The Fifth Down

I missed a game when I was twelve. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving. I don’t recall where I’d been that afternoon, but it was dark when I got home. My father was in front of the TV when I came through the front door. I could hear Brent Musburger’s voice, so I walked straight into the living room, still wearing my stocking cap. It was a college game. It was Miami versus Boston College. There were six seconds on the clock with the ball at midfield. Miami was winning 45–41. I asked what was happening. “Boston College played hard,” said my father. “But this one is over.” I’d missed the game, but I saw one play. The last play. Doug Flutie, Boston College’s 5-foot-9 quarterback, took the snap and avoided a sack. He sprinted right and heaved the ball sixty-five yards to no one in particular, the desperate act of a desperate gnome. It landed in the outstretched paws of his roommate, an All-American receiver named Gerard Phelan (a man whose renown is defined by this one catch). It was amazing, unbelievable, iconic. It was all the clichés we always use whenever we pretend something that just happened will never happen again. I thought my dad would be overjoyed by this miracle, because he hated Miami and loved that Flutie was Catholic and short. Maybe it did make him happy, on some level. But what he said about Doug Flutie immediately after that touchdown did not sound like joy, nor did it sound like he was talking about football. “Well, there you go,” he said without affect, still staring at the screen. “I gave up, but he did not. And that’s why he is who he is, and that’s why I am who I am.” It was an odd thing to hear. It was disturbing. It was out of character for my dad to say something like this, though not out of character for him to believe it. My father was born in February 1928, and his own father died two months later. He lived through the poverty of the Great Depression and cared about horse racing long after it was practical. He was a chronically depressed workaholic who was usually in a good mood. His darkest thoughts were still amusing. But this thought was different. What did it mean? Was this what he thought about when he watched college football? It didn’t seem possible. Why did he tell me that? Was he talking to himself, or was he talking to me? I had no idea in 1984, but I know now: His past was my future, and the intersection was this.

— Chuck Klosterman, Football (2026)