Fresno City College has a long storied history in their athletic department history, winning over 56 state championships and producing professional athletes and hall of fame players in the department’s history.
Many different FCC athletics had periods of dominance such as baseball during the early 60s and football during the late 60s early 70s and wrestling during the 90s and 2010s. Those eras of dominance brought many championships to FCC and provided statewide and even national recognition for FCC athletics.
In football FCC has won multiple state championships in the late 60s to early 70s but hasn’t won a championship since the 1973 season. Although they have won many conference championships with a total of 25 conference championships.
Tom Flores is a notable FCC alumni, playing football as a quarterback there for two seasons beginning in 1955. He transferred to University of the Pacific and graduated in 1958. Flores then tried to find a job in professional football but was unsuccessful and went to play semi-pro in Bakersfield and the Canadian Football League (CFL).
Flores finally found success playing professional football when he joined the Oakland Raiders in 1960 when they were first founded. He played for the Raiders until he was traded in 1967 to the Buffalo Bills, and ended his playing career as a third string quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs in 1970.
Flores’ playing career wasn’t spectacular but after he retired from football, Flores switched to coaching and was an assistant coach for the Bills and Raiders. He won a Super Bowl ring as an assistant coach under John Madden in 1977.
Flores finally became a head coach replacing Madden in 1979 and winning a Super Bowl a year later against the Philadelphia Eagles. Flores would go on to win two more Super Bowls with the Raiders and win the Coach of the Year award in 1982 before retiring in 1994.
In 1988 Flores was elected into the Fresno County Athletic Hall of Fame and would eventually be elected into the Pro-Football Hall of Fame in 2021. Flores graduated from Sanger High School and its current stadium, “Tom Flores Stadium” is named in his honor.
FCC baseball during the early 60s was successful, winning three state championships from 1961 to 1963 and winning state championships in 1972 and 1992. FCC Baseball also won over 35 conference championships in their overall history. Today FCC baseball has over 18 alumni players that have made it to MLB.
A notable FCC baseball alumni is MLB Hall of Famer Tom Seaver who made his MLB debut in 1967 with the Mets before retiring in 1986 with the Boston Red Sox. Seaver was a pitcher during his 20 year major league career.
Seaver pitched at FCC for only one semester in 1964 but quickly impressed people with his ability to control while on the mound. In his lone semester at FCC Seaver won 11 games in a row while impressing college scouts, which led to a scholarship from the University of Southern California.
Seaver continued to impress during his time at USC and would get drafted by the Braves in 1966 but after legal issues that were resolved about his eligibility Seaver eventually went to the Mets and made his debut on April 13, 1967.
Seaver would go on to have a stellar major league career and be an accomplished pitcher. Seaver won the 1967 NL Rookie of the Year award and won three NL Cy Young Awards in 1969, 1973 and 1975. Seaver made 12 All Star Game appearances and won the World Series in 1969 with the New York Mets.
Seaver finished his career in 1986 and accumulated over 3,650 strikeouts which is ranked sixth all time in MLB history. Seaver eventually was elected into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1992 with 98.8% of votes which is the highest ever percentage of votes a player has received when being elected into the hall of fame.
FCC wrestling has a storied history and won 30 combined state championships and 41 conference championships. FCC wrestling during the 90s was a dynasty during the decade winning eight combined state championships during the 90s in both duals and team events.
In the 2010s, FCC wrestling won seven championships including four-consecutive championships from 2016 to 2019 being the only college to accomplish this feat.
FCC men’s basketball has championship winning pedigree, winning five state championships and 25 conference championships in its history and consistently making the state championship final four. During their inaugural 1955 season, the team went 28-2 and were led by MVP Odell Johnson. In the 2005 season the men’s basketball team went undefeated that season and finished with a perfect 34-0 record.