Death and dishonor.
The Raider Nation is a battered wife praying for a savior. We talk about the death of Al Davis like Christians talk about the birth of Jesus. We think that all of our problems stem from the man up stairs, and that doesn’t mean the omnipotent one. We had John ‘Chucky’ Gruden who took us deep into the playoff for the first time in forever. Then uncle Al makes him run away. But not to be out done we use the system that ‘Chucky’ designed and run with it all the way to the super bowl. Only in a perfect Raider story do you play the championship game against the man whose system you hijacked. But we did, so we lost.
Often times I wonder if the Raider’s will ever win again. They are so pathetic that you can’t get jealous when you see other teams make the right changes and begin to turn around. When you look across the water and see what Mike Singletary is doing with that other bay area team, and you look at Tom Cable who almost went to jail, you look toward Alameda and shake your head asking ‘why’. Why is this team so ‘jacked up’? Why am I still wearing this Raiders t-shirt? Why am I going to the game on November 15th? Why do I care that Michael Bush doesn’t get enough carries? Why am I irritated every time JaMarcus Russell makes a pass that would be too high even for Yao Ming? Why am I passing on this tradition of rooting for losers, to unsuspecting children?
Born in the bay.
I was 8 years old when I got my first taste of life as a Raiders fan. It was 1988 and I was in the third grade. There was a sports store across interstate 80 in Vallejo, where I lived from 1983 to 1990. My father wanted to buy me a starter jacket. We looked for my size but couldn’t find any jackets that fit. We were ready to leave but my father couldn’t leave without asking if there were any in the back. Of course, like always, there weren’t any. The guy behind the counter asked what my size was, we told him and he suggested we try the jacket on the mannequin in the front window. I could feel my disappointed turn to excitement as I watched the store owner pull the jacket off the mannequin. I hadn’t tried it on but I had already decided that it was going to fit no matter what. My dad helped me put the jacket on. The sleeves were a little long but as far I was concerned it was a perfect fit. My dad asked, “Does it fit okay”. I said, “Yes”, with a smile. My dad paid the $50.00 that the jacket cost and I didn’t even have to take it off. We went home and I got my outfit ready for the next day of school.
The next morning I put on my black Levis. I had two pair because my favorite rapper ‘Eazy-E’ wore black Levis. He also wore a starter jacket so I was in heaven this morning. I put my jacket on, and my Nike Cortez then started my journey to Elsa Wiedeman elementary school. I thought I was a ‘big shot’, and there wasn’t a man alive that could tell me anything different.
My teacher had us line up outside of the classroom before the bell rang for school to start. I was standing there looking good when all of a sudden a kid in my class, whose name I don’t remember but I can see his face as I’m writing, said “you like the raiders!”. I said, “Yeah”, as if to say ‘who doesn’t like the raiders’. He laughed, then looked me directly in the eye and said, “Uhh! The raiders are weak”. That was the 80’s way of saying they suck. That day I was baptized into the ‘Nation’, for this would be one of many times that I would have to go to battle for my team. It took every ounce of Christian I had in me to not hit that boy, tackle him, or kick him in the nuts. Instead, a verbal altercation ensued and I was forced to stand up for My Team, My Fathers Team, and the team of my future children. So what if the 49ers, our cross bay rivals, were the team of the 80’s. I was representing the Oakland Raiders the only problem was the raiders were in L.A.
My knowledge of the raiders was limited due to my weekly church attendance preventing me from watching the games. I was only able to catch a Monday night or Sunday evening game. Despite my lack of raider knowledge I wore my jacket with pride, and never backed down to any ‘Niner’ fan with a bone to pick.
The wonder years.
As the years went on I witnessed the Bo Jackson era, and finally the return of my beloved Raiders to the place of their birth, and their rightful home, Oakland California. By this time I had move to Vancouver Washington, and then Vacaville California. The competition was just as tough if not worse in Vacaville. At this time the Dallas Cowboys were America’s team and the 49ers had the heart of the Bay Area. I rooted for the 49ers to win the super bowl one year so my mother made the mistake of thinking they were my team. That Christmas she bought me a framed poster of a 49ers helmet. I never wanted to disappoint my mom on Christmas. It wasn’t always easy, but never the less, I acted like it was the best present I had ever received. I reluctantly hung the poster on my wall and tried to ignore it. That poster was the source of many arguments between me and my friend Jason, a die hard Cowboys fan and part time Raider fan. He constantly challenged my allegiance to ‘The Team’. I had no doubt who my team was though, so I served in silence until I joined the Navy in 1999 and moved out of my mother’s house.
A not-so-Super-bowl.
From 1999 to 2002 I was unable to watch football, let alone cable television. I could only read, and hear second hand reports about the raider’s short lived rise to greatness. The Armed Forces Network, a military T.V. network, played the NFL playoffs in 2001 and 2002. It was weird watching football on Monday morning, the time difference in Japan is 16 to 17 hours, but I was able to witness the tuck rule fiasco, and finally a super bowl featuring the Raider’s. I sat in my barracks’ room alone as I watched the opening ceremony. From the beginning I sensed something was wrong. The looks on the player’s faces didn’t say, ‘we’re going to win’. Their faces said, ‘we’re in over our heads’. My suspicion was that they weren’t confident, and they didn’t waste any time proving me right.
I watched the Tampa Bay Buccaneers be introduced as a team, a first for the super bowl. They were hyped up, and took that excitement all the way to the end zone, time and time again. This was by far the most disappointing loss I’ve had the displeasure of witnessing.
The next 6 years just built on that disappointment and brings us to the present. I wore a raiders t-shirt every Monday of the 2006-2007 NFL season. When everyone at work was down talking the raider’s I stepped up and represented the nation like a soldier. I even bought some of those Oakland Raiders license plate frames.
My first Raider game.
I finally went to my fist game in 2008. My friend Derrick had an extra ticket and asked me to go. I was surprised at how many people in the stands got in for free. I could tell because that was their excuse for why they were there. I heard numerous phone conversations where someone was explaining why in the world they were at a Raiders game. They openly told Raider jokes and laughed at the Raiders as they lost their umpteenth game in two years.
I had heard stories about the atmosphere at the coliseum, but it was nothing like what I actually witnessed. I was waiting for the beer to fly but I got nothing but straight faces and no body movement. I couldn’t believe it. I thought to myself, “is this what we are now, a bunch of punks who let anybody in our stadium”. I thought, “They’re not even afraid to talk trash out loud. What has the world come to?” The only glimmer of hope was the black hole. I saw them throw things at a taunting receiver from the opposing team. That put air back into my lungs and got my heart rate down. I left that game, the last home game of the season, saying what I had always said since 1988, “maybe next year”.
Next year.
Next year came and went. The Raiders sucked as bad as they could, but one glorious day in January they got their revenge on the Buccs’, and John Gruden. We beat the Buccs’ ensuring that they would not go to the playoffs. It didn’t do us any good though, because we didn’t even finish over .500.
That year I watched Jamarcus Russell hold out for the first few weeks of the season. The year before that Randy Moss dogged it the entire season. He came, he saw, and got out of dodge. From here on out when a player ‘dogs it’ to inspire a trade, I call it ‘Randy Mossing it’. The latest example of that is Braylon Edwards who Randy Moss’d the Cleveland Browns.
With all the dysfunction involved in the Raider Organization, and the threat of a black out every time the raiders play a home game, my heart still bleeds silver and black. That is, if they don’t move to Los Angeles.
Nor-Cal kids.
As a Nor-Cal kid you have to come to the realization that people think of L.A. as the entire state of California, or the whole west coast for that matter. Everything about California that gets any publicity is based in southern California. So when the Bay Area gets any kind of attention it’s cherished and appreciated.
The Bay Area has a totally different identity than southern California. There has been a quiet competition between the two regions for a long time. When the Raiders left Oakland the first time, they lost many fans to the 49ers. We bay area people look for representation. The Raiders are useless to us without an Oakland address.
From the Bay to L.A.
I wasn’t around for the first departure, so I don’t now what it feels like to have your team move. But just the thought of it makes me cringe. I don’t know how I could continue to defend this team after all the years of going to war for them just to have them abandon me. They have been a major part of my existence for my entire life. I feel like a Raiders move would be a divorce. My love is for the Bay first. I was born into the nation and had only known of the being in L.A., but dreamt of them coming back to the bay. The Raiders coming home was like meeting a relative that I had never seen in person. We’ve bonded and our relationship has grown. So if they leave, this time I’ll take it personal. I’ll burn every piece of Raider paraphernalia I have. I’ll have to explain to my three sons why that Raiders blanket that was draped over my lawn chair/office chair is in the trash. My wife will need an explanation for why she hasn’t seen any of my five Raiders t-shirts in the laundry. Who knows, I may have to explain to Derrick why I’m wearing a Frank Gore jersey. I can’t even picture that, but hey, hell just might freeze over.
Filed under: Features, 49ers, al davis, alameda, bay area, chucky, jamarcus russell, jon gruden, l.a., NFL, norcal, oakland, raiders, san francisco
