“Those of Us Who Know Him...”
Gene Flynn never scored a touchdown, never hit a home run, never pitched a winning basket, never raced a quarter mile or never sank a long putt - not for Holy Cross. Still, it is not strange that he is being inducted into the Hall of Fame tonight. The Old Purples know full well that he belongs there - right up beside the 48 athletic immortals who have brought glory and honor to alma mater ever since Louis Sockalexis first put the name of Holy Cross on the sports pages.
No, Gene isn’t an athlete; he didn’t lose his hair taking locker room shower baths. But he perhaps has done as much, or more, for athletics at Holy Cross an any of the great stars who have been enshrined at earlier Varsity Club dinners.
Mr. Flynn has devoted 38 years - most of his adult life - towards the betterment of undergraduate sports, which are conducted successfully and safely at Holy Cross, also with glory and with students. Gene has been an ideal athletic director. He had all the attributes: a charm to match his honesty, a flair for making and keeping true friends, and a deep understanding of the problems not only of his own coaches and student athletes, but also those of rival colleges with which Holy Cross has a fine rapport.
Holy Cross men don’t need to be reminded of the rich contributions Gene Flynn has made to their athletic program through the long years.
They just look at the schedules. What other independent college with such high scholastic standards has better ones? Which mingles more often with both the proud Ivy Leagues and such top-ranked campus powers as Syracuse, Penn State, Colgate, Army, Navy, Rutgers and others of high repute.
It is no accident that Holy Cross has such friendly relations and is so highly regarded in the Eastern college picture. It wasn’t mere luck which enabled Crusader football teams to play in six NCAA television fixtures, two of them national broadcasts.
Gene Flynn is responsible for all these good things.
Gene has been an organizer. He was a member of the first executive committee which put together the present powerful Eastern College Athletic Conference after World War II.. He has been president of the ECAC the only athletic director from a Catholic college so honored. He organized the NC Varsity Club and set up the Hall of Fame, which he is entering as the 19th member. He has pulmotored Homecoming Days into nostalgic and festive events and established a happy liaison between the Old Purples and undergraduates.
Gene received his first lessons about being an athletic director from a good one, the late Cleo O’Donnell. He learned well. He has done big things at Holy Cross in athletics. He has done them efficiently and quietly and until tonight, without the full credit his patience and untiring efforts merit.
On the threshold of retirement, Gene is as modest as always.
“Why me?” he asked when first told that he had been tapped for the Hall of Fame, “I have done nothing,”
Holy Cross lettermen won’t but this. Many a boy, now a successful man, stayed in college because of the advice and counsel of Gene Flynn, an AD who like to make their student problems his problems.
“It was the professors who taught them in classrooms and the coaches who developed their athletic talents who molded these fine boys into even better men.” insists Gene.
He admits, though, that his long career at alma mater has been rewarding because it brought him association with “so many wonderful people - here at Holy Cross and at all the other colleges. “I have never met a man in college athletics whom I didn’t like.” he says.
Gene will have pleasant company in the Hall of Fame. He is the seventh letterman of the 1921 football team, which he served as student manager, to be so honored. That team’s entire backfield - Dr. A.J. Wallingford, Ken Simendinger, Chick Gagnon and Hop Riopel - are already enshrined along with end Hilary Mahaney and center Denny Gildea.
So tonight the Old Purples will life a tall one to genial Eugene F. Flynn ‘22, the boy from Rochester, NY who came to Holy Cross and loved it so much that he has spent practically his entire adult life here.
Gene, a dedicated man, has proved conclusively that one doesn’t need to be a super star on the field to be a winner in the wonderful world of college athletics. He is a true Hall of Famer. Those of us who know him know this.
– Roy Mumpton, Executive Sports Editor, Worcester Telegram & Gazette
