Cheating Is Encouraged

by Mike Siani

  “Elvis throws the ball as hard as he can at Davis’s head and at the last second he ducks out of the way and it almost hits him. He looks over at me and sees me waving at him and he flips me off. But after that I never saw Al again on that side of the fifty.”

  A classic Al Davis story has to do with Harland Svare, who was the coach of the San Diego Chargers. In the old days, one of the rumors you heard about Al was that he would bug the other team’s locker room when they came to the Oakland Coliseum. Svare was so spooked by this that he talked himself into believing it. Before a game in Oakland, as his players looked on in disbelief, Svare stared cursing out the light fixture.

  “Damn you, Al Davis.” Svare screamed at the fixture. “I know you’re up there. Damn you.”

  When the incident was related to Al, he wouldn’t even deny it.

  “I can tell you one thing.” Al said with a shrug. “The damn thing wasn’t in the fixture.”

  Another so-called rumor had to do with the air in the football. Sound familiar? No, it’s not “Deflate Gate,” but it’s similar.

  “As players, we used to hear all kinds of things about Al,” said Stabler. “Two that stand out the most were that Al used to pump the football up with added helium for our punter Ray Guy, and that he’d water our field extra heavily the night before games against high-powered offenses.”

  * * *

  Most players would know not to challenge Al Davis, but there was one player who thought he could get away with it. Matuszak described the unfortunate incident.

  “The only time I ever saw a player challenge Al was in 1980, the year we beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl. Late in the season one our starters on offense went down with an injury. When he was just about healed, he told Al he wanted to get back into the starting lineup. Al said no. We had been winning with the lineup we had, and Al had no desire to break up the combination.

  “A few days later, we were boarding a plane for a road game. The Raiders had a rule that you couldn’t drink on flights to games. This guy was in no mood for rules, not even one of Al’s. He had smuggled a bottle of tequila onto the plane and was knocking it off like it was tap water.

  “When the plane landed, he staggered up to Al and said something to the effect of ‘play me or trade me.’ When Al didn’t reply, the player started cursing him out—right in front of Mrs. Davis. Everyone was horrified. We’d never seen Al confronted that way. At first we tried dragging our teammate away, but once he started cursing, everyone just backed off. No one wanted to even be near him when he was talking to Al like that. Al never said a word. Not one. He just shot the guy this look I call the ‘look of goodbye.’ We knew that guy was through as a Raider. He never played another down for us that season. The next year he was released.”

  During practice, Al Davis always worried about NFL “spies.” Fred Biletnikoff remembers one day in particular.

  “I remember when Al threw a rock at a plane that flew low over the practice field. He thought it was a spy plane.”

  * * *

  Marie Lombardi, the wife of the great Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, wrote to Carol Davis, Al’s wife after the Raiders’ first Super Bowl win.

  “Enjoy it now because fame is fleeting. Enjoy it while you can.”

  Marie’s prophecy came to be.

  The flame began to flicker. The firing of coaches was approximately once a year. The so-called good and high-priced players that Davis had drafted went bust. Davis began to lose his touch.

  Al’s health had greatly deteriorated by the time he reached his eighties. He always wanted to be the strength of the organization, but time was not on his side.

  In 2011, Davis passed the torch for the final time by hiring Hue Jackson, who called Al Davis “Coach.”

  “When you can have talks with your boss about the actual x’s and o’s, that was a first for me. I’ve never been able to do that with anyone else. That’s why I call him Coach, because he can still talk football with me.”

  On October 8, 2011, Al Davis passed away at the age of eighty-two. The next day Hue Jackson and his Raiders beat the Houston Texans 25–20 in pure Raiders style on the final play with an Oakland interception in the end zone. At that time, with only ten men on the field, it is said that Al Davis was on the field during that play, and was the eleventh man.

  * Anderson passed away in 2012.

  JOHN MADDEN

  THE CREATIVE COACH

  WHEN JOHN MADDEN WAS asked what he considered to be his greatest team, he responded without hesitation.

  “To me, the Raiders of the ’70s were the greatest team ever. When I went into the Hall of Fame, I had a party and showed old highlight films. I told the players that I’d started believing that thing about how players are bigger, better, faster, stronger now, and the game is better now, but when I look back at how we played it, and the guys who played, I realize that’s not true.

  “We were better. Football is great now, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t great then. The stars then would be stars now. Freddy would be. Stabler would be. Bob Brown would be. Upshaw, Willie Brown, Shell, Otto, Ted Hendricks—they all would be.”

  Raider’s linebacker Monte Johnson described Madden’s unique style of dress.

  “John kind of looked like an oaf when he would dress. In practice he would wear the same polyester stretch pants, the shoes not tied, no whistle, and a towel hung around the neck. He would chew on the towel, not as a pacifier but as a habit, just because it was there.”

  Tight end Ted Kwalick said, “I was glad to play for a coach that treated you like a man, not like a kid.”

  Willie Brown though of Madden as one of the guys—not necessarily as one of the coaches.

  Madden liked all his players.

  “I didn’t like just a few of my players. I liked them all. I made a point of talking to every player every day. I’d walk up and down the locker room and talk to them as they’d come in, going into the training room, because I liked them. They were my friends. They’re people. When you start thinking, ‘How do you treat them?’ you’re thinking about it too much. You just do what’s normal.”

  Defensive end Pat Toomay was traded to the Raiders via the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, after previously playing for the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills.

  “In the morning he’d be sitting in your locker with a cup of coffee and the paper. ‘Hey, did you see this?’ This is a coach interested in your opinion about something in the newspaper? Can you imagine that happening with Landry? In the Cowboy environment you always felt like a freak or a piece of meat or some objectified kind of exotic hybrid. And here’s a coach interested in what you think about something other than football? This is a guy I can play for. This is a guy where our interests are aligned. He cares about people who aren’t replaceable parts.

  “There was a huge amount of respect. You could feel it. Madden wasn’t going to bullshit us on any level. He’d stand there on the sideline, sort of helplessly, waving his arms, getting pink, but he gave us control, and it was great for the players.”

  Madden had to convince Davis that he was the right man for the job.

  “I went into Al’s office and told him, ‘I know this team, I know these players. I know what they can do and I know how to get them to do it.’

  “I told him, ‘Age is a number. If you’re made to be a head coach, you’ll be successful whether you’re thirty-two, forty-two, or fifty-two. I don’t have to wait ten years. I know I can be a head coach now.’

  “I had a plan. I had been thinking about this basically all my coaching life. Even as an assistant I’d thought as a head coach. Not second guessing, first guessing.”

  Former front-office executive John Herrera talked about the foot races that he and John had.

  “As a linebacker coach, he was one of the boys. He was just a guy. We’d have foot races out in the driveway up at training camp. Between the cars parked outside the rooms and the boundary of the motel, there wasn’t any room to run. He’d put his big,
fat butt in front of me with the first step and beat me in a 40. We’d mark it off and he’d always win. He reminds me of it to this day.

  “But I wasn’t surprised when Al made him the head coach. He had a certain presence about him that stood out from the other assistants. It’s hard to describe it in tangible terms, but he had it.

  “Al told me that the players needed someone who would lead them but not demean them. And he knew both offensive and defensive football. He also had a feel for the passing game. He was on the staff. He was there. And I also liked the idea that he was younger than me.”

  Davis thought he would be a great coach.

  “Anyone can see what a player is doing or not doing at the time; it was what you see in the future that matters. Can he coach? Can you develop him? I’ve seen it in a lot of young coaches. That doesn’t mean they’ll be successful with me. It’s about the relationship. It’s about keeping me informed and vice versa. It’s like a marriage. Believing in each other. Anyone can get married. But can you make it work? At first my role was one of direction, and then it became one of assistance.”

  Tight end Bob Moore felt it was Madden’s personality that drove the team.

  “It was said that Al Davis was directing the team, calling the plays, doing all the stuff and John was just a hatchet man for him. That was absolutely not true! John was the one doing all the work. His attitude, disposition, and personality are what drove the team to greatness.”

  “It seemed to me that Al left John and his staff alone,” said Kenny Stabler. “I think he let John make the decisions. Davis had a lot to do with the draft, but as far as who played? It was John.”

  According to Madden, Al may have been in charge of finding personnel, but it was John’s team.

  “That was never a question. Those things came up later. People had him calling plays and shit. But in those days players called the plays. I was never a headset coach anyway.

  “I had a good situation. I always said that the fewer guys you have between you and the owner, the better. The best job would be [George] Halas or Paul Brown, who coached and owned. The next best thing would be where you have an owner and you’re the next guy. And that’s what I had. It was a working partnership. He was a team player.

  “Al was a friend. We used to have a box at the Coliseum during A’s games in the off season, and we’d work during the day, and at night the coaches would leave and Al and I would go to the baseball game, watch three or four innings, talk, and go have dinner. We did a lot of talking at A’s games. All football.

  “I don’t know anyone like him. He was total football.”

  Pat Toomay gives his perspective on the Davis/Madden relationship.

  “However he negotiated the space with Al, whatever compromises Madden had to make, he made because it put him in the place he wanted to be. He was no dummy.”

  Linebacker Monte Johnson recalls his first day at training camp.

  “At training camp, when we were all together for the first time, John would give his opening speech, and it was always the same: ‘Our goal is to win the Super Bowl. Not make the playoffs. Win it all!’”

  “John has a great mind,” said punter Ray Guy, “but very few great minds make great head coaches. John’s strength was that he had a way of making it simple. Whatever he was teaching us wasn’t complex, something you couldn’t understand. We wouldn’t alter the game plan for this or that team. It would boil down to when the first ball is kicked; it’s me against them. Line up and play.”

  “Teaching is repetition,” said Madden. “Coaching is the same way. Some of the players couldn’t understand why I’d repeat everything. Dave Casper and Ted Hendricks, for instance, got it the first time. But there were others whom you had to show film of the play, and then diagram it. And someone else who’d have to practice it and walk through it for two or three days.”

  Madden had three rules for his players. They were: be on time, pay attention, and play like hell when I tell you to.

  “I always knew that the more rules you have, the easier they are to break,” said, Madden. “And once you break one, you may as well break them all. It’s easier to have fewer rules but be a stickler on those rules. Things that aren’t important, that have nothing to do with winning or losing, don’t have to be a rule.”

  According to offensive tackle John Vella, dress codes were non-existent for the Raiders.

  “I remember one time before a trip. Madden goes, ‘Hey, guys, there’s a few too many holes in the Levi’s. Can we get the Levi’s cleaned up a little bit? And you know, I don’t know about the sandals. Maybe you should wear some shoes. Can you wear some shoes?’ That was the end of the speech about dress codes.”

  Madden’s philosophy regarding dress codes was different than that of other coaches in the NFL.

  “I was coaching at a time when you had to wear white shirts and ties. Well, you don’t have to wear white shirts and ties. Facial hair? That has nothing to do with winning or losing. Those things weren’t important to me. I didn’t give a damn. Some teams were making their decisions based on stuff like that. ‘I got to get rid of that guy because he has a mustache.’ I always thought that was dumb.”

  The only Raider rule was to win.

  “Any rule or regulation regarding the Raiders had to do with nothing but winning, said Raiders running back Mark van Eeghen. “Otherwise it was not a regulation.”

  Kenny Stabler referred to the key word as play.

  “On the field it was ‘Go play,’ off the field it was ‘Go play.’”

  Madden was also known for accepting the whole person; meaning accepting them for who they were and refusing to try and change them.

  “The thing is you have a person, and he’s made up of a total package. And you take all of that package. You don’t just cherry-pick what you get. I remember one day I was walking off the field, and I was talking to our team doctor. I said, ‘You know, we have doctors for everything now. Orthopedics, internal doctors, eye doctors, maybe we ought to get, like, a psychiatrist, a mind psychologist.’

  “I’ll never forget what he told me: ‘You can do that, but you don’t know what really makes a guy the person he is, and what trait it is that makes him a great player. You may remove that trait in bringing in psychology. And if you start messing with them, you may improve part of them, but the part that’s improved might make them not play as well as they play.’

  “I said, ‘Oh, shit, forget I said that. There’s no damned way I want to do it.’

  “You have to accept the whole person and whatever they’re going to do. If I give Marv Hubbard a card that says, ‘If you ever get in a fight again, I’m gonna cut you,’ what’s that going to do? Nothing! I’m not gonna do anything.”

  Lineman Mike McCoy recalls his first pregame meeting as a Raider.

  “During Madden’s chalkboard talk, four or five players got up, walked out of the room, and caught a cab to the stadium. I was stunned! Madden didn’t even mind. He knew they knew what they needed to know. And I don’t think that’s something you can teach or coach; I think it was just something he sensed. Basically, he was a laid-back coach, which was just right for this team. If he’d pushed and pushed and pushed, I don’t think the Raiders would have won.”

  Like the players on his team, John Madden was also given nicknames.

  “Our nickname for him was Fox, because he was so smart,” said Stabler. “The other, more affectionate nickname we called him was Pinky.

  “John received the name Pinky because his face would turn pink—sometimes even beet red when his temper would flare—or pretend to flare.

  “I saw him come into dozens of meetings when he’d turn over a chair, raise hell, walk out, come back in, and wink. Like it was no big deal. That was his style.”

  Guard George Buehler tells how Madden’s blow-ups were planned.

  “I was sitting on the sidelines watching kickoffs when Madden walked up to me and said, ‘I’ll bet you that within five minutes, I’ll blow my
top.’ I said, ‘You plan that stuff?’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah. I don’t do anything haphazardly or emotionally. I take a critical look and I see whether the team needs praising or being yelled at. I watch all the bad stuff and I ignore all the good, until I naturally blow up.’

  “Less than five minutes later, sure enough, Madden was screaming, ‘Goddammit! Get your asses . . .’ And everybody straightens up. That’s the way he coached.”

  Mark van Eeghen remembers one blow up in particular.

  “It didn’t matter if you were heralded or you were an unknown. He was a master of that. He knew everyone’s hot spot. Knowing that everybody has to be treated equally, but maybe not all the time.

  “During a game against the Broncos I missed a crucial block. During the film review session Madden kept clicking the play over and over and over. Fucking thirty times. Then he gets up, rips the reel off the projector, throws it in the trash can, and says, ‘Get out on the field!’

  “Once on the field Madden caught up with me and said, ‘Mark, I got to let you know—that was one of the better games you had for me, and I thank you for your effort. I took advantage of you because I wanted to make a point to the team and I knew you wouldn’t take it personally.’”

  Madden reacted to his so-called premeditated—or not—outbursts.

  “Whether it was premeditated or not, it would go away quickly. Sometimes you’d raise your voice, and then it would just go away, and I’d just say, ‘I had to do that.’ Sometime you felt you had to yell and scream. I tried not to do it to a player. I tried to do it collectively. There were some guys it didn’t affect. They’d say, ‘That’s just Madden being Madden.’”

  Nose tackle Dave Rowe recalls how Madden reacted to a fist fight between two players during practice.

  “They’re having this punch-up and he’s going in between them and he slips. Everyone sees him fall, and the fight stops, and they all help him up. Then he says, ‘We ain’t having fighting.’ I thought Madden would call practice. Instead he said, ‘That was a damn sissy fight! I’ll show you how to fight!’ Madden started swinging his fists, comically, and that defused the whole situation. And we go back to practice.”