Douglas Flynn is an interesting guy, one with a background you might not see in many sports writers out there.
He grew up in Massachusetts, and then went to Brown University, earning an honors degree in History as well as a second degree in Afro-American Studies. He then accepted a fellowship at Ohio State in a doctoral program in military history. He gave that a year before decided he had enough of school.
Coming back to New England, he wasn’t sure what he actually wanted to do, so he started working in sports information at Brown, then stringing for a number of papers. His first full time sports reporting job with with the Daily Transcript in Dedham, where eventually served as sports editor.
He moved to the Metrowest Daily News in 2000, where he was put on the Bruins beat. This is probably where you might’ve first come across his work, and even now you might think of him as a “hockey guy.” While on the Bruins beat the paper was purchased by the Boston Herald, and Flynn wrote the Bruins Insider blog and Sunday NHL notes for the Herald, while remaining on beat coverage for the MWDN.
Once the paper was sold again, this time to Gatehouse media, and at the same time, Albert Breer left the Patriots beat to go to the Dallas Morning News. This allowed Flynn to move over to the Patriots beat. He says:
“As much as I love hockey and enjoyed my time covering the B’s (which I still get to do, though not as much with the Pats now my primary focus), I’m even more passionate about football. I actually only started following hockey (other than the B’s) as a kid when the NFL went on strike and I needed to fill the void (still miss those days of the battle of Alberta, Philly and Hartford in the long sweatpants and the Caps led by Randolph’s own Rod Langway). Still, getting to cover the Pats has kind of allowed me to come full circle back to my first love.”
Flynn followed some big names on the Pats beat at the MWDN, including Tom E. Curran, Mike Reiss and Breer, and hopes that he’s been able to learn from each one of them. He notes that his own style is “to focus primarily on the game itself and not get too embroiled in the soap opera storylines that seem to get so much attention in Foxboro, but hopefully still manage to entertain with some unique story angles, insight and humor.”
Some recent examples of his work include A job for the fearless – a look at the job of the gunner on special teams and Proven draft strategy – examining the draft philosophy of Scott Pioli.
Flynn still covers the Bruins when the Patriots season is over, and also writes about baseball on occasion.
Outside of print work, Flynn has done quite a bit of radio work, co-hosting the Inside Hockey Show on 1510 (and later XM Radio) with James Murphy for two years before turning his focus to football last year. He’s done some TV guest spots on CN8’s SportsPulse and NECN’s Sports LateNight and other radio spots both locally and in other markets discussing the Bruins and Patriots.
