Former Wildcat great, passed away on March 15th at the age of 84. Paul was a star player for Ara Parseghian at NU.
RIP Paul Flatley
- Thread starter CoralSpringsCat
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I was at NU when Paul Flatley was there. He was a terrific receiver. The game I will never forget was the 1962 opener against South Carolina in which Tom Myers completed his first 13 passes, many of them to Flatley. It was Tommy Myers' first game. He was a sophomore, but freshmen couldn't play back in those days Paul Flatley caught everything thrown in his general direction, much like he did when he played for the Vikings.
Great player, better gentleman. From Richmond, IN which at that time was a great program under Coach Hub Etchison.
300 NFL catches at 16 yards per catch. Best NFL wide receiver to come out of Evanston.
An outstanding Representative of NU. One of the first games I saw with my Dad was in '62. RIP.
Flatley had a memorable one handed reception (captured in a Trib photo) in the epic beat down of Notre Dame in 1962 that helped elevate that team to #1 in the nation for a while, I met him one year when he came back as a color commentator for the Gophers after he had retired from the NFL.
I saw it live and that game was really fun. The 1962 team was terrific, and I got lots of inside scoop because one of my fraternity roommates was All American guard Jack Cvercko. I'm still in touch with Jack and see him on average about once a year when he travels from Florida to his wife's hometown in Maine.
Being on the field with Paul when he made”The Catch”, I too was dumbfounded when he pulled it in. Years later, Paul fessed up that he thought the pass was thrown too high and might be intercepted, so he just jumped and the ball stuck in his hand because he had so much “stick-em” on. Years later stick-em was banned.
