Since Kathy Flores has been a coach for so long, winning regular national championships with the Berkeley All Blues, coaching the USA Women's National Team for ten years, and now coaching at Brown, it's easy to forget she was a player.

And she wasn't just any player. As the leading No. 8 of her time, she helped the Florida State University women's club team to a run of success that was only surpassed by the Berkeley teams Flores coached from 1998 through 2007.

A multi-sport athlete, Flores played eight times for the fledgling USA side. The Eagles lost only once with her on the field. She scored a try in the Eagle women's first international, a 22-3 defeat of Canada, and helped lead the Eagles to the 1991 Women's Rugby World Cup title.

Even if you separate her coaching achievements from her playing achievements, Flores was hugely influential in the women's game in the USA and around the world. She was supremely talented, and very smart, learning the finer points of the game and almost always coming out on top.

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