NFL fumbles as Tom Flores gets passed over for the Hall of Fame
SAN DIEGO -- How do you get to Canton, Ohio? Well, sir, if you're Latino, it is exceedingly difficult to find a road that leads there.
In fact, it sometimes appears that "NFL" stands for "Not for Latinos."
What other conclusion can fair-minded football fans draw now that the National Football League has once again snubbed, for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, one of the most deserving people to ever hit the gridiron or coach from the sidelines?
Tom Flores performed both roles with distinction, and he deserves more respect than he's been given.
For his entire career, the Mexican American has had to be twice as good as a white male to get half as much credit. Often, Flores doesn't even receive that. Instead, since he is neither black nor white, he gets ignored.
He spent his whole life trying to achieve on the merits. And he did. Only to learn what the people he grew up with always knew: Sometimes, it's not about merit. Sometimes, the game is rigged.
The 82-year-old may have been baptized Thomas Raymond Flores. But back home in the small farm town in Central California that we both call home, folks don't stand on formality. So when his name comes up in friendly conversation, he's just "Tommy."
He was "Tommy" in the 1940s when he played in the neighborhood, when the Flores family lived a few doors down from my father's family on Olive Street in Sanger, California. To call the houses on that block "humble" would be generous.
Flores' family didn't have much money. No one in that community did back then. It seemed like everyone was waiting for their "rich" uncle to get out of the poor house.
But Tommy had a gift. It seems he was always comfortable gripping and throwing a football -- at Sanger High School, Fresno City College, University of the Pacific and, later, the NFL.
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