Rugby hall of fame: once with the 1991 World Cup team and for the second time, in 2016, as an individual.Īccording to her friends, Flores was paid a small salary for coaching the U.S. The current players at Brown remembered “Coach Kathy” as supporting them on and off the pitch in video messages played at the remembrance.ĭespite rugby’s storied history in other places, from Wales to Fiji to New Zealand, it is a relatively new sport in the U.S., Worley said, calling Flores “the elder statesman” of the game whose contributions are only recently being recognized.įlores was twice inducted into the U.S. Thanks to a donation around the time of her death, the university has endowed a coaching chair in Flores’ name, to honor her “contributions as a pioneering coach and educator,” according to the school athletic department’s website.Ī lover of dancing, wine, hugs and dogs, Flores was a private person in many ways, with the seriousness of her illness taking many by surprise. In 2013, Flores joined Brown University as the coach for a new women’s varsity rugby team. She wanted to give that power to others, particularly to those who were underrepresented.” “Rugby is an incredibly empowering sport, it really does require you to have confidence in yourself,” Watford said, “But not only that, you have to trust your teammates to cover for you, to help you … so that you all can advance. Her visibility in the sport as a woman of Hawaiian and Filipino descent was a beacon to other players of color, former All Blues player Deb Watford said. “Getting a field was one of the hardest things, and we would oftentimes just have to squat or go to a park, and the team would walk through the playing surface before the game to pick up the dog poop … and I can remember many practices that were on a field that had quite an uphill.”įlores coached many teams at all levels from college to semi-professional - including the gay men’s team, the San Francisco Fog - to the U.S. “It was as grassroots as it could get,” she told The Associated Press.
As a player-coach and then as coach, Flores and the All Blues competed in every championship between 19, winning 11 of them,according to USA Rugby.Īt the time, Worley said there was essentially no professional coaching for women’s rugby. In 1994, Flores eventually followed Crawford, who she was dating at the time, to join the Berkeley All Blues, a team in the Bay Area that’s part of the national semi-professional league.įlores was not only in the starting lineup but captained and coached the team - all as a rookie - former All Blues player Becky Worley recalled. “It was her energy, that fiery look in her eye, her sheer determination and will that inspired you to play not only with her, but for her.”
“She didn’t have to say anything necessarily,” Crawford said. 8? She must have been 6’2’’, 220 pounds!” Flores, in fact, was 5″5′ and likely 150 pounds, her former teammates say.Ĭrawford described the force that Flores brought to the pitch. 8 position, former teammate Jen Crawford said Saturday.Ĭrawford recalled a match when she “came off the field thinking, who the heck was that No.
She started as a player at Florida State University in 1978, and gained an outsized reputation playing the No.