You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
That Al Davis dies the same week as Steve Jobs.
By most accounts, both men were considered visionary innovators.
Al Davis was known in later life as the old guy with the Mr. Burns skin ailment sitting in the wheel chair in the dark owner’s box.
He looked like a bag of flesh on borrowed time. He hid behind dark glasses and an omni-present sneer.
But looks are deceiving. When you open the encyclopedia of his life that you see he was much more than just a catchy slogan that covers his stadium.
“Just win baby!”
It’s so simple and sums up his demeanor.
Al Davis was a scout a coach and the AFL commissioner. Finally he was the owner of the Oakland Raiders.
I was ESPN this morning and were plenty of testimonials but none as poignant as Al Davis himself.
“I’d rather be feared than loved or respected,” Davis said in his unmistakable gravel voice.
Then he paused. “I meant as a team.”
Player after player came on to remember Al Davis and what it meant to be a Raider.
“We were the most feared team in the NFL,” one Defensive back said.
“Commitment to excellence. He lived by that,” another added.
Why do some consider him in the same breath as Steve Jobs. Well because of what the NFL has now become.
Apple is a multi billion dollar organization that touches billions of lives every week, every day. So is the NFL.
He was largely responsible for making that happen.
According to published reports; He took over as coach of the Raiders at the age of 33. The year before the team won one game. In his first year, 1963, he won 10 games.
Just Win Baby.
3 years later, as AFL commissioner, the league was faltering against the the NFL. The AFL was poised to fail. Al Davis would not let that happen. So he waged a battle against NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, buying all the high priced talent. The NFL caved and the two leagues merged.
We won the war, he said.
He was a maverick. As Frank Sinatra said; he did things his way.
In 1982 he moved the Raiders to L.A. without league approval. It was huge news. The NFL was pissed. Al Davis didn’t care. He was Al Davis.
He was Billy the Kidd in a gunfight with the sun to his back.
I remember the hellacious buzz as the Silver and Black filled the L.A. Coliseum Sunday after Sunday.
The crowds were insane. The Raider fan base was one part Crips, one part Blood, one part insanity.
I had never seen fights in a football stadium as I did when the Raiders came to the coliseum. It was as if the prisons were emptied and bussed to the coliseum. It was theater of the absurd and fan dedication of the most intense kind.
Al Davis never succeeded in L.A., but he was not afraid to buck the system. And through it all it was Raider football.
Silver and Black.
ESPN analyst Tom Jackson said; “his legacy was wrapped up in terms like pride and poise and commitment to excellence and just win baby”
Chris Carter said; “you can’t tell the history of the NFL without talking about Al Davis. 17 hall of famers or coaches played for him. He was a great evaluator of talent. “
Keyshawn Johnson said: “Al Davis hired the first African American coach, giving others a chance.”
Mike Ditka “His greatest legacy is the fact we have one pro football league. One league. One man.”
So in the span of a few days, the world has lost 2 men considered mavericks, considered innovators. Jobs was much too young. Davis was 82 and had lived a full life.
Life and Death.
Make the most with the time you have.
Crazy.