He forgot to set his alarm for an early-morning wake up call, the latest in a scheduled appointment with the drugs that demonized his mind. When he finally awoke, the memory of the explosion inside his knee trigged a screaming pain that overtook his entire body.
After adequately medicating himself into the necessary blur, the bear of a man sprawled out on the coach, dark thoughts dancing in his head. Less than two weeks earlier, he lay on the Bobcat Stadium turf, clutching his right leg after his patella tendon burst, the sound as audible as a grenade. The embarrassing final total on the scoreboard and the Grizzlies draped in white jerseys carrying the Great Divide Trophy off his home turf only accentuated the pain of the moment.
Former MSU tackle John Weidenaar and quarterback Dakota Prukop with guard JP Flynn (75) in 2015
Days after going under the knife, his football future already in limbo, the coach he came to play for lost his job. Within a week of Rob Ash’s firing, one of the young man’s best friends who doubled as Montana State’s All-America quarterback declared he was leaving Bozeman for the greener pastures of Eugene. Dakota Prukop was turning in his blue and gold to become an Oregon Duck.
Maybe the fallen lineman would earn the nine credits he needed to attain his mechanical engineering degree and move from the Gallatin Valley as quickly as possible. The thought of seeing his teammates after throwing his cleats over the goal post would be too heartbreaking to fathom. Uncertain if he NFL dreams would ever rebuild into reality, the darkness of never playing football again became authentic.
In the midst of a drug-induced haze, he contemplated walking away from the game he loves. The pain medication administered by his surgeon warping his mind, the three-time all-conference talent felt dejected to the point where retirement became his impending future. On that specific day, as his time buried in the couch turned from a morning into an afternoon into a full 12-hour sedentary stretch, his roommate, Chad Newell, coming and going, playing video games and checking in on his depressed friend, J.P. Flynn decided to get up off the coach.
“Chad sat there and played ‘Fallout’ and I didn’t move, just watched in a haze for 12, 13 hours, who knows,” Flynn said. “Right when that happened, I realized I couldn’t live like that no matter how much pain I was in. The next morning, I stopped taking all the meds, got myself a straight leg brace and walked into the weight room.”
MSU guard JP Flynn with former offensive line coach Jason Eck
In the D’Agostino Strength Training center at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse on the Montana State campus, Flynn encountered a group of reinvigorated teammates working out with a new intensity, a new focus to right the wrong of the first losing season since most of these Bobcats were in elementary school. His mind clear, Flynn began to picture his teammates running into Bobcat Stadium seeking redemption without him. He imagined all those who came before him who lost their football careers too early.
During MSU’s winter break, Flynn remembers sitting at his house with Newell, senior running back Gunnar Brekke and senior tight end Austin Barth. The group breached the subject of Prukop’s departure. Barth said he would certainly missed the departed quarterback but that he was “sure glad he had his boys back with him” for one more run at a Big Sky Conference title.
“At that moment, I knew I had to kick my ass into gear,” Flynn said five months later.
“You can’t take the game for granted because you never know when it’s going to be your last play. I refused to let that play be my last.”
As 2015 turned into 2016, Flynn knocked out his final credits required for his undergraduate degree while rehabbing vigorously. During Montana State’s first set of spring drills under new head coach Jeff Choate, Flynn did not participate physically but his presence loomed large. By the end of the 15-practice session, Flynn earned the moniker of coach.
For the first four months of the new year, Flynn rededicated himself to training and rehab. He stretched and iced his repaired knee diligently. He said he did not touch alcohol during the spring semester. He took out a loan in order to stock his refrigerator and freezer with nothing but nutritious food. He rebuilt his body, getting his weight back up to 318 pounds on his 6-foot-6 frame.
MSU guard JP Flynn with former offensive line coach Jason McEndoo
More importantly, he rebuild his mentality. He reclaimed the focus that helped him earn all-league honors as a freshman in 2013 and each season after, reengaged the mindset that helped him become one of the conference’s most menacing, well-respected offensive linemen, a prospect with a certain chance to play on Sundays.
“He’s done a great job of bouncing back mentally,” Brekke said last week. “Whether he said anything to any of us or not, I think we all kind of knew. He just wasn’t himself. He rehabbed his butt off and when he finally did come back, he got right back to work like nothing happened. He would lay it on the line for any one of us so and he showed us that this off-season. We owe him the same.”
“I’ve been nothing but impressed with J.P,” added Newell, who still lives with Brekke and Flynn. “He didn’t take a single snap during spring ball so this summer, he’s learning the offense, leading a group of young guys who have minimal snaps between any of them and also doing a great job of getting himself in shape, rehabbed for this season. He conquered everything he was going through.”
This fall, Flynn will be a towering man draped in symbolism, his body and his garb strong reminders of his once and future battles and goals. After a year of regrowth, his long hair is back, a nod to his confident attitude and a desire to return to his 2014 form, the last time he was a unanimous All-Big Sky selection. Beginning last week, he and many other Bobcats began sporting mustaches, an ode to Montana State’s last national championship team from 1984. On his shoulder he wears a cattle brand from the Kalfell Ranch in Terry, Montana, a nod to his departed former teammate Manny Kalfell and a permanent reminder of the love he’s gained for the Treasure State, a place he said he now calls home. On his knee, he wears a heavy brace, a reminder of the devastating injury that nearly cost him his career. On his left shoe, he wears a pink ribbon and on his right arm, a tattoo of a similar symbol, a memoir to his mother Ruth, a 12-year breast cancer survivor who Flynn has used as his model for toughness for more than half of his 23 years on earth.
“She’s motivation every day,” Flynn said. “ Any time you are sucking air and you’re tired, you get down in your stance, you see that pink ribbon and it’s easy.”
The Bettendorf, Iowa product is enrolled in a full slate of graduate classes at Montana State. He will embark on a course load of 23 credits during the fall and spring semester that will culminate in a master’s degree in mechanical engineering technology. He will train for his NFL tryout with former Bobcat Dane Fletcher at Fletcher’s new training facility The Pit in Bozeman and take his final 10-credit thesis in the summer if he’s not in an NFL training camp.
During Montana State’s recently completed fall camp, Flynn earned captain status, an honor that is at least a season too late if you ask those who follow his lead. Flynn’s friendly and honest demeanor belies his competitive fire, something that especially comes out in his ability to run his mouth during the heat of battle on the field. He and fellow captains like Brekke, Newell, and junior safeties Khari Garcia and Bryson McCabe have acclimated to Choate and his old-school staff as well as any Bobcat.
“The biggest thing that was missing last year was a backbone,” Flynn said during an interview in April. “Coach Choate has come in and brought in a brand. That provides a path for kids to walk along. Kids are held accountable. Kids are actually required to be badasses. It’s not a weird thing for a kid to be tough. It’s expected from everybody on the team. The new energy makes it so much more fun to be around.”
MSU guard JP Flynn (75) blocking against EWU in 2015
On Thursday, Flynn begins his senior season against the Idaho Vandals in the Kibbie Dome in Moscow. Unlike the rest of Flynn’s career, hardly any expectations hang over the Bobcats. Flynn avoided an injury scare when he rolled his right ankle during camp but returned to practice two days later. He is the undeniable leader of an offensive line that features four new starters that will be the key to MSU’s rededication to the power run game. An off-season filled with soul searching and a rededication to his first love has a renewed glint in Flynn’s eye as he enters his last season as a Bobcat.
“We want to win a Big Sky championship,” Flynn said. “We are overlooked. We don’t have the talent, we don’t have the returning starters, whatever you want to say we don’t have, we probably don’t but we have a bunch of guys who are going to go out and fight every week.
“We have to. It’s why I came back.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
