He's 74. And he doesn't act 74, at least not how you would expect a 74-year-old to act.

There aren't many 74-year-olds who rise hours before dawn so they can make their 5 a.m. racquetball appointment at the YMCA. And there are even fewer, I presume, who are playing competitive soccer once or twice a week with guys -- kids, really -- 40 and 50 years younger.

"There's probably nobody within 20 years of him playing out there," said Devin Morrill, Flynn's teammate on the Zephrys, who play their games at The Sports Zone on West Harry. "It's just crazy that a guy that age is out there mixing it up with kids who are 20 years old."

And not giving an inch.

If somebody accidentally bowls into Flynn on the pitch, he'll just smile and go about his business. But if there's any funny business going on, Flynn isn't above retaliation.

"Sometimes I'll get one of those cards and have to sit out," he said. "But I probably haven't been upset with the people I'm playing against more than a couple of dozen times."

Flynn, a flight instructor for Hawker-Beechcraft, still works full time and has no plans of slowing down, even though there are times his wife of 56 years, Wanda, would like him to.

They have five children, 17 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. But instead of watching their active lives from the sideline, Mike Flynn chooses to be just as active as they are. If not more.

"He's always been such a competitive guy," Wanda said. "I think he just competes against himself sometimes."

Instead of hiring help to put in a front patio, Mike is doing the work himself. He took out the existing patio with a jackhammer -- a 74-year-old man with a jackhammer -- and is slowly finishing the project.

"He doesn't believe in paying anyone to do anything," Wanda said. "So, with all the strange hours he has at his regular job, he's been doing this on Saturdays and Sundays."

Flynn was an athlete at Wichita's Plainview High School in the early 1950s. Though he wasn't a big guy, at 131 pounds, he loved to compete.

"In those days, we wore leather helmets," he said. "Mine weighed 16 pounds and my neck muscles weren't really even strong enough to hold it up."

Flynn used to consider soccer to be a sport for the guys who weren't tough enough to play football. "I thought it was a sissy game," he said.

But his kids loved to play, so he gave it a shot. That lasted for only a few days because he got too rough and his children politely asked him to tone it down.

"They thought I played soccer like I was playing football," Flynn said.

He and his wife went to a few Wichita Wings indoor soccer games back in the day, and he began to notice the intricacies of soccer. It was enough to get him to think maybe he had been too harsh about the sport, so he started playing again.

"I saw there was some skill involved," he said. "But, still, it's not like football."

Since there are few options for 74-year-old men to play football, Flynn is doing what he can on the soccer pitch. He gets a few shots a game and when he gets winded, he stays back in the defensive zone. So do a lot of other much younger guys, he said.

"I've gained an admiration for soccer," he said. "When we had the World Cup here in the United States, I went to Dallas to watch. But if I could afford it, I'd probably rather go see the Chiefs play. Sometimes."

Flynn still runs two races every year -- 10Ks on St. Patrick's Day and in the River Run. He's upset because his times are steadily getting worse.

He's even thinking of doing more training, to make the times better.

Oh, what must Wanda think?

"I think, 'Oh my gosh, don't hurt yourself,' " she said. "But he's always been in really great shape. If he does get hurt at all, he really recovers fast. I'm a little envious that I'm not in as good a shape as he is."

Flynn loves playing and participating. Watching just isn't the same.

He wouldn't miss a racquetball date and the soccer games are a highlight of his week.

"I feel kind of good knowing I'm probably 50 years older than a lot of my teammates," he said. "But it's hard for me to tell age anymore. A lot of the policemen and doctors I see don't look like they should be out of high school."

Flynn has been out of high school a long, long time. Yet he continues to do the things that have made him perpetually young.