'A beautiful ride': Softball has taken Spark assistant Alex Flores places he never dreamed
Softball has taken Alex Flores to places he never thought he’d go.
First came the trips across the country. Florida. New York. Arizona. Then, there were journeys outside the United States. Canada. Mexico.
Last week, softball put another stamp on his passport: England.
Flores is an assistant coach with the Oklahoma City Spark, working with his daughter, Amber, the former OU softball standout who is now the head coach of the Women’s Professional Fastpitch team. The Spark went to London for a historic two-game exhibition series against Great Britain’s national team, sweeping both contests in dominating fashion.
It was the first time a pro softball team had played in England.
“To be able to go to London with this team, with my daughter, with my wife,” Flores said, “I would never, never thought that this would come to be.”
The kid who grew up a few blocks from the US-Mexico border has come a long way.
On a team with lots of interesting backstories, Flores is among the most unexpected. He isn’t young like the players on the Spark roster; he actually retired from high school coaching a few years ago. He isn’t female like much of the staff; of the 13 staffers listed on the team’s website, he is one of only four males.
But just like everyone else involved in the Spark, he is all in on softball.
“It’s just been such a beautiful ride,” he said of his time involved with the sport.
“I am a true believer in God. … I thank Him every day for this opportunity.”
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'It was a dream for me'
Alex Flores’ dad was born in Texas, his mom in Mexico, and there’s a lot of family lore about how the couple got together. Flores isn’t entirely sure what’s fact and what’s fiction, but near as he can tell, his mom crossed the border with some friends to go to a dance, where she met his dad.
She went back to Mexico afterwards, but he wanted her in the United States, so he went into Mexico to find her and bring her back.
“If you want to call it romantic or you want to call it kidnapping, I don’t know,” Alex Flores said, laughing. “It’s probably the same thing.”
They eventually married and raised a family in Calexico, California, which sits on the border about halfway between the Pacific Ocean and the Arizona state line.
It was there that Alex grew up and fell in love with baseball. All the boys in town played it. His dad and uncles loved it, too.
“But honestly, I never took the game seriously,” Flores said. “I never did until I was about 25.”
He was playing semi-pro baseball in San Diego when a friend encouraged him to try to play professionally for a team just across the border in Tijuana. It was associated with the pro leagues in Mexico, so Flores decided to give it a go.
He made the team.
“But … ” he said, pausing as he told the story. “There was a but.”
When the team asked for his identification, they realized he was 25.
“Oh,” he remembers being told, “we thought you were in your early 20s.”
“No, sorry,” Flores said.
“We think you’re too old.”
Flores chuckled.
“That was the extent of my professional career,” he said.
He returned to Calexico and soon received a call from Elmer Belcher, a longtime and revered baseball coach at Calexico High School, Flores’ alma mater. Together, they started a Babe Ruth League.
Then in the winter of 1987, Belcher called with another opportunity.
“Hey, A,” Flores remembers him saying, “I need an assistant coach for one year.”
Belcher was getting ready to retire, but Flores was honored to get this chance, first to coach baseball, second to do so at his alma mater and third to coach with Belcher, even if for a limited time.
“It was a dream for me,” Flores said.
But when Belcher’s replacement took over, he needed an assistant and asked Flores to stay. He would be an assistant for 15 years before taking over as head coach.
It was during his time at Calexico that daughter, Amber, started coming to practices.
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A baseball family turns to softball
Amber Flores fell in love with baseball just like her dad had as a kid.
“She never wanted to play softball,” Alex Flores said.
Her dream was to play second base in high school, then eventually at higher levels.
It didn’t seem farfetched to those who saw her play. When she was 12, she only recorded 19 at-bats in a season because most opponents wouldn’t pitch to her. They intentionally walked her. They worked around her.
She still managed to hit eight home runs that season.
But around that time, Flores had a heart-to-heart with his daughter. The boys she was playing against were hitting their growth spurts — Amber would only grow to be 5-foot-3 — and her dad worried about her safety.
If a bigger boy decided he didn’t like a girl playing in the league, he could slide into second and really hurt her.
She decided to keep playing, but when a friend invited her to play softball in a nearby league, Amber did that, too. She got good quickly and soon was playing for five teams. Baseball. Softball. Rec leagues. Travel teams.
Her parents eventually told her she had to narrow it down to two.
That’s when she gave up baseball and focused on softball, which would lead her to play at OU and coach at Seminole State.
Her dad eventually gave up baseball, too. After coaching baseball at Calexico for 17 years, he moved to a nearby high school and coached it there for another six. But when he decided to retire from coaching baseball in 2010, he got a call from Calexico High.
Would he be interested in coming back and coaching softball?
Flores led the Calexico softball team to its first-ever league title in 2013, then to the state title in 2016.
He retired from coaching after that season.
But he wasn’t done with softball.
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'A prime, prime situation'
Alex Flores started teaching private lessons and working with travel teams in Calexico. He loved still being involved with softball and the players. Loved, too, that he got to work when he wanted and on his schedule.
So when Amber called last summer about her dad helping her coach the Spark, he wasn’t sure.
“Dad, I’ll take the job,” he remembers her saying, “but I won’t take it unless you agree to be my assistant.”
Father and daughter had worked that way before, during the 2019 season at Seminole State.
“And it was amazing,” Alex said. “We had so much fun.”
He agreed to be an assistant with the Spark.
“Anytime that I can spend time with Amber, I need to take it,” he said. “There are times when we don’t see her for six months, so it was a prime, prime situation for me.”
This summer, after 35 years in coaching, Alex Flores is doing something new. Coaching professional softball. Helping launch a new team. Working with some of the best players in the world. And of course, going to London.
“I am glad I made the decision,” he said.
He was talking about deciding to be an assistant with the Spark, but he could’ve just as easily been talking about getting involved with softball.
The sport, after all, is still taking Flores to places he’d never thought he’d go.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok or on Threads at jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Spark: Softball journey takes assistant coach far from border town
