Al Davis is a legacy of diversity in football
When inclusivity wasn’t popular, Raiders owner opened doors for any who deserved chance
Editor’s Note: Long before this tumultuous moment in American history where sports figures are using their powerful platforms to demand change, well before Colin Kaepernick quietly refused to stand for the national anthem, there were changemakers in the world of sports. And not surprisingly, given its role in the civil rights movement, the Bay Area has long been an epicenter for sports activism. This is the fifth in a series of stories looking at those athletes who have used their status to effect change.
Every February, Al Davis would receive a thank you card, right in step with Black History Month, in appreciation of the Raiders owner's contributions to the cause of racial equality.
“Dear Mr. Davis: thank you so much for everything you've done over the years. Deeply appreciated. You will not be forgotten, my brother.”
The author, Dr. Harry Edwards, America's leading sports sociologist and a renowned civil rights activist, clearly knew where he stood on Davis' record as a civil rights activist of the highest order.
He just never knew whether Davis received his message of gratitude. So, one year he didn't send it.
“‘Bing!' my phone rang — ‘Mr. Davis wants to talk to you.'” Edwards recalled. “All of a sudden this voice comes on the phone. ‘Where is my card?' “I said, ‘Mr. Davis, it's in the mail,' and I went out and put it in immediately.”
Davis is known for a maverick spirit that saw him battle every challenger who dared get in his way. Lesser known is that racial injustice was one of his primary targets.
Davis' drive for diversity made a lasting imprint on sports and society during his near 50year reign as the Raiders' patriarch.
And even if Davis wasn't one to go about trumpeting every diversity move he made, he was proud of what he had accomplished when it came time to consider his legacy during a 2006 interview with this news organization.
“The Raiders, this is going to be self-serving, but I'll say it: I don't care what institution you take, be it political or anyone, there's no one who did more for racial diversity than the Raiders of Oakland,” he said.
Davis passed away five years later, at age 82, still at the Raid
ers’ helm.
His passion for inclusion was undeniable. Yes, he wanted to just win, baby. And to just do it with anyone, baby.
“He was so far ahead, it was unbelievable,” said Mark Davis, Al’s son and the Raiders’ current owner who’s steered their move this year to Las Vegas.
“It brings tears to my eyes at how many things he was able to do,” Davis added. “He did it because it was the right thing to do, not because people wanted him to do it. People deserved the opportunity and he believed in that.” People such as Art Shell, the NFL’s first modern-era Black coach, who took over the Los Angeles Raiders in 1989 and made the playoffs three of his five seasons.
People such as Amy Trask, who became the NFL’s first female chief executive in 1997.
People such as Tom Flores, pro football’s first Latino quarterback and, later, the first minority coach to win a Super Bowl (and then another).
Davis’ dominance with diversity went far beyond those examples.
He drafted and unearthed gems from small, Black colleges in the south. He refused to play games in segregated cities where black and white players would have stayed in different hotels. He, discreetly, gave to ex-players and others in need, most of whom were minorities.
“First of all, he didn’t put a color to a guy’s face or a gal, as he proved with Amy Trask,” Flores said. “He was looking for somebody that would help them win. He was willing to take a chance on people that showed talent but hadn’t proven it.” Trask concurred. She joined the Raiders in 1987 upon their move to Los Angeles, and a decade later she became their CEO and Davis’ business confidante.
“I often say he hired without regard to race, gender, ethnicity or any other individuality, which we know has no bearing on if anyone can do a job,” Trask said. “He also fired without regard to those individualities and cussed at people without individuality, which is how it should have been.”
That leads to one of Trask’s cherished memories from a Raiders tenure that extended to 2013. Years earlier, in a meeting with a prospective business, Davis entered and greeted a female client by saying he tries not to swear in front of women, adding: “Oh, I swear in front of Amy but I don’t consider her a woman.” Trask considered it Davis’ highest compliment, that he evaluated her regardless of gender.
Trask told Davis over the years how he did not get enough recognition for his diversity efforts. She recalled him sincerely saying he didn’t seek such glory,
“and that’s what makes it more magnificent,” Trask said.
In 2003, to encourage the hiring of minority coaches, the NFL instituted the “Rooney Rule,” named after the Pittsburgh Steelers’ owner Dan Rooney. Trask suggested to Davis he should be the one bearing that title, to which he uttered: “Aw (expletive), I’m not interested.”
Added Trask: “He wasn’t interested in it for credit.” Personal credit, no. But awareness of what his organization stood for, yes.
“The thing I loved about it was he wasn’t reaching out and getting Black people, Brown people or women,” Edwards said. “He was getting the best people under his evaluation who happened to be Black, who happened to be Latino, who happened to be a woman or who happened to be like him, Jewish.
“I had tremendous admiration for him.” Edwards, a professor emeritus of Cal’s sociology department and a longtime 49ers consultant, is an expert witness at where the Raiders’ might rank among institutions that championed racial diversity.
“You have to go back to the Celtics to find anything close to what the Raiders came to represent,” Edwards said, referring to the Boston Celtics’ 1950 selection of Chuck Cooper as the NBA’s first Black draft pick, as well as Bill Russell becoming the first Black coach in 1966 while still playing for the Celtics.
Other landmarks are found throughout sports, such as Branch Rickey’s Brooklyn Dodgers adding Jackie Robinson to break baseball’s color barrier in 1947, one of many minority breakthroughs in Dodgers’ lore.
Robinson undoubtedly made an impression on Davis, who grew up in Brooklyn.
“It’s hard to say where it came from,” Mark Davis said of his father’s drive for diversity. “But I think it came early on from his teens, watching sports with the Yankees, Dodgers, Jackie Robinson.”
Indeed, in Al Davis’ Pro Football Hall of Fame induction speech, he referenced those Dodgers and admired their “willingness to pioneer.”
“He grew up in New York, he was Jewish and obviously there was tension with ethnicity,” Mark Davis added. “He always knew about how different cultures are affected by other people’s antagonism. He felt it as well.”
When the Raiders declared Juneteenth a team holiday, Hall of Fame receiver Tim Brown called it a beautiful thing, adding: “This keeps in line what Al was all about, and you have an organization that understands where society is right now.”
Mark Davis vows to continue on his father’s legacy.
“It is an issue very dear to me and I’ll do whatever I can to carry that torch forward,” Davis, 65, said. “I don’t know if I’ll be as effective but I try to do what’s right.”