Few players and head coaches careers are more intertwined than Marcus Allen is to Tom Flores. Allen was the 10th overall in the 1982 draft by the Flores-led Raiders and the Heisman Trophy-winning back shot out the gates to win Offensive Rookie of the Year. Allen’s second year, he helped the Raiders to win their third Super Bowl.
That game, of course, he had one of the greatest runs in NFL history.
That run was the icing on the cake as Tom Flores hoisted his second Lombardi trophy as head coach of the Raiders.
Guiding that cast of characters to two Super Bowl titles should have earned Flores a trip to Canton long ago. After all, he’s been eligible for 22 years.
It took the Senior Committee to get Flores in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And no one was happier to see Flores’s long wait come to an end than Allen.
The two words Allen used to describe his old ball coach joining him in the Hall of Fame were “Grateful” and “Finally!”
“I called Tom immediately. And I almost cried, probably did. Because Tom has always been special to me.” Allen told RaidersWire of the moment it was announced Flores was going in.
“We just had this connection. When I first arrived and I think in large part he probably and Ron Wolf were responsible for drafting me. Because I played in the Olympic Gold Bowl. The first and only time they ever had the Olympic Gold Bowl in San Diego and Tom was the coach. I think he was scouting me while I was there and I just always thought he was a great guy. He had a unique way, a silent way of running his team, controlling his team, motivating his team. He was the best at it.”
“I always thought that Tom was deserving. And I have a special relationship with Tom. Obviously, he was my coach my rookie season and made me extremely comfortable and changed the offense. I don’t think the Raiders were ever in an ‘I’ formation, they were either a far left or far right team.”
Allen was one of a select few NFL greats who got in the Hall of Fame in the first year or two of eligibility. He played three seasons after Flores retired and thought he should be joining his head coach in the Hall, not the other way around.
Now that the moment is here, and the now 84-year-old will ‘finally’ take the stage in Canton along with his rightful place in those hallowed halls, Allen gets to experience the final stage of that football journey with him. Full circle.
Said Allen; “I wouldn’t miss it.”