With the passing of the man most closely identified with the Raiders, we all need to hear from the man who is perhaps the second most closely identified with the Raiders.
Former Raiders coach John Madden joined our friends Scott Kaplan and Billy Ray Smith at XX 1090 in San Diego on Monday morning to reflect on the late Al Davis.
“It was one of those calls that you get in the middle of the night when you’re sleeping and it coulda been five or six o’clock,” Madden said, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “Amy Trask of the Raiders called and said ‘Al Davis passed away’ and I was in shock. I had been with Al Davis since I left San Diego State as a matter of fact in the 1960s. I had been with him directly or indirectly all those years, for six decades. He was a bigger part of my life than any outsider outside of family. He was my best friend.
“It’s Al Davis. Al Davis doesn’t die. Just the shock of it. Even though you could see him and knew he was sick and he was failing, he is a fighter, he fights that, you know he was gonna beat it. You always say that you knew he was failing and stuff, but it was still Al Davis. You didn’t think it would happen to him.”
We continue to wish Coach Madden and the entire Raider family peace and comfort in this difficult time.