The story of how J.J. Flannigan ended up at Colorado

The story of Bill McCartney bringing J.J. Flannigan to Boulder is a recruiting tale for the ages.

When people talk about the revival of the Colorado Buffaloes in the late 80s to early 90s, the best stretch in school history, lots of names get brought up.

Obviously, Sal Aunese made a huge impact on those teams, Eric Bieniemy gets mentioned, Darian Hagan and the many great players on defense. 

It's usually players from the 1990 national championship-winning team that gets the credit for all of the success. 

But even head coach Bill McCartney would tell you it was the members of the team in the late 80s that helped turn the tide. 

One of McCartney's first big-time recruits was J.J. Flannigan. He was the top running back in the country coming out of high school and he ended up at a place not many top players were going at the time. He was just starting a new trend.

So how did McCartney pull the speedster out of Pomona High School in 1986? It depends on who you ask. 

Lamarr Gray was one of Flannigan's closest friends in high school. They went to different junior high schools but at a basketball game sophomore year, Flannigan found out who had his back. And he wasn't going to leave him.

"A lot of people don't know but Flannigan was actually going to go to Michigan or USC," Gray said. "And there's a back story to (how he ended up at CU)."

The story goes, during their sophomore year at Pomona, they went to a basketball game together and a group of friends. During the basketball game, a group of drug dealers up to no good showed up looking for Flannigan. 

They thought Flannigan had stolen something from them. J.J. denied it but they were still waiting on him. 

Their group of friends had a plan to stick together after the game just in case anything went down. 

"It was me, J.J. and a bunch of J.J.'s friends he went to elementary school and junior high school with," Gray said. 

When the game ended and they went outside, all of his friends broke off and went their separate ways. Gray was still there standing next to Flannigan. 

"I told J.J., 'Hey man just remember who stood by you.'" Gray said.

According to an L.A. Times article, Flannigan was considering Colorado, USC, Michigan, Oklahoma and California out of high school. But told the reporter it was going to come down to a battle between USC and Colorado.

McCartney hired Flannigan's high school coach, Oliver Lucas, before Flannigan's senior season as the running backs coach at CU.

Gray believes Lucas told McCartney he would get Flannigan for him. But he couldn't do that without also bringing Gray with him.

"That's how I got (to CU)," Gray said. "It was basically to get Flannigan you had to get me. So they got me and I was on him all the time."

McCartney landed his first huge fish at a skill position and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Flannigan ended up leading the team in rushing, ahead of Bieniemy, in 1989 with 1,187 yards and 18 touchdowns. He declared for the draft after that season. 

McCartney wasn't afraid to pull out the stops if he had to land a top recruit. He hired his head coach, he recruited his best friend and he beat out USC and Michigan. 

That's why Bill McCartney is an American gangster.