Becoming the Role Model

Flores didn’t grow up with any flag football role models. There were the women who played before her, of course, but there weren’t any who were playing the game at the highest levels of the sport.

“I had to look at other sports, at other female athletes on the biggest stages to try to identify with them. But at the same time, they didn’t look like me. They didn’t speak my language, and they didn’t even play my sport,” she explains. “I grew up watching all these NFL players, but there weren’t any female athletes playing my sport professionally that I could look to.”

One of the first female athletes Flores looked up to was Billie Jean King.

Flores was around twelve or thirteen, and her coach had her team playing against college men. “It was an interesting moment to see that I wasn’t any different from my teammates, who were boys. I knew I was good on the field,” she says. “I was even better than some of my teammates, but I couldn’t understand why my coaches didn’t give me the same spotlight as my teammates.”

So, she googled “women against men in sports.” She came across Billie Jean King and the Battle of the Sexes, where King played (and won) against former number one-ranked tennis player Bobby Riggs. It was a motivational moment for Flores to know that she wasn’t the only one to come up against gender inequality in sports.

Flores found inspiration and motivation in other athletes: Serena Williams, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird, Allyson Félix.

“That’s one of the most amazing things about this movement of female empowerment in sports,” she says. “We all know that no matter where we’re from or what sport we play, we are fighting for the same thing. We’re fighting for more opportunities.”

Now, Flores knows that she is the inspiration and motivation for flag football players, Latina and non-Latina alike. This provides her the guidance and focus she needs to move forward on and off the field.

As Under Armour’s first flag football global ambassador, Flores and UA Next hosted a flag football clinic exclusively for young female athletes at the Tec de Monterrey Campus Sante Fe. They will be running the second clinic in Mexico City this year, and Flores will be running another camp in Europe.

“I have found my passion in not only playing flag football but also in sharing my knowledge of the game and mentoring young athletes in the sport,” she says. “Sports has the power to change lives. I know that because it has definitely changed mine, and I’ve seen the impact it has had on the talented young athletes I mentor.”