After Bum Phillips resigned as Saints head coach near the end of the 1985 season, owner Tom Benson hired Jim Finks as General Manager and gave him the task of hiring the next head coach. Benson wanted a GM/coach duo who would end the Saints' 20-year playoff drought since entering the NFL in 1967 and provide the long-suffering fans with a winning season—something that hadn't happened although there were two .500 (break-even) seasons.

A California native, Mora played tight end at Occidental College. Upon graduation, Jim became an assistant coach at his alma mater. After four years, he moved up to head coach, compiling a three-season record of 18-9.

He left Occidental to become an assistant coach at Stanford under John Ralston for the 1967 season. Then he spent five seasons at Colorado under Eddie Crowder coaching defen­sive ends, outside linebackers, and defensive backs. He spent the next four years on the staffs of two future Hall of Fame coaches—Dick Vermeil at UCLA (one year) and Don James at Washington.

Mora moved to the NFL in 1978 as defensive line coach for the Seattle Seahawks. After four seasons, he joined the staff of Ron Meyer with the New England Patriots.

When the United States Football League (USFL) was formed in 1983 to provide pro football in the spring and summer, Mora became head coach of the Philadelphia Stars. After Mora was voted Coach of the Year in 1984, he moved with the club to Baltimore in 1985. The Stars compiled a 48-13-1 (.782) record and played in all three USFL championship games, winning two of them. He clearly was the best coach in the league.

Six months after the Stars won the 1985 USFL title, the league folded when the owners' antitrust suit against the NFL gained them only a token award of $3 in damages.

Mora spent the first six months of 1986 remaking the Saints' roster. He convinced some of the best players in the USFL, including some from his Stars, to come to New Orleans. The new faces included linebackers Sam Mills and Vaughan Johnson, who would join with veteran Rickey Jackson and new draftee Pat Swilling to form the legendary "Dome Patrol" that would be heart and soul of new defensive coordinator Steve Sidwell's 3-4 defense.

On the offensive side, Mora inherited QB Bobby Hebert and WR Eric Martin from Phillips and drafted RB Reuben Mayes and T Jim Dombrowski.

The result was a two-game improvement in Mora's first year as coach, from 5-11 in 1985 under Phillips to 7-9 in '86. The breakthrough came in 1987 when the Saints finished 12-3, including a nine-game winning streak to end the regular season with the second-best record in the league. Unfortunately, the team with the best record was the San Francisco 49ers who nosed out the Saints for first place in the NFC West. But the Saints still made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. As a wild card team, they hosted the Minnesota Vikings in the first round. Before a raucous crowd ready to raise the roof of the Superdome, the Saints proved they still had a ways to go to play with the big boys as the Vikings clobbered them 44-10.

Mora coached the Saints for 11 seasons with winning or .500 records in seven straight years (1987-93). After three straight losing campaigns, Mora resigned after the 1996 season. Two years later, he became head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, turning them around from a 3-13 mark in his first year at the helm to 13-3 in '99, good enough for first place in the AFC East.