Muddy roads bench Super Bowl legend

SANGER, Calif. (KFSN) -- The muddy mess on Highway 58 kept a local legend from making it home on Friday. Tom Flores who won Super Bowls with the Raiders got stuck in traffic on the way to watch his old high school team play football in Sanger.

Bad weather in Sanger doesn't stop football. It doesn't slow anyone down on the field or in the stands but it did crush hope before the game even started. "A little disappointing but I knew, in his heart, he wanted to be here," said Daniel Chacon who is the Sanger High Principal. The man who wanted to be at the game is Tom Flores. He grew up in Sanger, he was an NFL quarterback, a coach with the Raiders and his name is on the scoreboard. Mike Hannigan said, "he's a great guy, he hasn't forgotten where he came from."

Flores comes home every year but this year he couldn't make it. Traffic between Sanger and where he lives is a mess. There's a graveyard of trucks and cars on Highway 58 so he might as well live a million miles away. "I called and said, 'I'm not going to be able to make it, I'd be stuck somewhere on the highway,'" Flores said on the phone.

It's not good news for the blood center either. The Raider Nation Blood Drive is this weekend. Flores would have been there to meet fans and get people to give. "Tom gets himself up here on his own every year," said Leslie Botos who is with the Central Valley Blood Center, "he gives not only to the blood center but to the community and he hates to miss it."

If Flores would have made it to the Sanger game, it would have been his first time on the field in four years.