Davis dealing with loss on and off football field
The Shadow
Column by Carl Steward
OAKLAND — Everybody wants to know how Al Davis can possibly fix these
Oakland Raiders, now more so than ever following their latest, deepest
voyage to the bottom of the sea on Sunday.
So when Davis appeared in the Raiders' locker room following a
mortifying, mind-numbing 20-0 loss to the St. Louis Rams at McAfee
Coliseum, the media pounce was on. A large crowd surrounded the Oakland
owner, standing with the aid of a walker and looking noticeably thinner
and decidedly more haggard. It's been a rough year for Davis, and a
particularly tough week.
Little of it had to do with football. All Al really wanted to talk about
on this day was "Run Run" Jones and the pall of death that has taken so
many of friends, adversaries and employees and what many seem to believe
is giving him the staredown as well.
When a photographer walked up to snap a photo, Davis made a point to
force a smile.
"Get a good picture, please," he said. "I want everyone to know I'm
alive. I'm not dying."
Davis is constantly annoyedby rumors of his ill health, perhaps even
more so than the sniping about the critical condition of his football team.
"What's going to happen here ... I guess I'll have to, week by week,
issue a medical report on my health, all the tests I take and
everything," he said, again trying to inject some humor to a somber
environment.
Some will never feel compassion for Davis. His enemies contend he has
made his own grim bed and now has to lie in it. But Sunday, it was
impossible not to feel a little sad about what Davis was feeling — a
feeling of vulnerability, mortality, and a lot more important
bigger-picture things than a bad football team that's now an unthinkable
2-12.
Before the game, the Raiders staged a strange but emotional video
tribute and double moment of silence, first for Lamar Hunt, the Kansas
City Chiefs owner who died Wednesday, and following that, one for Jones,
the team's longtime odd-jobs legend who died Saturday while performing
his myriad duties at the Raiders' Alameda facility.
"I've been involved in so many of these, it's getting fairly tough to be
the administrator of memorial services," Davis said solemnly. "We've
lost a lot of friends. I lost Red Auerbach, lost Lamar Hunt. My friend
across the Bay, Bill Walsh, I worry about him. And then Run Run."
Davis was struck by the difference in the two men who merited special
remembrance.
"The contrast in life, if you really want to look at like that way, is
tremendously interesting," Davis continued. "Here's Lamar Hunt, at one
time one of the richest men of the world, and Run Run Jones, a great guy
who was just a great lover of football and certainly of the Raiders. The
two of them, dying kind of contemporaneously, and having a moment of the
silence for both of them. I just thought that was a great idea. After
awhile, though, you run out of tears."
Davis is not crying for his football team, though. He still talks the
talk, even if he can't walk the walk. He didn't want to talk about
football. But of course, he did, albeit not terribly specifically. After
paying tribute to Hunt and Jones, he slipped in, "But you know, life
goes on. The Raiders go on, and we've got to get this straightened out."
How, Al?
"I'll get it done," he said. "You don't go through five decades, we've
been there (to the Super Bowl) five times, we've won three ... I'll get
it straightened out, you can bet on that, (heck) yes.
"We've got things to do, and it's gonna be big, but we'll get it done,"
he continued. "You've to look at it the way I have to look at it, not
the way you'll look at it necessarily. But in any event, I'll get it
done. I want to win, and I will. I always have."
Not lately, though. The Raiders are 15-47 since they went to the Super
Bowl at the end of the 2002 season. Trying to get specific, reporters
were denied real answers. Asked about the divergent play of the offense
compared to the defense, Davis begged off.
"I don't want to get it into that," he said. "I don't want to get into
the football, seriously. I just think at this particular time, it's not
proper. You've got to win, it's not how you play. That's a prophetic
remark, isn't it? You never heard that one before."
Asked about how Art Shell is holding up, he offered no opinion.
"You (don't) make those determinations right now," he said. "My
determination is about this football team, this organization, and the
fans, the fans, the fans. What did McArthur say, 'The Corps, the Corps,
the Corps?' I say, 'The fans, the fans, the fans, and the team, the
team, the team.'
"I want to win," he continued. "Obviously, in life, I like certain
things. I like beautiful women more than unbeautiful women. I'm not
denigrating unbeautiful women, but I want to win, and I will win, and we
will win. And we'll get this thing straightened out."
"But this business in my life now, I'm getting so many people leaving
me, it's tough."
Davis promised that he will be more specific about football issues when
the season is done. He didn't say when or where or what's coming.
"I'm sure we'll get together, but right now, this is where we are," he said.
Wherever that is.