Al Davis
Davis circa 1970
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| Personal information | |
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| Date of birth: | July 4, 1929 |
| Place of birth: | Brockton, Massachusetts |
| Date of death: | October 8, 2011 (aged 82) |
| Place of death: | Oakland, California |
| Career information | |
| High school: | Erasmus Hall |
| College: | Syracuse University |
| Career history | |
| As coach: | |
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| As executive: | |
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| Career highlights and awards | |
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| Head coaching record | |
| Regular season: | 23–16–3 (.583) |
| Coaching stats at PFR | |
Allen "Al" Davis (July 4, 1929 – October 8, 2011) was an American football coach and executive. He was the principal owner and general manager of the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League (NFL) from 1972 to 2011. Under Davis' management, the Raiders became one of the most successful teams in professional sports. His motto for the team was "Just win, baby." Davis was active in civil rights, refusing to allow the Raiders to play in any city where black and white players had to stay in separate hotels. He was the first NFL owner to hire an African American head coach and a female chief executive. He was also the second NFL owner to hire a Latino head coach. He remains the only executive in NFL history to be an assistant coach, head coach, general manager, commissioner, and owner.
Born in Brockton, Massachusetts, to a Jewish family, Davis' father, Louis Davis, worked in a variety of trades in Massachusetts; having found some success in the garment manufacturing field, he moved to Brooklyn in 1934 with his wife, Rose, and two sons, Jerry and Allen. Louis Davis rented a sixth-floor walkup for his family off Utica Avenue, became very successful in the garment trade, and put his two sons through college before seeking a more comfortable dwelling in Atlantic Beach. Although there are a number of stories extant of Louis Davis backing his younger son in anything so long as the boy did not get caught or back down from a confrontation, most of these stories derive from Al Davis. Childhood friends depicted him as more of a talker than a fighter, though very good with his mouth. Young Al's sport of choice was basketball, and he gained a reputation of a hard player, if not the most skillful. As a boy, he was determined to play for Coach Al Badain at Erasmus Hall High School, passing up the opportunity to attend school closer to his house. Although he was only a reserve on the Erasmus team, and did not play much, Davis studied Badain's coaching techniques, and felt he learned much from him—in the 1980s, with Badain ill and in need, he brought the elderly former coach to the West Coast to witness Davis's Raiders in the Super Bowl, and paid the man's debts.
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