Al Davis’s aggressive, take-no-prisoners attitude was always on display, even when he wasn’t on the sidelines watching his beloved Oakland Raiders. A reporter once asked Davis, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., how he had adjusted to California’s laid-back lifestyle. “Adjust?” an appalled Davis replied. “You don’t adjust. You dominate.”
Davis said he knew from childhood that he wanted “to build the finest organization in sports,” said the Los Angeles Times. After attending Syracuse University, he got his first football coaching job in 1950, at Long Island’s Adelphi College. He coached the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Chargers before becoming head coach, in 1963, of the Raiders—the team he would remain with, as coach, general manager, or part-owner, until his death. His impact was “immediate and dramatic”: He taught the team an “ultra-aggressive” defensive game that transformed it into a winning franchise.
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