“I’m hanging in Florida enjoying the warmth, is it warm enough up there yet?”, asked Doug Flutie who knows all too well that a Calgary spring can be anything but, well, spring.

Coincidentally, the city where Flutie spent four years of his career, got hit with a mixture of rain, hail, and snow that April afternoon.

The beloved all-star quarterback called from The Sunshine State to chat about his former coach, Wally Buono, who will join the Stampeders Wall of Fame this summer for the team’s Legacy Night game on July 21 against the BC Lions.

When reminiscing about his time in Calgary, the Canadian Football Hall-of-Famer recalls the organization’s professionalism, which started with Buono.

“The number-one thing that stands out, my initial reaction was how professional everything was run in Calgary under Wally,” Flutie recalled.

“I remember I had come from British Columbia where we did get a coaching change and things worked out a little bit more, but it was just not run in a professional manner when I initially got there.

“And then to see the way Wally took control of everything in Calgary, the first reaction, the first impulse, the first takeaway was always this is a first-class organization. And alongside him were the coaching staff. He had first-rate coaches up and down every year and that wasn’t always the case with every CFL team.”

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Doug Flutie after he won his first Grey Cup in 1992 with the Stampeders.

With Buono at the helm and Flutie leading the troops, the Red and White became one of the most successful teams in league history.

From 1992-1995, they had an accumulative record of 58-14, finished first in the West Division all four seasons, made two Grey Cup appearances, and brought the sterling trophy home in 1992 when they took down the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 24-10 in Toronto’s then SkyDome.

“The success we had; it was expected,” said the six-time CFL Most Outstanding Player. “Shoot, my first year in Calgary we won a Grey Cup.

“Going into the playoffs, the expectation was we were going to win it all.”

And the direction from the coach was clear:

“Everybody get your stuff in line,” said Flutie.

“(Wally) brought us all in the day after the regular season ended, we had the conversation about talking to your families, talking to your wives, we’re going to be a little extra focused now and we’re not going to have the time. Make the sacrifice for another two or three weeks and we’re home.

“Set your plans for the Grey Cup trip. When we’re travelling, get all of those things in order now, because once we get to this point, we’re going to be diving into preparing for the actual game.

“That type of structure, that type of positivity, (obviously) he had been there before and it was all new to a lot of the young players, and I still considered myself a relatively young player at that time and those types of things lend themselves to winning.

“My brother (former BC Lions, Edmonton Eskimos and Hamilton Tiger-Cats receiver Darren Flutie) gave me crap about that a couple years later when we got beat by BC (in the 1994 West Final). He said, ‘you guys already got your plane tickets, and you already had your hotels,’ and yeah, that’s right, because we expected to win.”

Doug Flutie takes one last look as he leaves the field in Calgary Nov. 20, 1994. B.C.’s Darren Flutie got the game-winning T.D. in the final seconds of the western final in Calgary. (The Canadian Press).

With its tribulations came its trials.

Flutie and Co. suffered back-to-back losses in the West Final against the Eskimos and aforementioned Lions, and once they finally returned to the big game in ’95, they lost ‘The Wind Bowl’ by a score of 37-20 to the Baltimore Stallions, the only American team to ever win a Grey Cup championship.

And not letting the losses keep you down goes back to Buono.

“Now we did fall short a couple times in Calgary which was a big disappointment because we had some talented teams,” said Flutie. “But another part of being a head coach is kind of being that father figure, of always being there when things are rough or when you lose a tough game, and (Wally) was always there.

“I think the world of Wally.”

Over the course of his 21-year career, Flutie played for 10 head coaches, including the likes of Chicago’s Mike Ditka, Buffalo’s Wade Phillips, and New England’s Bill Belichick.

“I saw different traits along the way in different coaches and everybody has got their different way of getting things done,” Flutie explained.

“Wally was one of those ‘we’re going to prepare for every situation’ guys, whereas Don Matthews was more hands off, just let it fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy, just have fun. And that’s great if you have mature players but with Wally, I think he did a phenomenal job of preparing us for what we were going into whether it was playoffs, or it was training camp or anything.”

“Wally, he showed success in Calgary, he showed success in British Columbia. It didn’t matter where he went, he had a formula for winning.”

Doug Flutie back in Calgary for the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Grey Cup.

In 2017, the three-time Grey Cup champion made his return to Calgary to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the ’92 championship victory.

“It was so cool when I went back,” said Flutie. “That group was such a close-knit group. From the offensive linemen, and ‘Big Tuna’ (Bruce Covernton) who passed away earlier this year, and the receivers, we had about four 1,000-yard receiving guys, and ‘Pittsy’ (Allen Pitts) and I together, and ‘Sponge’ (Dave Sapunjis), (we) threw up ridiculous numbers.”

And throw up ridiculous numbers they did.

As a Stamp, Flutie threw for 20,551 passing yards and 140 passing touchdowns (including the franchise record-setting 6,092 yards he threw for in 1993, and 48 touchdown passes he threw in 1994) with Pitts and Sapunjis accounting for about 45 per cent of those completions, give or take.

“You walk back into a room with these guys and it’s family,” he said. “You go through so much with your teammates. Now at 60 years old, looking back, you realize maybe it wasn’t quite life and death, but it felt like it when you were playing.

“And these are the guys who had your back. These are the guys that helped you get to where you got as an athlete, a career, a life. And there’s a camaraderie there and an affection for each other. It’s like no other because of the things that you go through on the field, your success is dependent on each other and that all started with Wally.”

“It’s something that happens only in football and it can’t happen without a tremendous leader and a guy who brings everyone together and creates a winning atmosphere and that was Wally.”

Following his CFL career, the 1984 Heisman Trophy winner out of Boston College made his return south of the border as the Buffalo Bills starting pivot in 1998, earning Pro Bowl honours and winning the NFL Comeback Player of the Year award in the process. He then spent three seasons with the San Diego Chargers and subsequently finished his legendary run as Tom Brady’s backup in Foxborough.

After 242 games played across the CFL, NFL, and USFL, Flutie finished his career with 58,179 passing yards, 6,759 rushing yards, 369 passing touchdowns, and 82 rushing touchdowns. And don’t forget his 100% extra point conversion rate from when he drop-kicked for a single in the final regular season game of his career with the Patriots in 2006, making him the first NFL player since 1941 to do so.

Even Bill Belichick had to smile.

Playing in the final regular-season game of his career, @DougFlutie went out in style, becoming the first player to score on a drop-kick since 1941.

Happy birthday, Doug!!

(Jan. 1, 2006) @Patriots pic.twitter.com/wguYWDvK2Y

— NFL Legacy (@NFLLegacy) October 23, 2018

Flutie credits his tenure in Calgary as a major part of his ensuing success.

“From there,” he began, “I wind up going to Toronto and doing what we did in Toronto, to back in the NFL, wind up making a lot more money getting to a Pro Bowl, and it set me up for the rest of my life.

“What happened in Calgary set me up for what happened in the rest of my life and the lifestyle I live. And Wally and the guys on that team were such a huge part of it.”