Lamonica’s ties to Raiders run deep
At the sight of the Raiders’ past, so much of it attached to him, Daryle Lamonica felt decades younger. The franchise staged an alumni weekend before the start of this season’s training camp, and a significant chunk of football history came to life.
“Sitting around with Raymond Chester, George Atkinson, Jim Plunkett, all the guys, it’s like we never left practice,” said Lamonica, who quarterbacked the team in Super Bowl II in 1968. “After all these years, it’s like we were all ready to suit up and go through
those same experiences. Like the old days, it was a very special time.”
At 75, coming off hip-replacement surgery, Lamonica won’t be dropping back to throw a 50-yard bullet any time soon, but he hasn’t made the slightest concession to old age. From the day he retired, after the 1974 season, Lamonica returned to his hunting-and-fishing roots in the Fresno-Clovis area, pursuing the lifestyle closest to his heart.
“I’ve had a few setbacks,” he said by phone from the Fresno home he has shared with his wife, Mary, for 35 years. “Had my left knee done, the other hip done, it’s not real pleasant. But that’s just part of life; it could be worse. You take it as it is.”
As his son, Brandon, said, “Dad has been a valley boy all his life, and that will never change. That’s one of the great things about him. He’s exactly who he was when he left.”
After a sterling career at Clovis High — a school that renamed its football stadium in his honor in 1976 — Lamonica’s first destination was Notre Dame, where he wore the storied No. 3 associated with thenNFL quarterbacks Ralph Guglielmi and George Izo — and later by Joe Montana — on his Irish uniform from 1960-62. Drafted by the Buffalo Bills, he spent four seasons backing up Jack Kemp before he was traded to Oakland.
Al Davis had to give up quarterback Tom Flores and wide receiver Art Powell in the deal, but he never regretted it. Lamonica was an instant star with the Raiders, guiding the 1967 team to a 13-1 record while leading the AFL with 30 touchdown passes.
It was a path that led all the way to the second Super Bowl (then known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game), in the wake of a stirring 40-7 victory over the Houston Oilers in the AFL title game.
The Super Bowl was played in Miami’s historic Orange Bowl, palm trees swaying in the breeze behind the scoreboard, and the youthful Raiders weren’t quite ready to overcome Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers.
Not long after that 33-14 loss, Lamonica told Sports Illustrated, “We played ’em real tough in the first half. I talked to (Packers guard) Jerry Kramer, and he told me the players had just learned that it would be Lombardi’s last game as a coach. They were all fired up coming out for the second half. But we made a couple of errors and I threw an interception that hurt us,” along with two touchdown passes to split end Bill Miller.
Reflecting on that game recently, “We walked away from that game disappointed,” he said, “but I think we earned the Packers’ respect. I know we really grew as a team. From that day on, we knew we could play with the best.”
With all-time greats such as Jim Otto, Art Shell, Gene Upshaw, Fred Biletnikoff and Willie Brown blossoming into their prime, the Raiders were quite often unstoppable. To this day, there hasn’t been a more effective or aesthetically pleasing long-range passing combination than Lamonica to Warren Wells, who caught 37 touchdown passes from 1968-70, with the sure-handed Biletnkoff a master of precision routes.
Starting in 1967, the Super Bowl year, Lamonica threw what was then the most touchdown passes (145) in pro football over a six-year span, and he was named MVP in the AFL for the ’67 and ’69 seasons. “The Mad Bomber,” they called him, a handle traced to Howard Cosell on a “Monday Night Football” telecast, and it perfectly fit the image of an Al Davis team looking for the big strike at every opportunity.
Lamonica never lost touch with the Raiders, and he has been enthralled by a franchise revitalization led by another quarterback with Fresno roots: Derek Carr, who was a standout at Fresno State.
“I’ve gotten to know Derek a little and I really like him, and his philosophy,” Lamonica said. “I kid him: ‘Look, if you complete three passes in a row and it’s 4th-and-2, I’m gonna come down from the stands and get ya (laughter). He’s got that big-play mentality, and I’m really excited about what I’m seeing.
“When I played, we knew we could score on anybody, and I see a lot of that in (coach) Jack Del Rio. I think he has a special feel for the game, putting his staff and players together with a real sense of ‘us’ and ‘we.’ That’s really refreshing from an explayer’s standpoint, because back then, we had that.”
It’s always heartwarming to come across an ex-athlete completely satisfied with his life, then and now. For Lamonica, who grew up hunting and fishing on then-remote Clovis farmland, each day summons the resurrection of his youth.
“A couple of hip replacements will slow you down a little,” he said. “You hit the wall, then you have to fix it. But I’m walking around now, not limping. Won’t be long before I’m back out there.”
Same as ever, and completely at peace.