100 Things Raiders Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die

by Paul Gutierrez, Jim Plunkett (Foreword by)

Overview

Professional sports has never seen another franchise quite like the Oakland Raiders, a one-a-kind creation of its late famous and infamous coach, general manager, owner, and football’s original rebel Al Davis. Never content to follow the pack, Davis put together teams steeped in bad attitude and good talent, squads equally adept at misbehaving, delivering punishment, and winning games. This all-new book explores what every true fan should know about the Raiders and what they should do to celebrate their favorite team. The listings are ranked in importance from one to 100 and include everything from the story of Jim “Lazarus” Plunkett and the infamous “Tuck Rule” game to a profile of Ricky’s Sport Theater & Grill, what just may be the best bar in the world to watch a Raiders game. Packed with personalities, places, events, and facts, 100 Things Raiders Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the perfect tool for any fan to take their love for the Silver and Black to a whole new level.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623689766
Publisher:	Triumph Books
Publication date:	09/01/2014
Series:	100 Things...Fans Should Know Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Paul Gutierrez covers the Oakland Raiders for ESPN and has worked as a beat writer and columnist for the Sacramento Bee and CSNBayArea.com. He has also worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and Sports Illustrated. He lives in Petaluma, California.

Read an Excerpt

100 Things Raiders Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die

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By Paul Gutierrez

Triumph Books

Copyright © 2014 Paul Gutierrez
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62368-976-6

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CHAPTER 1

Al Davis

No other owner in professional sports history personified his team like Al Davis did with the Raiders. And no one in the history of the NFL stirred so many emotions. Because as reviled as he was in some circles, he was just as revered in others.

"Nobody was a more polarizing figure than my dad," Mark Davis told me. "People would be knocking ... him yet, they didn't know that at that same time, he was at a hospital, taking care of people, and doing charitable things for people."

"Al Davis is totally different from the perception," John Madden told ESPN. "The picture you have of Al Davis — and he doesn't try to stop this, either — the picture you have of Al Davis is over here. And the real Al Davis is the complete opposite, over here."

"He was an extraordinary human being, an extraordinarily complex human being," Amy Trask, the team's former CEO, told me. "I cherished my relationship with him while he was alive and I will cherish it the rest of my life."

The image Davis, who was an assistant coach, head coach, general manager, commissioner, and an owner, portrayed was that of a ruthless, cunning, devious maverick consumed with winning and paranoia, while instilling fear in opponents. It worked over the years, such as the time San Diego Chargers coach Harland Svare was convinced the visitors' locker room at the Oakland Coliseum was bugged so he yelled at a light fixture while shaking his fist, "Damn you, Al Davis, damn you. I know you're up there." And in 1983, when a fan called the New York Jets' locker room at halftime of a playoff game in Los Angeles and got coach Walt Michaels to come to the phone. "There's an S.O.B. who tried to disrupt our team at halftime and his name is Al Davis," Michaels said after the game.

Even the way Davis, who was hired to be the Raiders general manager and coach at the age of 33 in 1963, came to power as the team's owner is shrouded in mystery. Because after serving as the AFL's commissioner in 1966, he returned to Oakland as one of three managing general partners with Wayne Valley and Ed McGah after the merger with the NFL was agreed upon. But in 1972, with Valley attending the Munich Olympics, the shrewd Davis drew up a new agreement that made him the sole managing partner. He then got Valley to sign off on the deal, which only took two of the three partners to sign to make it binding.

Football-wise, the Raiders excelled playing with his philosophy, which was reared growing up in Brooklyn and inspired by two baseball teams. "The Yankees, to me, personified the size of the players, power, the home run and intimidation and fear," Davis told NFL Films. "They were very important characteristics to me of what I thought a great organization and a great team should have. The Dodgers, were totally different, in my mind. They represented speed and the ability to take chances and pioneer in professional sports. And I always thought that someone intelligent could take all the qualities, the great qualities of both, and put them together and use them."

Davis, who was Jewish, caused a stir when he told Inside Sports in 1981 that he admired the leader of the Third Reich. "I didn't hate Hitler," he said. "He captivated me." Davis was fascinated by the Blitzkrieg and, in a way, modeled his offense after the quick-strike mantra, with a dash of Sid Gillman's passing game.

"When we came out of the huddle, we weren't looking for first downs," Davis said. "We didn't want to move the chains. We wanted touchdowns. We wanted the big play, the quick strike. They tell quarterbacks, Take what they give you. That all sounds good to everybody but I always went the other way: We're going to take what we want."

Including on defense. "Somewhere within the first five to 10 plays of a game, the other team's quarterback must go down. And he must go down hard. That alone sets a tempo for a game." And he said he garnered the idea for the bump-and-run from the basketball zone press of UCLA's John Wooden.

It was the iconoclastic Davis who immediately changed the uniform colors from black and gold to silver and black, to better match the Army's Black Knights of the Hudson. He was, no doubt, a paradoxical figure, one who valued loyalty and repaid it in spades, unless he viewed you as being, well, disloyal. Then you were done, you were, in his words, one of them. In 1979, with wife Carol in a coma after a heart attack, he moved into the hospital with her and stayed there for 17 days before she woke up. It was the first time, and one of only three that anyone could remember, that Davis missed a Raiders game since 1963.

A myriad of court cases and the 1982 move to Los Angeles and 1995 return to Oakland seemed to distract him and the Raiders suffered as a result. Since returning to Northern California, they have appeared in the playoffs just three times and endured losing at a record rate. "He was always the boss," Tom Flores told me. "What was missing in the later years was having someone else there to bounce things off of, people like John Madden, myself, Ron Wolf, Ken Herock, Bruce Allen."

Born on the 4th of July in 1929, Davis obsessed late in life over death. "Disease is the one thing, boy, I tell you, it's tough to lick," he said in 2008. "It's tough to lick those goddamn diseases. I don't know why they can't. Not [talking] politically, but I follow it very closely, it bothers me they won't let us use, and it doesn't mean that I'm Republican or Democrat, the stem cell. I think it could help."

Davis, in failing health for many years, died of congestive heart failure, on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, on October 8, 2011.

CHAPTER 2

No Longer Bridesmaids

This was certainly new territory to the Raiders. Sure, they had played in Super Bowl II, though the second AFL-NFL Championship Game had a different handle at the time. This was different, though, in that the Raiders were favorites over the Minnesota Vikings after breaking through following four straight AFC title game defeats.

So confident was coach John Madden that the night before the game, sitting in his hotel room, he went out of character and uttered to Al Davis, "We're ready. We're going to kill these guys." An ashen-faced and superstitious Davis replied, "Oh no, don't say that."

Indeed, the Raiders did appear a bit tight early on as placekicker Errol Mann hit the left goal post on a 29-yard field-goal attempt and then Ray Guy, who hadn't yet had a punt blocked in his career and had a 66-yarder in 1976, experienced just that on the game's biggest stage. Mark van Eeghen whiffed on his block of Fred McNeill and the blocked punt set the Vikings up at the Raiders' 3-yard line in the first quarter.

Were the Raiders, who just survived a divisional round playoff game against the New England Patriots on a tough roughing the passer penalty on Ray "Sugar Bear" Hamilton, not up to the task? Were the Vikings, playing in their record fourth Super Bowl, finally going to get one?

"I don't think we were snakebit," linebacker Phil Villapiano told me. "Every time we lost there was a reason for it. It was kind of like playing golf and missing a putt. But we were good, and we knew we were getting better."

On second-and-goal from the 2-yard line, Villapiano, who was lined up over tackle Ron Yary, met fullback Brent McClanahan at the line of scrimmage with a big hit, forcing a fumble that was recovered by Willie Hall. The Raiders woke up and never looked back, even if Mann missed two extra points later on.

"I did worry about the offense in those big games," Villapiano said. "So when I made that play and the ball popped out, I thought they'd gain a few yards and punt it and make it fair again. I was just hoping our offense would finally play like a Super Bowl offense in that game. They did. I didn't think they'd go on a drive like they did. Forcing that fumble turned out to be a wonderful thing."

So dominant were the Raiders that they outgained the Vikings 102–4 in total yards in the first quarter. By the end of the day, the Raiders had a Super Bowl–record 429 yards of total offense, with running back Clarence Davis rumbling for 137 yards on 16 carries (105 yards coming on runs between left tackle Art Shell and left guard Gene Upshaw), Shell shutting out Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall, Ken Stabler throwing for 180 yards on 12-of-19 passing, and Fred Biletnikoff garnering game MVP honors with four catches for 79 yards.

At one point during the NBC broadcast, Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton was announced as being a future host of Saturday Night Live. But there was nothing funny about what was happening to Minnesota. Relief was settling into Oakland.

"We gelled with the players that we had," Biletnikoff told me. "It was a special time to play football and play successful football in the biggest games."

It was not truly clinched, though, until 36-year-old Willie Brown picked off 36-year-old Tarkenton and outraced him 75 yards for a touchdown to give the Raiders a 32–7 lead with less than six minutes to play. "Old Man Willie," bellowed Raiders radio man Bill King, "he's going all the way. John Madden's grin is from ear to ear. He looks like a slick watermelon." And as Brown crossed the goal line, NBC analyst "Dandy" Don Meredith belted out, "Turn out the lights, the party's over."

It was just getting started on the Raiders sidelines, though, and would spill into the Raiders locker room, where Stabler was approached by the team owner. No doubt Davis was thrilled that Madden had not jinxed things with his proclamation the night before, even as Madden was dropped by Ted Hendricks and John Matuszak as they attempted to carry him off the field following the 32–14 victory that should have been closer to 40–7. Maybe that was karma. "I always felt we were going to win but I never said it," Madden said. "I said it. So it was just a confidence that we had waited so doggone long to get there that I just felt, this is it. There's no way we're going to be denied."

And that Stabler-Davis conversation? "Al and I hugged in the locker room five minutes after the game and I said, 'We finally did it,'" Stabler told HBO Sports. "And his reply was, 'Can you do it again?'"

Apollo Creed was a Raider

It's true. Before he played the Master of Disaster, the King of Sting, the Count of Monte Fisto, yes, one of the most iconic boxing characters in cinema history courtesy of the Rocky series, Carl Weathers played football for the Oakland Raiders.

Weathers was a linebacker and special teams ace in 1970 and 1971, playing in a total of eight games for Oakland over those two years before an ankle injury hastened his decision to become an actor full time and not look back.

"As with anything that happens in your formative years, it has an impact on you," Weathers told me of his time with the Raiders. "I mean, you're talking about a legendary team with legendary players. How does that not impact you? Now, there's so much crossover between professional sports and the entertainment world. What amazed me was how far ahead of the curve the Raiders were to not only football but the entertainment industry. I was always in awe of the Raiders, the legend of the Raiders."

And why not? An undrafted rookie out of San Diego State, where he majored in theater, Weathers was trying to make a name for himself on special teams. In an exhibition game on August 30, 1970, against Green Bay, Weathers knocked out the Packers kicker on a Raiders return. "The game was stopped for what seemed an eternity, until he gained consciousness," Weathers said. "That one play helped me make the team." Another confidence builder, he said, was when he knocked a player off his feet three times ... on the same punt return.

Around that time, a check — above and beyond what his contract called for — arrived in his mailbox. Weathers approached Al Davis in the cafeteria at training camp in Santa Rosa to thank him.

"For what?" Davis sneered back at the rookie.

"The check," Weathers responded, recalling how "gruff" Davis could be to the uninitiated.

"Don't thank me," Davis replied. "You earned it."

Almost 44 years later, Weathers laughs as he tells the story. "That action said more to me than you could imagine," he said. "I can roll with that. Shit, he was a groundbreaking man, with Latino coaches, black coaches. You got the job done, he treated you well."

Two exhibition games into his second season, Weathers, whose roommate was Gerald Irons, was starting after an injury to Duane Benson. A certain second-round draft pick backed up Weathers and was overwhelmed ... at first. "Carl was making all these calls on defense, and I was totally confused," Phil Villapiano howls at the memory. "I thought, there's no way I can play this game. So when Carl hurts himself, I become the starter and I'm trying to be like Carl Weathers, trying to all the calls. But it was a fake. Carl was acting like a linebacker. He wanted to pretend he could make a tackle. He was on stage, but he couldn't make a tackle. He had me so confused."

Villapiano can barely speak now, he's laughing so hard. A few years later, as Villapiano was en route to try out for an Old Spice commercial, he coincidentally shared a flight with Weathers, who tried to coach him up for the audition. "He did it to me again," Villapiano laughed. "He had me upside down and inside out. I was just this skinny Italian kid from Bowling Green and Carl was Apollo Creed, just built like a monster."

After Weathers' star turn as the Italian Stallion's adversary and then ally in four blockbusters — the original Rocky won the Oscar for best movie of 1976 — his former Raiders' teammates were proud believers. Especially when Weathers used his athletic discipline to help create other iconic celluloid characters such as Dillon in Predator, Action Jackson himself, and Chubbs in Happy Gilmore.

"Carl Weathers is probably my favorite actor," Villapiano said. "We had no clue how big Apollo Creed was going to be. He should have been in North Dallas Forty with John Matuszak; forget Nick Nolte. Carl's a good guy. He's a loyal Oakland Raider."

And whenever Weathers would return to visit the Raiders, Davis would call him "champ," as in Creed, the silver screen's one-time heavyweight title holder. But Davis would also size him up, "What the fuck you know about boxing?" Weathers, with a chuckle, remembered Davis asking him.

"Playing with the Raiders, you learned to walk with a certain kind of swagger," Weathers said. "There's no place in the world that doesn't know the Oakland Raiders, whether you're in the U.K., China, Australia, Europe, it's a serious brand."

Perhaps even as renowned as Apollo Creed.

CHAPTER 3

John Madden

You could say John Madden ran a loose ship. You could say the inmates ran the asylum. But that would be too simplistic, too one dimensional, too, well, naïve.

"He was a large personality," Cliff Branch told me. "He was a player's coach with an open mind. He used to tell us in training camp, 'If curfew is at 11:00, don't leave at 11:15, give it at least an hour before leaving.' He understood."

"John Madden was the greatest," Phil Villapiano added. "There weren't many rules; there weren't any rules — just be on time and play hard and win. One time I overdid it on Saturday night and the next day against the Patriots, I laid an egg. I played like shit. I was too aggressive and missing tackles. John called me on it. When you suck, you've got to answer to John, and that's not easy. He was absolutely perfect for my mentality."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from 100 Things Raiders Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Paul Gutierrez. Copyright © 2014 Paul Gutierrez. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by Jim Plunkett,
Introduction,
1. Al Davis,
2. No Longer Bridesmaids,
3. John Madden,
4. Black Sunday,
5. The Iceman,
6. Jim Plunkett,
7. The Immaculate Reception,
8. Super Bowl XV,
9. 17 Bob Trey O,
10. Recite the Lines to "The Autumn Wind",
11. "Pops" Jim Otto,
12. Raiders Hall of Famers,
13. The Tuck Rule Game,
14. A Silver and Black Mount Rushmore?,
15. Freddie B's Wild Ride,
16. Howie Long,
17. The Rob Lytle Fumble,
18. Blanda's Epic 1970 Season,
19. Marcus Allen,
20. Sit in the Black Hole,
21. "Old Man" Willie Brown,
22. Kick 'em,
23. Red Right 88,
24. Raiders All-Time NFL MVPs,
25. The Snake,
26. Art Shell,
27. The Marcus vs. Al Feud,
28. Oaktown–Steel City Rivalry,
29. Ghost to the Post,
30. Watch Ice Cube's "Straight Outta L.A." Documentary,
31. Gene Upshaw,
32. Mark Davis,
33. Reggie McKenzie,
34. Punting His Way to Canton,
35. Jack Squirek's Pick-Six,
36. Raiders All-Time Coaches,
37. The Sea of Hands,
38. The Judge,
39. Mike Haynes,
40. Hit Up Ricky's Sports Bar,
41. Raiders All-Time Coaches of the Year,
42. Snubbed Hall of Famers,
43. The Holy Roller,
44. Bo Knows the Silver and Black,
45. The Overhead Projector,
46. Cliff Branch,
47. Rod Martin,
48. Starting QBs Since Gannon,
49. Super Bowl II,
50. Play in Biletnikoff's Golf Classic,
51. Rich Gannon,
52. Touchdown Timmy,
53. Jon Gruden,
54. Al Saunders' Playground,
55. The Heidi Bowl,
56. Bust a Move,
57. The Criminal Element,
58. The Princess of Darkness,
59. SeaBass,
60. Attend the CTE Award Dinner,
61. JFK in Raider Nation?,
62. The Curse of Chucky,
63. Sabotage?,
64. Matt Millen,
65. The Assassin,
66. The Tooz,
67. Lyle Alzado,
68. Otis Taylor Gets One Foot Inbounds,
69. Decade of Dismay,
70. Follow Raiders on Twitter,
71. C-Wood Returns,
72. Raiders Regular Season Records vs. the NFL Through 2013,
73. Elway Almost a Raider?,
74. Dan Marino Should Have Been a Raider?,
75. The Divine Interception,
76. Phil Villapiano's Trade,
77. The Renaissance Man,
78. Ben Davidson,
79. Jerry Rice,
80. Drink Charles Woodson's Wine,
81. "A Good Hit",
82. A Brutal Game,
83. Divisional Love,
84. The Heisman Race,
85. From DC55 to TP2,
86. Nnamdi Asomugha,
87. Cable, "Bumaye",
88. Hue Jack City,
89. The Dumbest Team in America,
90. Try Out For the Raiderettes,
91. Dennis Allen,
92. The Mystery Sixth Raider,
93. Todd Marinovich,
94. The Most Blessed Guy,
95. Voices of the Raiders,
96. Al Davis Torch Lighters,
97. The "Silver and Black Attack",
98. East Coast Biased?,
99. "Greatest Trade Ever",
100. Pay Final Respects to Al Davis,
Bibliography,