Biography

He was the All American Boy-Polite, intelligent, handsome, and articulate. He was also a superb athlete who played guard on the basketball team and center field on the baseball team. He had quick feet, soft hands, and excellent coordination, but more importantly, he was a hard worker, a spirited competitor, and a real team player. Until his senior year, he had never played football. Fortunately, the luck of the Irish smiled upon Bishop Feehan when Mike Flaherty decided to lace up a pair of shoulder pads and buckle up his chin strap to play for the Shamrocks in the season of 1977.

Overpowered by schools with larger programs and enrollments, the Feehan football team was experiencing a period of serious rebuilding when "Flappa" came along to save the day. In his first start at QB in the third game of the season, Flaherty directed the team to victory by engineering a 50 yard scoring drive for one TD and throwing a 13 yd TD pass for another in a "must win" over New Bedford Yoke 12-0. Later that year he threw for a TD and a two point conversion in a 24-7 win over Dighton-Rehoboth. In addition to playing QB, Mike was also a solid defensive back whose best effort came in h is last game against Stang when he led the Feehan secondary in limiting the Spartans to completing 2 of 14 passes for a paltry 11 yards in a 24-5 win. Without question, the most memorable game of that season, and, of Mike's career, was a thrilling come from behind 20-14 victory over Case High School of Swansea at Hayward Field. Not only did Mike score a TD and throw two TD passes in that game, he drove the Shamrocks 67 yards in the final 1:52 completing 6 of 8 passes, the final one for the winning score.

In the 41 year history of Bishop Feehan sports, it is safe to say no one player meant any more to one team than Mike Flaherty did to the coaching staff and his football teammates in his senior year.

While at Feehan, Mike earned five varsity letters and captained the baseball and basketball teams as well as being selected as the outstanding scholar-athlete of his 1978 graduating class, and, in 1999, was inducted into the Bishop Feehan High School Athletic Hall of Fame.