Palouse’s Doug Flansburg inducted into WSU Hall of Fame

Doug Flansburg on Martin Stadium sideline after being inducted into WSU Hall of Fame.

WSU athletic director Bill Moos tells him that a long time ago he used to throw footballs against the barn and catch them while pretending to be Doug Flansburg.

Flansburg was a split end who played with Mike Price. He caught 12 passes against Houston in the brand new Astrodome in 1966. That still stands as the WSU record for most in one game.

On Saturday at halftime of the UNLV game, Flansburg stood on the turf at Martin Stadium along with 14 other inductees into the WSU Hall of Fame.

Flansburg was in Pullman Saturday on a break from harvest on his 920-acre farm near Palouse. It’s the same land he grew up on hoping to play for the Cougars.

When he got to campus in 1963, he had decided he would try to walk on the

football team. If he failed, he would try to walk on the basketball team. If that failed, he would try baseball.

While he did play some on WSU’s freshman basketball team, football proved to be his sport.

In his sophomore year, the player ahead of him, a scholarship split end, broke his neck in a car accident two weeks before two-a-day practices began. Flansburg stepped in and the next year, he had the job. The previous end, Bud Norris, returned and became a defensive back. The new changes were partially due to new coach Bert Clark.

“With a new coach, you always have a new chance,” said Flansburg.

He was on scholarship for 1965-67.

The 1965 team was known as the cardiac kids

as they went 7-3 and beat three Big 10 teams.

Flansburg’s father Allan traveled to games –

never missing one during Doug’s career, home or away – along with a sampling

of Cougar fans.

“It was always exciting to look up and see a small group going crazy in the stands while most of the stadium was just sitting on their hands,” said Flansburg.

The next year, to start the season, the team traveled to the Los Angeles Coliseum to play USC in O.J. Simpson’s first game as a Trojan. It began a 3-7 season followed by a 2-6-1 in 1967.

After graduating with a degree in agriculture, Flansburg was drafted into the Army, where he raised his hand when asked if anyone was interested in being a chaplain’s assistant.

So he spent a tour of duty attached to an engineer’s battalion north of Saigon helping a chaplain take services to three locations. While there, Flansburg also taught English to Vietnamese kids in the town of La Trang.

When he completed his time in the Army, he returned to Palouse. He had been drafted by the Canadian Football League but elected to return to the farm. Eventually, Doug took on more and more roles on the land.

“Old farmers have a way of not ever completely retiring,” Doug said of his father.

Today, Doug’s son is taking on more roles on the land, where they grow a rotation of winter wheat, spring barley, garbanzo beans and lentils.

It’s a long way, but still only 12 miles from where Doug and his teammates used to put their decals on their helmets themselves before every game. It’s also not far from Kamiak Butte, where Flansburg and his late teammate, quarterback Hank Grenda, used to run uphill to train.

On Saturday, 10 fraternity brothers were in town for the UNLV game and Flansburg’s honor. “I found out one afternoon (about the Hall Fame); a letter came in the mail,” Flansburg said. "I swear I had a smile on my face the rest of the afternoon.”