Gutierrez: Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett were more than champions; they were mirrors

Sep 25, 2025 at 10:34 AM

Paul Gutierrez

Raiders Columnist

Growing up in the Southern California high desert town of Barstow, halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, I was 12 years old when the Raiders moved to L.A. from Oakland in 1982.

A pre-teen starting to kinda, sorta feel himself, and playing youth football for the first time with the Barstow Marauders, the Silver and Black and all it represented - a swashbuckling mystique thumbing its nose at authority with intimidation while alternately dominating opponents and being inclusive - beckoned.

Sure, I was positive I was more an L.A. Rams fans as a kid - Vince Ferragamo was that dude - but I was seemingly surrounded by Raiders lore. Yeah, dad was a Raiders fan and long-ago photos show me decked out more in Raiders gear as a youngster than in Rams apparel. I was obviously being geared for a certain life…so to speak.

That's when it hit me.

The Raiders coach resembled mi abuelo, my grandpa. The quarterback, he could have passed for a long-lost tío, an uncle.

As I've written in this space before, two Chicanos. In Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett, two "Guys Like Us," to borrow the title from the Eva Longoria-produced documentary on the two guys not only occupying the two most important positions in football, but two guys who were transcendent, and on the same team.

Two guys who, like Fernandomania in Major League Baseball a year earlier, swept not only Southern California, but the entirety of the sports and societal space.

I was in. Big time.

Flores, whose parents were from Chihuahua, Mexico, and Plunkett, whose family was from New Mexico, won their first Super Bowl together two seasons before moving to Southern California. But in that dead period between winning the AFC title game and facing the Eagles, the duo brought to life a certain pride among Latinos in general, Mexican-Americans in particular.

"So it's a safe bet that in the coming two weeks the Raiders' head coach, Tom Flores, and the team's starting quarterback, Jim Plunkett, will be the most publicized and talked about Chicanos in the world," Los Angeles Times columnist Frank del Olmo wrote on Jan. 16, 1981.

"At least this side of Cesar Chavez."

Hyperbole for a pair of football players to be compared to the civil rights activist, labor leader and Nobel Peace Prize nominee? Not to del Olmo, or anyone else paying attention at the time.

"Whether the Raiders win or lose the Super Bowl game, millions of Latinos will be proud simply that Flores and Plunkett are there. For they will be there not as representatives of their people, but as competent professionals whose skill, determination and hard work have brought them to the pinnacle of success in their field."

The Raiders, obviously, were more than competant in dominating Philadelphia to win Super Bow XV. Then, in their second year in L.A., they did it again, blowing out defending champion Washington in Super Bowl XVIII.

It was Sal Castro, the late Chicano activist who organized the East L.A. high school walkouts of 1968 to protest discriminatory and inferior education, who told me the effect Flores and Plunkett winning did for the community was akin to Fernando Valenzuela's impact. Even as Valenzuela was from Etchohuaquila, Mexico, and Flores and Plunkett were as American as mom, apple pie, baseball and, yes, Del Taco (hey, I'm from Barstow, birthplace of Del Taco).

"Hell yes, there's a cry in the community to have heroes," Castro said in 2011. "Throughout the Southwest, you see people walking around with Raiders shirts on … [Flores and Plunkett are] part of the reason.

"A lot of chavalitos [little kids] are crying for positive role models. I hope there will be more Chicanos who will sleep standing up, to get taller. Guys like Flores and Plunkett opened doors. They broke barriers. Both came from humble beginnings, and that only adds to their story and how inspiring they are."

I've written numerous times throughout my career on the ripple effects Flores and Plunkett have had not only in Raider Nation - Flores was finally and deservedly enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021 and Plunkett, too, deserves a Gold Jacket - but throughout the football-loving world. And it never gets old.

It being Hispanic Heritage Month only serves as a timely reminder of their legacies - stories that should be known and celebrated year round - and, on a personal level, there's a certain currency for me in covering this team.

While working on the book "If These Walls Could Talk: Stories From The Raiders Sideline, Locker Room, and Press Box" with Lincoln Kennedy, Flores told us about a young fan who approached him and thanked him on behalf of his father, with tears in his eyes.

"I was kind of taken back by it," Flores said in 2021. "He was so proud, and I didn't know this kid. I didn't know his dad. But he said he was so proud because, 'Of what you had done, and you're a true Latino.'

"So it made me feel good, but it also made me aware of some other things in life that are happening right now, especially in the minority world. And I was one of a very small few Latinos in the world of football. And I was first in many things, very proud of that."

Plunkett felt it first-hand when he represented the Raiders in Mexico City to promote their game there in 2016.

"It's part of our lives now," Plunkett told me at the time of his Raiders legacy with Flores. "He and I, we had the good fortune of teaming up together and having success and I think Tom and I are two people that younger Hispanic children can maybe look up to as two who were successful in their endeavor.

"As I travel around, and even in where I live, some parents will tell me, 'I know your story and I make sure kids know what you've accomplished.' I feel good about that."

He should. Because you can't tell the full story of the NFL without mentioning the accomplishments and impact of Flores and Plunkett.

Which is why being asked to be a selector for the recently-launched Hispanic Football Hall of Fame is more than a full-circle moment for someone who, in large part because of Flores and Plunkett, became self-aware back in 1982.

It's a humbling honor and, yes, they will definitely be on my ballot for the first class.

Because while I have voted for the Baseball Hall of Fame in the past and I am currently one of 50 selectors for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, this just hits different.

Like when 12-year-old me looked up and saw two familial-looking guys leading the Raiders, guys who offered hope and pride.

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Tom Flores joined the Raiders coaching staff in 1972 as a wide receivers coach under John Madden. After Madden retired, Flores took over as Head Coach from 1979-87, winning 83 games and leading the Raiders to victories in Super Bowl XV and XVIII.

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