Davis

Two decades ago, Al Davis and Bill Parcells were chatting during an NFL owners meeting when Davis' new coach strolled by.

"I want you to meet Mike Shanahan," Davis told Parcells. "He's going to be a great head coach."

Shanahan, 35 at the time, has indeed distinguished himself, but not with Davis' Raiders. Twenty games into his tenure, he was fired, the same point that Davis fired Lane Kiffin this week.

So what happened to Kiffin isn't new. But it's sad.

Because given recent history, it's easy to overlook the many contributions Al Davis has made to the NFL.

They include moves that led to the AFL-NFL merger, making the league into the multibillion dollar corporation it is today. They include significant contributions toward solving labor disputes, in part because of his closeness to the late Gene Upshaw, an ex-Raider who ran the union for 25 years.

They also include the hiring of the first black coach of the modern era — Shanahan's successor, Art Shell — and the first female CEO, Amy Trask, who, unfortunately seems to have been left out of the decision-making process in the latest fiasco. She's one of the few levelheaded people currently in Oakland's front office.

And the legacy also includes winning: three Super Bowls and a record from the late 1960s to the early 1980s that was as good as any team in pro sports.

That's why it's simplistic to characterize the 79-year-old Davis as an out-of-touch old man, the way he's been described for most of this decade as his once-proud organization has descended to the bottom of the NFL.

Davis always has been able to spot young coaching talent, including Parcells, whom he coached in a college all-star game in 1963 and later mentored.

But aside from John Madden, promoted from the assistant ranks in 1969 at age 32, Davis' overbearing manner and his penchant for coaching from the owner's box drove them away — from Shanahan to Jon Gruden to Kiffin, the only one whose bona fides are not yet established.

Davis also alienated them. Just as he's refusing to pay the remainder of Kiffin's contract, he and Shanahan have been locked in a dispute for two decades over $300,000 that the Denver coach claims he's owed.