Fourth of July is the birth of our Nation and the Father of Raider Nation

On July 4th, 1776 the great country of the United States was born, the land of the free and the home of the brave. 153 years later the father of another nation was born, the Raider Nation.

On July 4th, 1929 Allen Davis was born to Louis and Rose Davis is Brockton, Massachusetts. Al learned at an early age, the key to success is effective communication and respect for your fellow people. Davis was never an exemplary athlete, however he was always surrounding himself with athletes and immersing himself in the culture of coaching, developing and identifying talent.

As a student at Syracuse University, Davis began taking courses on football strategy and used the familiarity of a popular player from that school with the same surname to leverage meetings with schools for coaching positions. ultimately the posturing paid off when Davis landed his first coaching job at Adelphi University as the freshman football coach and once he had his taste he got hungrier.

Davis next entered into the military and coached Fort Belvoir and narrowly missed their first bowl game, once Davis left the military he bounced around to many different positions in professional and college football including a stint as a freelance scout in Baltimore and as an assistant coach at The University of Southern California.

After leaving USC, Davis moved on to work as an assistant for the Los Angeles Chargers and most famously signed wide receiver Lance Allworth, but Al was still hungry for more. In 1963 Al Davis took over as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders where he was able to use the gift that he was given at an early age to speak to players and convince them to become Raiders.

The tenacity, grit and inability to back down that Al Davis carried caught the eye of the AFL who made him the commissioner. The AFL was looking to compete with the NFL and Davis was the man to “poach” the talent from the league, ultimately Pete Rozelle realized that Davis would be a better ally than adversary and worked with Davis to complete the AFL/ NFL merger, where Davis became the owner of the Oakland Raiders, the team he once coached.

In a true rags to riches story, the son of a garment salesman from Brockton, Ma was now the owner of a professional team. As the owner of the Oakland Raiders, Al Davis was known for doing things his way and was not afraid of any obstacles that may have been in his way.

As someone who was active in the civil rights movement, Davis was a maverick in many instances including hiring the first Latino Head coach (Tom Flores, First African-American Head Coach (Art Shell), First Female CEO (Amy Trask) and was the first man to take on the NFL and win.

In 1980 Al Davis filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL after he tried to move the team from Oakland to Los Angeles and in 1982 he won, the Raiders left the blue-collar town of Oakland for the palm trees, blue beaches and hills of Los Angeles. When Davis attempted to have a new stadium built with no avail in 1995 Davis moved the Raiders back to Oakland.

Al Davis in the media’s eye was a shrewd, brazen, angry man. The people closest to Al Davis will tell you that Al was one of the most caring, loving people you would have ever met. Al Davis truly believed “Once a Raider, always a Raider” as long as that person didn’t disrespect Davis himself or the shield, only a few people learned that the hard way.

While Davis was a shrewd business person, the love that Davis showed to his former staff and players will never go unnoticed, and while many things were never published because he didn’t do it for the publicity, he should be recognized for that.

So today, on a day that we celebrate this great nation and our freedom wearing Red, White and Blue, let us not forget about the fast talking maverick from Massachusetts who donned the iconic white track suit, slicked back hair and sunglasses that lived by three magic words

“Just Win Baby!”