Del Rey to L.A. and maybe the Hall of Fame: The rise of Raiders coaching legend Tom Flores
Tom Flores always had a knack for throwing a ball as a youngster and the desire to do so, even when his focus was supposed to be elsewhere.
That included days spent working on a ranch in the small Fresno County community of Del Rey, where along with brother Bob, his father, Tomas Cervantes Flores, and mother, Nellie Padilla, he toiled in the fields.
Or at least, “my brother and I pretended to work in the fields,” Flores recalls. “Picked grapes, cotton. Anything that needs to be picked, we picked it.”
Tom still found time even in those moments to toss around just about any kind of ball he could get his hands on, developing the raw skills that would take him from the fertile central San Joaquin Valley to the highest ranks of pro football as an AFL quarterback and NFL coach.
A final milestone is within reach. Flores — a two-time Super Bowl champion as coach of the the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders — was the lone finalist chosen by the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Coach Committee for induction in the Class of 2021.
To secure a spot in Canton, Flores and any of the 15 modern-era player finalists must be named on 80% of ballots cast by the 48-member Selection Committee when it met virtually Jan. 19. Results are expected to be formally announced Feb. 6 in Tampa, Fla., ahead of the Super Bowl.
Helping Flores’ cause: His is a standalone candidacy, considered separately from the players.
If, as expected, Flores finally makes it in his third attempt as a finalist, it will cap a remarkable rise from the humble roots that began to take hold in his adopted hometown of Sanger, where his family moved when he was 4. In those early days, motivation came easy.
“Competing was fun, Flores says, “and playing was fun.”
Flores’ father was 12 when he came to the U.S. from the Mexican state of Durango. His mother was born in Fresno after her parents came over from Jalisco when they were young.
Flores gets his start in ... softball?
Turns out it took awhile before Flores finally found the sport that would win him national attention and acclaim.
Softball was the first game he played at Granville Elementary School, located at Kings Canyon Road and Indianola Avenue just outside Sanger. The school had three teachers, he says.
Flores later attended Wilson Elementary on Faller Street in Sanger and played organized softball.
“We played other schools in Sanger at Mt. View Elementary School,” Flores said.
At Wilson, Flores finally got to play football, though it was just flag football.
“Organized tackle football … I didn’t start that until I was a freshman in high school,” Flores says. “It was always fun because I could always catch, run and throw the football.”
Flores became the quarterback for Sanger High and began to dream about playing college football. Notre Dame? Army? Navy? Stanford? Who wouldn’t want a kid destined to throw for nearly 12,000 yards as a pro?
But those dreams were dashed when he was a senior in high school. He learned he didn’t qualify for top-flight four-year universities because he didn’t take the right college-prep classes such as foreign language, algebra and geometry.
Fortunately, there was a high-level local option to help him reach the next level.
Junior college, then UOP bound
The area’s top-flight junior-college programs offered a perfect fall-back option and Fresno City, Reedley and Porterville colleges all expressed interest.
Ultimately, he ended up at Fresno City, where he played football and baseball from 1954 to 1956. He also was active in student government and served as student body president.
In two seasons behind center for the Rams, Flores passed for 24 touchdowns. Now, he was ready to capitalize on interest expressed by four-year schools.
San Jose State, Tulsa and the University of the Pacific were among those in the hunt. But it was the Naval Academy — which a few years later would produce a guy by the name of Roger Staubach — that he preferred. That is until ...
“I said, ‘Where’s Navy?’” Flores can joke now. “They showed me a map and I was like, ‘Holy crap.’ That is too far.’”
Second on Flores’ list was Pacific, a couple hours north up Highway 99 in Stockton. “It was a little school and ... I’m from a small little town.”
“I fell in love with that school,” Flores says.
He also fell in love with the woman who would become his wife. He met Barbara Fridell at UOP when he was a junior and she was a freshman.
“We all ate in the same cafeteria and we had a biology class together and I got to know her,”
They married in 1961.
He starred for the Tigers and coach Jack Myers, though an injury to his shoulder slowed him in his senior season.
Pro career starts slowly
Flores considered himself a “pretty good” football player, he says, but the shoulder injury from college initially put a damper on his hopes to play the game professionally.
He tried to hook on with the Canadian Football League but Calgary released him after a couple of months.
Surgery followed and he got a quick look from the NFL, but the shoulder didn’t hold up during a stint with Washington.
He had decided to return to school to work on his master’s when he got a surprise call.
“I needed to take one class in 1960’” he says, “and I got a call from this team called the Oakland Raiders.
“I was like, ‘What the hell is that?’” Flores remembers thinking of the fledgling AFL franchise. “New league, and they asked if I’d like to give it a try. I told them I hadn’t thrown in a while because of my shoulder.”
Why not give it one last shot? He could still finish up his master’s later.
Flores, now 23, went to training camp with the Raiders in Santa Cruz. Suddenly, he was throwing again without pain.
His arm strength returned and he made the team, playing under coaches Eddie Erdelatz (1960-1961), Marty Feldman (1961-1962), Red Conkright (1962) and Al Davis (1963-1965).
In six seasons with the Raiders, Flores threw for 11,635 yards and 92 touchdowns before he was sent to the Buffalo Bills and finally played for the Kansas City Chiefs. He finished his playing career in 1969 as a member of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl-winning team.
“I think it worked out,” Flores says. “Very first quarterback in Santa Cruz, California. That was a long time ago. It makes me feel proud that I was one of 20 guys that played 10 years in the AFL. Too much to mention all in one breath.”
Coaching opportunity
Nearly two years away from the game helped Flores realize how much he missed football. His first coaching opportunity came in 1971.
“When I didn’t go (back to) camp, I realized how much I missed the sport,” Flores said. “I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life and I got a call from a friend (head coach Harvey Johnson) in Buffalo with the Bills. I took the opportunity.”
Flores was hired as the Bills’ quarterbacks coach, flying back to Buffalo overnight. He was there for just one season. Davis had followed his own unusual career path, from Raiders coach to AFL commissioner to Oakland general manager to principal owner.
“The Raiders had an opening and I called Al Davis and I came in and met with him and he put me in touch with (then head coach) John Madden,” he said. “I was hired in 1972.”
From 1972 to 1978, Flores was the wide receivers coach and helped the Raiders to a Super Bowl title as an assistant in January 1977.
Shortly after the conclusion of the 1978 season, Madden retired.
It would be a tough act to follow, but Flores didn’t hesitate to apply for the top job.
NFL diversity trailblazer
Flores wanted to coach the Raiders. Maybe somewhat surprisingly, being a minority candidate in a league that to this day still has trouble diversifying its coaching and management ranks wasn’t his biggest hurdle.
Davis interviewed Flores three times. Five others applied for the job.
Finally, Davis chose Flores. He became the first Latino head coach in NFL history.
“He just put me through the ringer and made sure how I would respond,” Flores says. “It wasn’t about the game. I think it was a matter if he felt I was strong enough to handle the job.”
Flores celebrated by going to dinner with a group of friends, but already some additional discipline was setting in. He realized he needed to cut the night short and get ready for the next day.
First order of business for Flores was hiring a coaching staff. “I already had thought about it,” he says, “because that was part of the interview.”
He had to have the right pieces in place to satisfy his demanding owner.
“There were some changes I wanted to make,” he says. “Some changes had to be made and that was it. (Working all the time as the coach) especially with Al … it never stops. There was not more than 24 hours in one day. He was fair and very demanding he worked right next to you. As hard as you worked, he was there. It was his passion — his whole passion.
“His whole life was football and his wife. He expected you to be kind of the same way.”
Super-sized success
Perhaps Flores’ biggest challenge came in his second season. The Raiders appeared to be in a rebuilding mode at the start of the 1980 campaign, working in a new quarterback after trading away Ken Stabler.
The Raiders started the season 2-3, 3-3 and 4-3.
Finally, they had a winning streak.
Oakland, with Jim Plunkett taking over at quarterback, won six straight to get to 8-3.
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The Raiders finished the regular season 11-5 and made the playoffs as a wild card en route to the franchise’s second Super Bowl title.
“Gene Upshaw and Morris Bradshaw had one year left (in their contracts),” Flores says. “Burgess Owens, Bob Chandler, Cedrick Hardman came in and helped us win. They had enough to give us one good year and we did it together. We did it the hard way. We struggled and stumbled and fumbled. We peaked at the right time and every game was a must-win game.”
Another Super Bowl title
The Raiders relocated to Los Angeles in 1982 and Flores could see he had a “really good team” on his hands with players such as Jim Plunkett, Ted Hendricks, Cliff Branch and a soon-to-be star rookie running back.
Prior to that season, Flores and general manager Ron Wolf handled draft duties because Davis was battling then-commissioner Pete Rozelle and the NFL in the courtroom in an antitrust lawsuit.
During a courtroom recess, Davis checked with Wolf and Flores and was wondering who was available in the draft.
Wolf told Davis that Marcus Allen, the Heisman Trophy-winning tailback out of USC, was available.
“He asked, ‘What are you waiting for?’” Flores recalls. “’Do what you have to do.’”
Wolf and Flores drafted Allen and it turned out to be a touchdown for the franchise.
A year later, Allen helped Flores and the Raiders secure the franchise’s third Super Bowl win, highlighted by a 74-yard touchdown run in a 38-9 win over Washington.
“We were good the whole year,” Flores says. “Went in as the No. 1 seed and in the three playoff games, we trounced Pittsburgh, trounced Seattle and destroyed Washington in the Super Bowl. We were good. We still had to win those playoff games, but (comparing 1980 and 1983), we were two completely different teams (wild card and No. 1 seed).
“We had some key players: Jim Plunkett, Cliff Branch, Ted Hendricks. They were locker room guys that knew how to win.”
Flores helped foster that winning attitude, says Hall of Fame wide receiver James Lofton, who joined the Raiders in 1987.
“I expected to sit down with him and have a 30-minute conversation,” Lofton said in a 2019 interview with The Bee. “He said, ‘Well, glad you’re here. We’re going to use you and get a lot out of you.’ To me, he was a straight shooter.
“There wasn’t a lot of rah rah or BS out of him. He knew how to compete. He knew he wanted his players to compete and that’s what he expected from you.”
Hall of Fame worthy?
Flores has done enough to have earned a bust in Canton, Ohio. As a three-time finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he’s clearly close to persuading those who can make it happen to agree.
Here are his accomplishments:
▪ 97 victories, including an 83-53 run with the Raiders from 1979 to 1987.
▪ An 8-3 playoff record, raking second to Vince Lombardi in winning percentage (.727) among those who have coached 10 or more postseason games.
▪ He won two Super Bowls as a head coach. Oakland was the first wild-card team to win the big game, beating the Philadelphia Eagles after the 1980 season.
▪ He has a 105-90 overall record, including the playoffs, with the Raiders and Seattle Seahawks.
▪ He was the first Latino coach in the NFL and first to win a Super Bowl.
Flores waits patiently
Twice as a finalist, Flores has faced disappointment near the gates of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He made the trip to Atlanta two seasons ago but never received the hoped-for knock at his hotel room door from Hall president David Baker.
Flores found out he didn’t make it in 2020 when Jimmy Johnson and Bill Cowher learned they were getting in during surprise on-air greetings by Baker at the studios where the ex-coaches now served as NFL analysts.
“He never toots his own horn — ever,” Barbara Flores said in a Raiders.com video promoting Flores’ candidacy. “Sometimes I kind of wish he would, you know, because some of the things he has done are really important and groundbreaking. He thinks that your actions show you don’t have to talk about it so that’s just the way he is.”
Allen, inducted into Canton in that same class with Lofton in 2003, remains in Flores’ corner as well.
“Of course I’m biased,” Allen says in the video, “but if I look at what he’s done and what he’s accomplished, he certainly deserves to be in there. When you look at other coaches that are in there, that haven’t actually done as much. He’s a Hall of Famer, not only as a coach, but as a person.”
Flores for his part says he now knows to remain guarded until he gets the official word he’s finally in.
He said he’s not sure how word will be passed along this time.
Normally, former players, contributors and coaches would fly to the Super Bowl city, but that probably won’t be the case for candidates this year amid the coronavirus pandemic. Flores said for now he plans to be at his Palm Springs home.
Regardless, Flores, who turns 84 in March, said he’ll be hoping for the best alongside Barbara, twin sons Mark and Scott, daughter Kim, and five grandchildren.
“A lot of things happened in my life that I’m proud of,” Flores says. “The rewards are not always monetary and I’m very proud of what I’ve done with my life and with my family. They joined in the journey and took part in it. They experienced the good and the bad. Barb and I like to think we raised three great kids, my grandkids, and we have a multitude of friends from college and friends from the American Football League and from our Raider family.
“It’s been great ... nothing like it. Football is family and it’s forever. Once you’re a Raider, you’re always a Raider.”
