Oakland Raiders History 101: Fate Has Been Kind to Us

For the younger fans, this will be a little history lesson. For the more seasoned fans of the Silver and Black, this is where you can trace your family lines to.

For the last couple weeks, I had the fun of putting together a paper on the origins of the Oakland Raiders. Going through old newspapers, websites, history books and even old films, several key figures emerged long before Oakland even gained a franchise.

The first man to mention, just like the AFL, was Lamar Hunt. Hunt's efforts to purchase an existing club in the NFL was stopped when the owners of the Chicago Cardinals wouldn't give him a controlling interest in the club.

It also would be noted that Bert Bell, the acting NFL chief also played a hand in this matter, by refusing to set up an expansion franchise for the Texas Oilman. Had either Hunt's sale worked, or Bell chose to allow a franchise at that time into Texas, the Raiders never would have seen the light of day.

The second layer to deal with was with the first round of owners in the AFL. The man in question here, was Max Winter. Winter, to his credit, was well-known in the Minneapolis area of sports, first for being an owner of the Minneapolis Lakers, then as being one of the first owners to agree on placing a club in the new league.

Winter, with a partner by the name of Bill Boyer were with the AFL from August until November, when Winter launched a bombshell announcement. He was taking an offer from the NFL, and would take his franchise to the NFL for the 1961 season, giving them what they felt was a better chance at higher caliber players.

This was done after the AFL had already held a draft, named players, and paid money to join the league.

Had Winter stayed with the AFL, again, no Oakland Raiders...Minnesota Vikings would have shown up as an AFL team...possibly other moves might have happened.

As it was, when the Minnesota franchise left, the league found itself in a quandry. It was late November, 1959 and they were one franchise short of the eight they wanted to start with.

A previous mention had been made for Seattle to gain a franchise but this had fallen through when Willard Rhodes wasn't able to secure Husky Stadium to play in.

That is when the next person stepped in, from Los Angeles. Barron Hilton, the owner of the new franchise Chargers, told the AFL that if another team wasn't placed in California, he would return his team to the league.

Why this wasn't mentioned before is still up to debate, but the benefits were obvious. Like the Oilers and Texans playing in Texas, having a second team in state would cut down on advertising, create an instant rivalry and promote competition.

It was also noted that for the area, Oakland had not submitted a request for a club, or had a management group in mind.

No stadium, no owners, no real idea...why not?

So Oakland was given the franchise...and the city took off with the idea.

The first issue to handle was putting together a group in charge of the team. The City Civic leaders had eight people come forward from various interests. Real Estate, Construction, Retail, Sports, Food Service...they all assembled a owners group, headed by Y. Charles (Chet) Soda, started working towards assembling a team.

The head coach was named within two weeks of their founding, Eddie Erdelatz, was a former Navy Coach and had been sought by several other organizations. Finding a stadium that would allow them to play, as well proved difficult.

UC Berkeley wouldn't allow them to play and there was no suitable stadium within city limits. So the next option was Kezar Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers.

The team was also granted a special Allocation Draft to help fill out it's roster, as the players drafted previously by Minnesota had either signed with other clubs or were going to join the new club.

During that first year, several items did surface, that made the team's survival more risky. One was playing the last three games of their home schedule at Candlestick Park.

At the time, this stadium was designed for baseball only, and only because one of the owners was part of the team that designed it, it was determined it would work, if the Raiders would repair any damaged that were incurred.

Also, it was felt that the new stadium would help increase their attendance, which was moderate to weak as the season went along.

The team averaged about 10,000 fans for the last three games and the team finished at 6-8. After the season, the ownership ranks was trimmed, with Soda leaving, and three of the owners, F. Wayne Valley, Ed McGah and Robert Osborne took over the control for the club.

The team, also in debt, was given a reprieve by Ralph Wilson, another owner in the young league and kept the team afloat. After Osborne was bought out, and another full year of playing in Candlestick Park, F. Wayne Valley threatened to pull the team out of Oakland unless a Stadium could be built within the city.

The City had a solution, Frank Youell Field, which was assembled in short order for the team to play in for the 1962 season. Small by College standards, it would hold 18,000 fans.

But more importantly, it would give the team a small feeling that they would now have a home.

And all of this occurred before a young coach arrived from San Diego, with an interesting plan of spreading the field.

Some guy named Al Davis.