This is part of a series of mini-Redlands Connections. This is Part 3 of the series, Quick Visits. Magic Johnson and John Wooden showed up at the University of Redlands as part of a Convocation Series. This piece on Tom Flores was another one. Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, former NBA player John Block, legendary high school coach Willie West showed up. There are others. Cazzie Russell, for instance, came to Redlands with an NCAA Division III basketball team from Savannah, Ga. Russell, out of Michigan, was the NBA’s overall No. 1 draft pick by the New York Knicks in 1966.
Today’s feature: Tom Flores.
I still remember the day when the onetime Oakland Raiders’ legend showed up at the University of Redlands.
Before Tom Flores’ speaking appearance that day, I’d been given an hour to sit with him in an adjoining room inside the school’s chapel. I grew up in Raider Territory, a town called Hayward, some 20 minutes south of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. It allowed me a little background for this little chat.
“I’ll bet you,” he said, “that you can’t name the original eight AFL teams.”
“You guys started in Minnesota,” I told him.
Tom Flores, standing in front of his team in preparation for a game, led the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders to Super Bowl victories. In between those triumphs, Flores spoke at the University of Redlands (photo by Black & White pride).
Flores, who’d played collegiately at the College of Pacific in Stockton, smiled. I thought I had him.
Name the other ones, he challenged me.
I almost got them all. Buffalo Bills, Boston Patriots, Los Angeles Chargers, Houston Oilers, Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs. Oh, and the New York Jets.
“Not perfect,” he said.
The Kansas City Chiefs were the Dallas Texans. The Jets were originally the New York Titans.
One of Flores’ memories: “I remember we were being paged over the intercom at the airport. They said, ‘Oklahoma Raiders.’
“They didn’t know if we were truck drivers or pro football players.”
The AFL weren’t exactly household names in those early 1960s. It was, he recalled, all-out war between the AFL and NFL.
After several minutes of taking on Flores’ trivia questions, he was introduced to a couple hundred audience members.
“There’s something about those stained-glass windows,” said Flores, noting the inner décor of the University of Redlands’ ancient chapel. “I had a few off-colored stories I was going to share with you, but I don’t think I’d better do that.”
He was part of pro football history. The part of the old American Football League that merged with the National Football League in 1970.
Flores had played QB for the Raiders. He wound up as an assistant coach to the legendary John Madden.
When Madden stepped aside as Raiders’ coach after the 1978 season, Managing General Partner Al Davis tabbed Flores as his head coach. What lied ahead were two Super Bowl championships, one in Oakland, the other in Los Angeles.
Flores’ visit to Redlands came in between those two titles.
“I don’t mingle in any of that,” Flores told me, referring to the conflict his boss, Davis, was having with the NFL and its commissioner, Pete Rozelle. “It’s hard enough to get a team ready to play.
“Teams don’t need all those other distractions.”
He was totally in Davis’ corner.
“I think he’s right. Six years ago, we had one of the best stadiums in football. Now, we’re one of the worst. Everybody has passed us by.”
That 27-10 Super Bowl win in New Orleans over Philadelphia in 1980 had some errant media coverage, he told that Redlands audience.
“We’re publicized as a team that has no discipline,” he said. “When we went to New Orleans for the Super Bowl, they publicized the fact that everyone on the team was out on Bourbon Street every night. Well, that wasn’t true at all.
“Only half the team was out.”
Audience members had questions.
On football’s best player:
“There are several and I should go position by position. But I think Walter Payton is one of the most complete backs in the NFL. He’d sure fit in with the Raiders.”
On the upcoming NFL draft:
“We’re not limited to a position in the draft. But I think we’ll look for an offensive back or receivers. If there’s one out there we like, we’ll take a dominating defensive player.”
Redlands Connection is a mixture of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, soccer, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown
Part 3
For Greg Horton, who blocked familiar foes on the Rams’ defensive line, that 9-0 NFC championship game loss to Los Angeles was his final game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A contract dispute, a hold-out, getting cut, all conspired to lead Horton temporarily back to the west coast.
Horton, a Redlands High School product, once stood across the practice field line against Fred Dryer and Jim Youngblood, Bob Brudzinski and Jack Reynolds — days when he played with the Rams before getting traded to Tampa Bay. Those were the guys now standing across from Horton in a rugged NFC championship game at Tampa in January 1979.
Only a week before that loss, Tampa Bay slugged its way past Philadelphia, 24-17, in an NFC Divisional playoff. Horton blocked for a pair of Ricky Bell TD runs, played on a line that surrendered no sacks, protecting QB Doug Williams on a 9-yard TD pass to TE Jimmie Giles.
It was a short-lived stay for Horton in Tampa.
Bucs’ coach John McKay, it seems, had gotten a full view of a University of Wisconsin guard, Ray Snell, who was considered to be a faster player at that position. Between Horton’s contractual holdout and Snell’s promising prospective, there was a switch at left guard made between the 1979 and 1980 seasons.
Horton was gone – back to L.A., in fact – where he played two games with the Rams before eventually getting cut.
Tampa, which allowed three short field goals to Rams’ placekicker Frank Corral in that 9-0 loss, eventually slumped to 5-10-1 in 1980 — no playoffs. McKay got the Bucs back into the playoffs two more times before a a combined 8-24 record in 1984 and ’85 led to a change.
Only a dozen sacks on a 1979 blocking corps that included Horton? In 16 games? A year later, the Horton-less Bucs’ line surrendered twice that amount, 24 sacks, still not a dismal total. Williams’s QB play improved that 1980 season. Who knows how well the Bucs would’ve fared if Horton had stayed put?
Incidentally, those dozen QB sacks in 1979 included just seven knockdown for Williams; backup Mike Rae was sacked five times. It wasn’t an NFL record, but it was close. Four years before the Bucs protected Williams so well, the St. Louis Cardinals blocked a little better for their QB, Jim Hart. They surrendered a mere seven sacks with a line that included Hall of Famer Dan Dierdorff and All-Pro Conrad Dobler.
As for Horton’s replacement?
Snell, taken as the 22nd overall pick in the 1980 NFL draft, spent five seasons blocking for Williams, at times alternating with lineman George Yarno while bringing in plays from the sideline. Snell started 46 of his 64 career games at Tampa Bay before getting dealt to Pittsburgh.
Doug Williams, whose early career in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was supported by the blocking of Redlands’ Greg Horton. The pair came close to winning the 1979 NFC Championship in a game against the Los Angeles Rams, who won, 9-0. Photo by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Chuck Burden of the Chief of Staff of the Army derivative: Diddykong1130
Horton, a 6-foot-4, 260-pound blocker, surfaced in the newly-organized United States Football League where he spent 1982 and 1983 with the Boston Breakers. He blocked for the highly underachieving RB Marcus DuPree (Oklahoma) in that short-lived summer-based league.
It was Week 10 – Saturday night, May 7, 1983 – when the Breakers showed up at the L.A. Coliseum to play the Los Angeles Express. L.A. beat Horton’s team again, 23-20. A little over 16,000 showed up in that massive 100,000-seat stadium to watch.
I’d been granted a field pass, something that never would’ve happened in an NFL game. Horton was gracious enough to visit with me during the game – and after. He had a few games left in the tank, but his pro career was nearing an end.
So, for that matter, was the USFL.
FROM NFL BACK TO HOMETOWN
Horton, born in San Bernardino in 1951, didn’t leave all his good works on the football field. He returned to Redlands, working businesses, growing up his family – his wife, Shirley, and two daughters – and participated in coaching and went heavily into the city’s legendary high school booster club, The Benchwarmers.
During his career, Horton had blocked against the likes of Alan Page and Carl Eller, Harry Carson and Randy White, plus “Too Tall” Jones – the player taken No. 1 overall in the same 1974 draft when he was plucked by the Bears.
He never played a down for the Bears, who were in transition from the Hall of Fame seasons from middle linebacker Dick Butkus and running back Gale Sayers. Gary Huff QB’d that Bears’ team – 4-10 under coach Abe Gibron in 1974. One year later, the Bears made a nice pick in the draft, picking up Walter Payton.
A curious side note about Gibron. A few years after her husband’s death, Shirley Horton confided that one of the reasons Horton wanted out of Chicago was that he wasn’t that convinced Gibron was the right fit as Bears’ coach.
“When he got to Tampa a few years later,” Shirley said, chuckling, “guess who the offensive line coach was?” Turns out it was Gibron. “Greg just laughed about that.”
That second season, 1975, the Bears were coached by Jack Pardee – another 4-10 record – with no real future in sight. Payton had a blocking corps of Jeff Sevy, Mark Nordquist, Dan Pfeiffer, Noah Jackson and Lionel Antoine.
By Horton’s third season, he was in L.A., playing backup on a Rams’ offensive line that included four No. 1 picks – Dennis Harrah, Tom Mack and Doug France, plus John Williams (Baltimore) – surrounding center Rich Saul.
That line was good enough that Horton was expendable, traded to Tampa midway into that 1978 rebuilding season.
The Rams were memorable during that 1970s run – playoffs each season under Chuck Knox (54-15 between 1973-77). Except for that little spurt when Horton replaced injured Dennis Harrah, it wasn’t until his trade to Tampa that his career got interesting. Twenty-eight of his 34 career starts came in Tampa.
A curious note, an extra Redlands “connection” was this: On Sept. 9, 1979, Tampa Bay beat the Baltimore Colts, 29-26, in a Buccaneers’ home game. Standing on the opposing sideline was another ex-Terrier, Brian DeRoo.
“It was the only time,” said DeRoo, “we ever faced each other in a game. Early in the game, though, Greg got thrown out for pushing a referee. I think it was after the first play.”
Also in that game, DeRoo caught three passes for 81 yards. One of those was a 67-yard bomb from Colts’ QB Greg Landry – a play that was highlighted one night later on ABC-TV’s Monday Night Football, halftime highlights narrated by Howard Cosell.
‘GUNNS’ DURING HIS BUFF DAYS
During his college years at Colorado – playing in the Big Eight Conference for the Buffaloes, Eddie Crowder head coach – Horton was a three-year starter for a team that finished 23-12 between 1971 and 1973. Future Oakland/Los Angeles Raider legend Cliff Branch was a Buffalo teammate.
On New Year’s Eve 1971, the seventh-ranked Buffaloes stopped No. 15 Houston, 29-17, in the Bluebonnet Bowl. A year later, the 13th-ranked Buffs lost the Gator Bowl to No. 6 Auburn.
As for the Big Eight, Barry Switzer-coached Oklahoma and and Tom Osborne-coached Nebraska were the dominant teams.
While the Buffaloes dreamed of unsettling the legendary Sooners and Cornhuskers, Colorado might have been the closest team to contend with those national powerhouse teams.
Colorado’s only two losses in a 10-2 season (1971) came against the No. 2 Sooners, 45-17, and No. 1 Nebraska, 31-7. Horton, a sophomore, blocked against the likes of Oklahoma’s Lucious Selmon, whose brother, Lee Roy, would be a future NFL teammate in Tampa.
Yes, future Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers was on the field against Colorado in Nebraska’s victory over the ninth-ranked Buffs. The Huskers, 13-0 overall, wound up as national champions.
Fast forward a few decades. Past that 1974 NFL draft. Past his two non-playing seasons in Chicago. Past his initial years with the Rams. Past the main portion of his career in Tampa Bay. Past those two games in his Rams’ return, plus the USFL.
As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, I sat across from Horton at the lunch table in that Redlands burger joint. His hopes to launch a local business into orbit was on his mind.
His didn’t necessarily want to talk football.
Horton wanted to talk big plans.
He didn’t want to rerun his football career.
Horton wanted to attract clients.
Redlands’ Greg Horton had a nickname — “Gunns.” Photo provided by Horton’s family.
All that football background – playing against a Heisman winner, college football’s top-ranked teams, NFL Hall of Famers, All-Pros, drafted by NFL heavyweight George Halas, playing for legendary coach John McKay, nearly reaching the Super Bowl with a remarkable worst-to-first team – seemed like a distant memory.
Horton had a business to organize.
“When will this story run?” he asked.
“Soon as I write it up.”
My hope was that the article came out all right. All mention of his business was sidelined by advertising and front office executives looking to block free advertising for his company.
Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown
Greg Horton had been drafted by the Chicago Bears. It was 1974. Third round, 56th pick overall. Papa Bear himself, George Halas, supervised the selection of Horton, a third-round pick out of Colorado. Around Redlands, where Horton had prepped, this was big, big news.
By 1976, Horton, a Redlands High product from a serious run of Terrier dominance from the 1960s, was a member of the Los Angeles Rams. Papa Bear had traded him there on April 2, 1974 for the Rams’ third round (Mike Fuller) and 10th round (Mike Julius) picks in 1975.
Those L.A. Rams’ practice sessions must have been genuinely traumatic for the weak-minded. Horton was teammates with Joe Namath, Ron Jaworski, Pat Haden, Lawrence McCutcheon, Heisman winner John Cappelletti, blocking against guys like Jack Reynolds, Isaiah Robertson and Jack Youngblood.
Playing mostly special teams, Horton eventually took over for injured right guard Dennis Harrah midway through the 1977 season. He played 63 NFL games, starting 34. Most of those came after he got traded to the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers midway through the 1978 season.
Horton was part of football lore.
Tampa Bay coach John McKay, who coached USC to four national championships over 16 seasons, surfaced in the NFL when the Bucs joined the NFL as an expansion team in 1976. It’s in the NFL history books that the Bucs dropped their first 26 games. Little by little, though, McKay started building a strong defense.
John McKay, whose career was built on great success at USC, coached Redlands’ Greg Horton in the NFL for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Photo provided by USC/Wikipedia.
QB Doug Williams, who would eventually lead Washington to a Super Bowl about a decade later, took snaps for the Bucs. Side note: Tampa’s offensive coordinator in those early years was none other than Joe Gibbs, the Redskins’ head coach when Williams QB’d them to the Super Bowl a few years later.
BUILDING BUCS’ OFFENSIVE LINE
Gibbs and McKay built Tampa’s offense from scratch. Its real strength might’ve been its offensive line. Left tackle Dave Reavis had played for Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh – drafted in 1973 by the Steelers.
Center Steve Wilson, right guard Greg Roberts and right tackle Charlie Hannah were original Bucs. Good enough to stick around for the upgrades.
McKay and Gibbs built that left side – Williams’ blind side – with Reavis and Horton, who took on blitzing linebackers and safeties blasting through the middle, nose guards and defensive tackles on every snap.
Williams, incidentally, had gone down just 12 times that season. Twelve sacks over 16 games! Incredible. Onetime Trojan Ricky Bell was racking up over 1,000 yards behind that stud line.
It had to be one of football’s greatest ironies that Tampa Bay would host the Rams for the right to play in the 1980 Super Bowl. It would be played in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, of all places.
McKay, who probably figured to be the Rams’ coach at one point due to his proximity with USC, watched the likes of George Allen and Chuck Knox coach the Rams during his Trojan years. Ray Malavasi had taken over from Knox.
Bell, of course, was the ex-Trojan playing against the pro team from his former college home town in that 1979 NFC Championship game — for his former college coach.
Ricky Bell, runner-up to Tony Dorsett in the 1976 Heisman Trophy race, was picked No. 1 overall in the NFL draft by Tampa Bay. He was the man that Redlands product Greg Horton blocked for when both became Buccaneer teammates in 1978 and 1979. Photo by Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Then there was Horton, a 6-foot, 4-inch, 260-pounder who grew up in Redlands – Rams’ country – before eventually getting shipped to L.A. by Chicago in 1976. He never played for the Bears. Eventually, he was traded by the Rams two games into the 1978 season, Greg found a home in Tampa.
Horton’s wife, Shirley, confided to me that her husband wanted out of Chicago.
This was a “worst to first” ride, one of pro football’s biggest turnarounds.
When Horton arrived in Tampa, the line consisted of Garry Puetz, a 12th round pick by the Jets in 1973, with 1975 Miami first rounder Darryl Carlton occupying right tackle. By 1979, Puetz and Carlton were no longer around.
Horton started out by playing left, eventually shifted to right guard to accommodate injuries to Hannah, plus any rebuilding eventually taking shape under Gibbs and McKay in Tampa.
Any team’s best defense is a good offense. During that era of ball control, clock-killing, run-oriented offenses is what kept the other team’s attacks on the sideline. It’s exactly what McKay had in mind with the Reavis-Horton-Wilson-Hannah-Roberts corps blocking for Williams and Bell (1,263 yards).
The Bucs were no different than Earl Campbell’s Houston Oilers. Or Walter Payton’s early days in Chicago. Line play had been huge around the likes of O.J. Simpson in Buffalo, Franco Harris in Pittsburgh, not to mention Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris in Miami.
In Tampa Bay, Bell had been taken in the 1976 NFL draft ahead of Heisman Trophy winner Tony Dorsett, the University Pittsburgh All-American selected by the Dallas Cowboys.
Defensively, onetime Oklahoma Sooner defensive end Lee Roy Selmon was named Associated Press MVP that season. Linebacker Richard Wood, another ex-Trojan that was originally drafted by the Jets, also played a key role on the Bucs’ defense.
BUCS’ PLAYOFF RUN
After a 10-6 regular season, it was Tampa Bay 24, Philadelphia 16 in the divisional playoff round – Bell bashing for 142 yards on 38 carries behind that Bucs’ line.
Suddenly, Tampa Bay, Bell, McKay, Horton, Wood, Williams, Gibbs & Co. had found themselves staring face to face with the Los Angeles Rams. The NFC championship was on the line.
From a 7-37 beginning to an 11-6 record heading into the NFC Championship, McKay had lifted the Bucs to pro football’s pinnacle. Malavasi’s Rams finished 9-7, but stunned Dallas, 21-19, in the divisional round. Their featured running back was UCLA product Wendell Tyler.
Vince Ferragamo had taken over as Rams’ QB from onetime USC shooter Pat Haden, who combined 24 interceptions with 16 TD passes.
By comparison, Williams’ 24 picks and 18 TDs weren’t much better.
Each side would try and counter the other with ground games and staunch defense.
It might’ve seemed like the Bucs’ defense would devour the Rams.
L.A. had a defense of its own – the Youngbloods, Reynolds, Fred Dryer, you name it.
The date was Jan. 6, 1980.
Both teams scored touchdowns.
Both were called back because of penalties.
It was a defensive slugfest. Or an offensive bust. Take your pick.
The Rams’ defense stole the show, limiting the Bucs to a mere 177 total yards.
By contrast, L.A.’s Cullen Bryant ran for 106 yards. Tyler racked up 86 more. Ferragamo threw for 163 yards – no interceptions.
Williams gave way to backup Mike Rae, the pair combining for a total of 54 yards passing.
Rams’ placekicker Frank Corral hit field goals of 19, 21 and 23 yards.
Final score, Rams 9, Bucs 0. Horton came that close to becoming the second former Terrier to play in a Super Bowl. The first had been Jim Weatherwax, a little over one decade earlier while wearing the green and gold of the Green Bay Packers.
After a dozen years of seeing the Packers, Colts, Vikings and Cowboys reach the Super Bowl, the Rams became the first NFC Western Division team to advance to the NFL’s title game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
