Flutie’s Words For Graduates Have Meaning Far Beyond Sports

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If you are about to graduate from college, what better commencement speaker than Doug Flutie?

If you are about to go out into the world, what better person to hear from than someone who defied every odd there was?

What better person to hear from than someone who went to Boston College because it was the only Division I school that gave him a scholarship and went on to win the Heisman Trophy, arguably the best New England individual sports story we’ve had in the past half-century?

Or as Flutie told the more than 1,000 graduates of New England Institute of Technology on Sunday in the Convention Center, “I’m living proof that anything’s possible.”

Yes he is.

So there was Flutie the other morning, and he didn’t sugarcoat anything, starting off by telling the graduates in their dark blue gowns that they were about to enter a world that can seem bruised and battered, one where it often seems that we’re all waiting for someone “to throw a Hail Mary and have somebody catch it in the end zone.”

His message was both simple and forthright, all built around the premise that we all can control our lives, even in times when everything can often seem so out of control. We can control our lives by our passion, our attitude, our creativity, and our ability to both work with others and lead them, too.

And what better message than that, whether you’re a college graduate, a high school graduate, or just any of us trying to get by in a world that’s changing and swirling all around us?

So here are five Flutie-isms:

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