Byron Donzis, Inventor of Football Flak Jacket, Dies at 79 No way to know for sure, but Byron Donzis just might hold the world record for being thwacked in the belly with a baseball bat. In the late 1970s and early "80s, Mr. Donzis roamed the country, visiting colleges and high schools to demonstrate what became known in football as the flak jacket - a device that has saved quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers from many a rebruised or broken rib. Initially, there was that day in the fall of 1978 when Mr. Donzis and a colleague talked their way into a hospital room in Houston where Dan Pastorini, the Houston Oilers quarterback at the time, was recovering from three broken ribs. "I thought he was some kind of nut," Pastorini said. That was until Mr. Donzis opened his trench coat and, without flinching, took several whacks from the bat swung, full-out, by his associate. Three weeks later, wearing a flak jacket, Pastorini threw for 290 yards against the Miami Dolphins for a 17-9 victory in a wild-card playoff game. Although the Oilers didn't make it to the Super Bowl, Pastorini told Newsday in 1979: "I believe in the guy. I wouldn't play without his jacket now. Best known for inventing the flak jacket - though he went on to hold more than two dozen patents - Mr. Donzis died at 79 on Jan. 4 in Landrum, S.C. The cause was a stroke, said Martha Gibson Donzis, his wife and only survivor. A 6-foot, 215-pound former high school football benchwarmer, Mr. Donzis got the idea for the jacket while working at an Army laboratory in the 1970s. The Army was looking for ways to protect pilots from blunt-force impact. The solution was a lightweight vest that inflated on impact, like a car's air bag, and then deflated instantly. Mr. Donzis's sports version, manufactured by Easton Sports, had triple-layer urethane foam padding containing tiny air cavities. When struck, the vest would cushion the blow and redistribute the impact by letting air escape through valves at the sides. Though hardly noticeable beneath a player's jersey, it could withstand a blow that exceeded 800 pounds per square inch. After Pastorini told National Football League officials about the jacket, and the league provided Mr. Donzis with a $190,000 grant to design other protective gear, the inventor hit the road so he could keep taking hits. In one demonstration, he let a 230-pound man pounce on him. By 1981, he had contracts with 800 colleges and 1,200 high schools. Last week Joe Browne, an adviser to Roger Goodell, the N.F.L. commissioner, recalled being stunned "the first time I saw Donzis wearing his flak jacket and inviting anyone to hit him." "That type of jacket is still worn today by every quarterback in our league," he said. Ronnie Barnes, the New York Giants" vice president for medical services, said, "Byron revolutionized protective padding for football players," adding that "he made thigh pads, shoulder pads and specialty pads that were unmatched during that time to absorb and redistribute impacts to the body." Born in San Antonio on March 5, 1932, Byron Allen Donzis was one of two children of Jack and Sally Elkes Donzis. He dropped out of college after a semester and, after serving in the Army, worked in oil fields. He and a friend invented an X-ray machine for detecting pipeline defects. He started jogging in the mid-1970s and, after too many shin splints, designed a running shoe with inflatable cushioning. His design for a prefabricated foam tennis court led to lawsuits and bankruptcy in 1976 when the courts he constructed buckled in cold weather. That did not deter him. He developed an alcohol-based fuel, for example. Inside his house, The Dallas Morning News said in 1980, he would "let you sniff a bottle of 165 proof denatured alcohol he makes from spoiled bananas collected from area supermarkets and fermented in a solar device." "In the past," the paper added, "he has burned the alcohol in his black Volkswagen at a cost of about 22 cents per gallon."