Al Davis has been around the game of football and the National Football League for a long time. He started as a player at Syracuse before eventually moving into coaching, where we became head coach of the Oakland Raiders. After a decade of work on the sidelines, Davis become the primary owner of the franchise and has overseen operations since the 1970's.
While Davis' resumé speaks for itself, one of the more fascinating areas of his career was the coaches he either oversaw or employed in Oakland. Among those coaches: John Madden, Art Shell, Bill Walsh, Tom Flores and Jim Harbaugh, just to name a few.
As for Shell, who was the first African-American head coach in the modern era, and Tom Flores, who was the first Hispanic head coach in the league, both have always praised and respected Davis for everything he did for them. In addition, legendary head coach Bill Walsh, who is widely-known as the man who popularized the West Coast Offense, has publicly credited the Raiders owner for being his biggest influence throughout his career.
And then there's Jim Harbaugh, who has a ton of ties to the Bay Area at such a young age. He was employed by Davis as an assistant coach in 2002-2003 before eventually moving onto the University of Stanford. He is now the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. Needless to say, Davis always had an incredible eye for coaching talent and brought many coaches through the franchise that would go onto great things.
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