Tairia Mims Flowers (born January 9, 1981) is an African-American former collegiate All-American, medal-winning Olympian,

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

player and current

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

at Loyola Marymount. She played college softball as a

third basemen A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...

for the

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) ...

from 2000 to 2003, winning a national championship in 2003 and ranking top-five in school career

RBIs A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the bat ...

and

home runs In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

. Flowers also helped them to two runner-up finishes and was named a three-time All-Tournament honoree. Flowers won a gold and silver medal as part of

Team USA The United States national team or Team USA may refer to any of a number of sports team representing the United States in international competitions. Olympic teams Additionally, these teams may compete in other international competitions such as ...

at the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

and

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Na ...

Early life and college career

Born Tairia Mims in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

, Flowers graduated from

Salpointe Catholic High School Salpointe Catholic High School is a co-ed Catholic high school in Tucson, Arizona run by the Carmelite Order. It is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson. History Salpointe Catholic High School is named for Arizona's first Bishop, Jean ...

in 1999 and played on the

UCLA Bruins softball The UCLA Bruins softball team represents the University of California, Los Angeles in NCAA Division I softball. The Bruins are among the most decorated programs in NCAA softball, leading all schools in NCAA championships with 12, 13 overall Women' ...

team from 2000 to 2003 at first base and catcher. Helping UCLA make the championship game of the

2000 Women's College World Series The 2000 NCAA Division I softball tournament was held 18 through May 29, 2000, as the final part of the 2000 NCAA Division I softball season. The tournament culminated with the 2000 Women's College World Series at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadiu ...

, Mims hit .600 for the series and made the All-Tournament team. UCLA also were runners-up in the

2001 Women's College World Series The 2001 NCAA Division I softball tournament was the twentieth annual tournament to determine the national champion of NCAA women's collegiate softball. Held during May 2001, forty-eight Division I college softball teams contested the championsh ...

and won the

2003 Women's College World Series The 2003 NCAA Division I softball tournament was the twenty-second annual tournament to determine the national champion of NCAA women's college softball, collegiate softball. Held during May 2003, sixty-four Division I (NCAA), Division I college s ...

. Flowers was a first-team NFCA All-American and first-team All-Pac-10 honoree in 2003.

College Statistics

Sources:

International career

As a member of the

United States women's national softball team The United States women's national softball team is the national softball team of the United States. It is governed by USA Softball (formerly known as the Amateur So ...

beginning in 2001, Flowers won gold at the 2002 Women's Softball World Championship,

2003 Pan American Games The 2003 Pan American Games were held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, from August 1 to 17, 2003. The successful bid for the games was made in the mid-1990s, when Dominican Republic had one of the highest growth rates in Latin America. Al ...

2006 World Cup of Softball The second World Cup of Softball was held in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklah ...

, and

2007 Pan American Games The 2007 Pan American Games, officially known as the XV Pan American Games, were a major continental multi-sport event that took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from July 13 to 29, 2007. A total of 5,633 athletes from 42 National Olympic Com ...

and silver at the

Professional playing career

In 2005, Flowers played for the

Arizona Heat The Arizona Heat was a women's softball team based in Tucson, Arizona. From the 2004 season, it played as a member of National Pro Fastpitch. The team's home games were played at historic Hi Corbett Field. Six of the players on the 2006 roster p ...

National Pro Fastpitch National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), formerly the Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL), was a professional women's softball league in the United States. The teams battled for the Cowles Cup. The WPSL was founded in 1997 and folded in 2001; the NPF revive ...

Coaching career

In 2006, Flowers was an assistant coach at

UC Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. Th ...

. From 2007 to 2010, Flowers was an assistant coach at Long Beach State, during which Long Beach State made the NCAA Tournament in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. Beginning in 2011, Flowers became head coach at

Cal State Northridge California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest u ...

. Upon the conclusion of the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season, Flowers had an overall 259-263 record, with her first winning season in 2014 with a 31–26. She is the second-winningest coach in CSUN history. In 2015, Flowers led Cal State Northridge to a 41–17 record (16–5 in the

Big West Conference The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The conference was originally formed on July 1, 1969, as the Pacific ...

) with an NCAA Tournament appearance and the program's first sole Big West title. In fall 2020 Flowers was named as the head coach at

Loyola Marymount University Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private Jesuit and Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. It is located on the west side of the city near Playa Vista. LMU is the parent school to Loyola Law School, which is located ...

Head coaching record

Sources:CSUN record book, p. 3
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References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Flowers, Tairia 1981 births Living people Softball coaches from Arizona UCLA Bruins softball players UC Riverside Highlanders softball coaches Olympic softball players of the United States Olympic gold medalists for the United States in softball Olympic silver medalists for the United States in softball Softball players at the 2004 Summer Olympics Softball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics Softball players at the 2007 Pan American Games Sportspeople from Tucson, Arizona Softball players from Arizona Latter Day Saints from Arizona Cal State Northridge Matadors softball coaches United States women's national softball team coaches Pan American Games competitors for the United States