not turned up anyone older than his mid-40s playing linebacker in NCAA football.
