Tairia Flowers

Tairia Mims Flowers (born January 9, 1981) is an African-American former collegiate All-American, medal-winning Olympian, softball player and current head coach at Loyola Marymount.[1][2][3] She played college softball as a third basemen for the UCLA Bruins from 2000 to 2003, winning a national championship in 2003 and ranking top-five in school career RBIs and home runs.[4] Flowers also helped them to two runner-up finishes and was named a three-time All-Tournament honoree.[5][6] Flowers won a gold and silver medal as part of Team USA at the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics.[7][8]

Tairia Flowers
Flowers in 2008
Current position
TitleHead coach
TeamLoyola Marymount
ConferenceWCC
Biographical details
Born (1981-01-09) January 9, 1981
Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
Playing career
2000–2003UCLA
2005Arizona Heat
Position(s)First base, catcher
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
Softball
2006UC Riverside (asst.)
2007–2010Long Beach State (asst.)
2011–2020Cal State Northridge
2021–presentLoyola Marymount
National team
2019USA Women's Softball (asst.)
Head coaching record
Overall259–263 (.496)
TournamentsNCAA Division I: 0–2
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
As player:

As head coach:

Awards
  • First-team NFCA All-American (2003)
  • Second-team NFCA All-American (2001)
  • 2× first-team All-Pac-10 (2001, 2003)
  • Second-team All-Pac-10 (2002)
  • 3× WCWS All-Tournament (2000, 2001, 2003)
Medal record
Women's softball
Representing the  United States
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 2004 AthensTeam competition
Silver medal – second place 2008 BeijingTeam competition

Early life and college career

Born Tairia Mims in Tucson, Arizona, Flowers graduated from Salpointe Catholic High School in 1999 and played on the UCLA Bruins softball team from 2000 to 2003 at first base and catcher.[9] Helping UCLA make the championship game of the 2000 Women's College World Series, Mims hit .600 for the series and made the All-Tournament team.[9] UCLA also were runners-up in the 2001 Women's College World Series and won the 2003 Women's College World Series. Flowers was a first-team NFCA All-American and first-team All-Pac-10 honoree in 2003.[10]

College Statistics

Sources:[11][12][13]

YEAR G AB R H BA RBI HR 3B 2B TB SLG BB SO SB SBA
2000 59 160 23 48 .300 32 9 0 8 83 .518% 12 17 1 1
2001 68 213 54 80 .375 71 17 2 18 153 .718% 17 25 3 3
2002 64 189 34 68 .360 55 13 4 16 131 .693% 26 10 1 1
2003 61 178 49 80 .449 70 22 1 17 165 .927% 26 28 7 7
TOTALS 252 740 160 276 .373 228 61 7 59 532 .719% 81 80 12 12

International career

As a member of the United States women's national softball team beginning in 2001, Flowers won gold at the 2002 Women's Softball World Championship, 2003 Pan American Games, 2004 Summer Olympics, 2006 World Cup of Softball, and 2007 Pan American Games and silver at the 2008 Summer Olympics.[14]

Professional playing career

In 2005, Flowers played for the Arizona Heat of National Pro Fastpitch.[14]

Coaching career

In 2006, Flowers was an assistant coach at UC Riverside. From 2007 to 2010, Flowers was an assistant coach at Long Beach State, during which Long Beach State made the NCAA Tournament in 2008 and 2009.[14][15]

Beginning in 2011, Flowers became head coach at Cal State Northridge. 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.[16] In 2015, Flowers led Cal State Northridge to a 41–17 record (16–5 in the Big West Conference) with an NCAA Tournament appearance and the program's first sole Big West title.[15][17] In fall 2020 Flowers was named as the head coach at Loyola Marymount University.[18]

Personal life

She is married to Jason Flowers.

Head coaching record

Sources:[16][19]

Statistics overview
Season Team Overall Conference Standing Postseason
Cal State Northridge Matadors (Big West Conference) (2011–present)
2011 Cal State Northridge 22–3110–115th
2012 Cal State Northridge 10–425–16T–8th
2013 Cal State Northridge 25–3111–13T–6th
2014 Cal State Northridge 31–268–136th
2015 Cal State Northridge 41–1716–51stNCAA Regional
2016 Cal State Northridge 34–2214–72nd
2017 Cal State Northridge 31–2211–10T–2nd
2018 Cal State Northridge 23–368–136th
2019 Cal State Northridge 26–2810–115th
2020 Cal State Northridge 16–80-0-----
Cal State Northridge: 259–263 (.496)93–99 (.484)
Total:259–263 (.496)

      National champion         Postseason invitational champion  
      Conference regular season champion         Conference regular season and conference tournament champion
      Division regular season champion       Division regular season and conference tournament champion
      Conference tournament champion

References
  1. "Tairia Flowers". Lmulions.com. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  2. "2001 NSCA Division I All-America Teams". NFCA.org. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  3. "2003 NSCA Division I All-America Teams". NFCA.org. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  4. "Career Season Records" (PDF). Uclabruins.com. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  5. "UCLA WCWS Stats 2003". NCAA.org. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  6. "Division I Championships" (PDF). NCAA.org. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  7. "Tairia Flowers". teamusa.org. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  8. Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Tairia Flowers". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020.
  9. "Tairia Mims". UCLA. Archived from the original on April 6, 2004. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  10. "2002-03 Softball Year in Review". Pacific-10 Conference. July 14, 2003. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  11. "Final 2000 Softball Statistics Report" (PDF). Ncaa.org. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  12. "Final 2001 Softball Statistics Report" (PDF). Ncaa.org. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  13. "Archived Team-By-Team Final Statistics". Ncaa.org. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  14. "Tairia Flowers". Long Beach State. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  15. "Tairia Flowers - 2018 Softball Coaching Staff - CSUN". Cal State Northridge. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  16. "NCAA Statistics".
  17. "2015 Softball Schedule".
  18. Kinney, Ellie (October 27, 2020). "Meet Tairia Flowers, the accomplished new coach of LMU softball". The Los Angeles Loyolan. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  19. CSUN record book, p. 3
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