When Doug Flutie scores a touchdown, all of New England erupts. When Doug Fluties scores a game winning touchdown...

Doug Flutie is a made-for-New-England hero. His hero status would not survive elsewhere. People in other cities would have lost faith in him, no, even lost interest in him, long ago.

Doug Flutie spent last year on the bench. If he had been riding the pine in Los Angeles, would people have noticed him?

"Who's the small fellow on the bench?"

"Must be the second-string punter."

People elsewhere aren't as likely to invest their dreams in a player so likely to leave them unfulfilled. Flutie was a great college player at Boston College. He won the Heisman Trophy. In his senior year, he threw a 56-yd. touchdown pass to beat the University of Miami, still hailed as "The Miracle in Miami."

But as a pro, he has been a disappointment. Coaches and scouts everywhere said he would be a disappointment. He's not tall enough, they said. He's not big enough. He's not strong enough.

They were right. But New Englanders will never concede this.

With Magic Johnson, a miracle is commonplace. It is too easy to have faith in someone who nearly always delivers.

If you're a Doug Flutie fan, you have to wait. You have to ingore the devlish voice in the back of your brain that says the waiting is in vain. He'll never deliver, the voice says. He may never get the chance to deliver.

He sits. You sit. You both wait. This is faith.

Sunday, Doug Flutie delivered a victory in a game of teams encamped in trenches of mediocrity.

But New Englanders have waited so long, they'll take it. And, what the hell, they'll call it a miracle.