The Raiders brass were visiting Minnesota for their team’s game against the Vikings early last season when they noticed the “Legacy Bricks” at U.S. Bank Stadium. The bricks were inside the Vikings’ “Legacy Ship” and featured the names of fans along with historic moments from the franchise’s past.
That inspired the Raiders, who were set to move to Las Vegas in 2020, to explore implementing their own program at Allegiant Stadium soon after the trip. They launched their Legacy Brick program in January, which allowed fans to purchase bricks with their names and customized messages that would be installed at the stadium. The raised funds benefited the Raiders Foundation, which is the charitable branch of the organization that focuses on military support, youth development and pushing football with a focus on Southern Nevada.
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It was a cool way to promote fan engagement while simultaneously supporting a good cause, but owner Mark Davis wanted to take it a step further. He approached team president Marc Badain with an idea.
“He came to us and said, ‘I’d really like to do something for the alumni and have them be a part of this. Could we do a brick for every single one?'” Badain recalled in a phone conversation earlier this month. “It was a great idea, and as soon as he said it the team here sprang into action.”
Alumni relations employees Shannon Jordan, Devon Lewis-Buchanan, Callie Welch and Katie Flath compiled names and addresses from their alumni database and worked to find information for those who weren’t yet in the system. From there, the physical process of creating the bricks began.
As of December, the Raiders have created more than 1,100 bricks for alumni, which were installed at the main entrance of the stadium and replicated so they could be mailed to the alumni’s residences. It’s an ongoing process as the franchise works to track down every single player regardless of how long he spent with the team.
“Whether you were here for 15 years and went to the Hall of Fame or whether you were here for a year, they know that when we say, ‘Once a Raider always a Raider,’ we mean it,” Badain said. “And this was another way of showing it.”
The alumni department works full time to keep the alumni connected with the franchise through various events, provides resources from the Davis family and spreads awareness about benefits available through the league. The efforts resonate deeply with the former players.
“The facts and numbers speak for themselves,” senior advisor Marcel Reece, who played for the Raiders from 2009 to 2015, said earlier this month. “You don’t just look at what people say but look at the fruits of the labor. Our alumni database is second to none. And it’s all due in part to the Raiders always separating themselves from the pack. There’s 31 teams in the NFL, and then there’s the Raiders. And that holds true when it comes to their alumni and the way the organization handles the alumni.”
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The customized bricks are a permanent ode to those alumni and came as a surprise to the vast majority of the players. In fact, some even purchased bricks before receiving their own this summer. Former linebacker Phil Villapiano, who played for the Raiders from 1971 to 1979 and helped them win Super Bowl 11, purchased one with his children. In addition to their names, it read “I was clipped,” in reference to the famous — or infamous — “Immaculate Reception” play by former Steelers running back Franco Harris in the 1972 playoffs.
“A couple months later, the Raiders gave me one, so now I’ve got two bricks there,” Villapiano said last Wednesday, which was ironically the 48-year anniversary of the Immaculate Reception. “I wasn’t gonna miss out on it, and I thought it was a great idea, but to honor the players like this, it’s even better. I’m all in with the Raiders.
“The Raiders never forgot me, so I’m not forgetting the Raiders, that’s for sure.”
Eric Allen was born in November 1965 in San Diego. A 36-year-old Al Davis was in his third and final season coaching the Oakland Raiders. They finished 8-5-1 that year, but Davis left to become commissioner of the AFL in 1966. When the league agreed to a merger with the NFL that summer, Davis came back to the Raiders as part-owner and general manager. In their final four seasons in the AFL, the Raiders went 45-9-2 and won the AFL championship in 1967.
That success carried over into the NFL and led to a Super Bowl win in 1976. By then, Allen had already become a fan. He’d become a Raider himself as an NFL veteran cornerback in 1998 after stints with the Eagles and Saints. He was surprised to find many of the players he grew up rooting for still connected to the franchise.
“And the first thing that kind of popped off and you could see is, Friday and Saturday as we’re going through walkthroughs, there were always players from the older teams around,” Allen said earlier this month. “Willie Brown was on staff, Fred Biletnikoff was on staff, Jim Plunkett was doing media things for them, amongst others. But there was just always a presence around practice. And you really start to appreciate that aspect of this team because that’s not the usual situation.”
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Reece and Allen, who retired with the franchise in 2001 and now works for the Raiders’ in-house broadcast team, are examples of former players still employed by the franchise. The Raiders also did smaller things such as allowing alumni to travel with the team on road games and paying for the team to eat dinner at a nice restaurant after home games that stood apart from the typical experience around the league.
“I wasn’t used to that, so it was very eye-opening,” Hall of Fame cornerback Mike Haynes, who played for the Patriots before joining the Raiders in 1983, said Monday. “And then I started to see why so many players around the league wanted to play for the Raiders. They really were treated differently. Instead of feeling like you’re part of a family, at other places you just felt like you were a player. … But the Raiders seem to carry that a little farther. (Al Davis) was a really important and integral part of the team and was present at a lot of those meetings and talked to guys before and after games. It definitely gave you a sense of pride about being on the Raiders.”
Davis felt strongly about alumni relations and kept that with him as he operated as principal owner and general manager from 1972 until his death in 2011. Badain, who started as an intern for the Raiders in 1991, saw that firsthand.
“Everyone knows all of his famous quotes; he had one that I like, which is ‘We owe a debt,’” Badain said. “And he meant we owe a debt to the players that came before us and the people that built the league into what it is. We shouldn’t forget about them and we need to care for them. That’s something that’s really important to everybody in this building and everybody with the Raiders.”
Davis was able to relate to and understand his players in ways that most owners couldn’t because of his time as a coach and general manager. He realized the daily work that went into being a player and thus regarded them with a higher respect. That wasn’t lost on the players.
“A lot of owners are very smart, wealthy guys, but they’re not as in touch,” Allen said. “With the struggle from the time you are 10, 11 years old and have set your sights on playing in the league and getting there and how hard it is to stay, Al really appreciated that struggle. If you had a certain quality about you, he was able to really bring you into the fold.”
Mark Davis, 65, adopted his father’s ideology toward alumni long before he became the principal owner in 2011. He was around the team all the time and hung out with players often in his youth.
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“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Villapiano said. “Al’s father loved the players that played for him and sweated for him and bled for him and got hurt for him and won a lot of championships for him. He loved the players, and Mark just picked up the baton. Mark grew up in this. As Mark is a few years younger than me, he was with me all the time way back when we were in training camp and when we were out and about and around in Oakland. He’s a great guy and he learned it from his father. It’s consistent right from the top down.”
Mark did such a good job of connecting with the players, in fact, that Al thought he needed to scale it back some.
“It’s funny, if you talk to Mark and ask him about alumni, he’ll usually tell you the story that the one reservation his dad had for him was he always thought he was just a little too close to players,” Reece said. “But that’s just the heart that he has. That’s the love that he has. And it shows in every single thing that he does.”
Mark Davis, left, and Marc Badain (Kirby Lee / USA Today)For six years, the Raiders held an alumni weekend during training camp in Napa, Calif. The weekend includes lighthearted events but also informational sessions with league personnel focused on more serious topics such as medical benefits.
That wasn’t possible this year, along with other in-person events, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Raiders have pivoted to virtual events and recently held Zoom celebrations with alumni by the decade they played in. The alumni department has also reached out to alumni more frequently throughout this year to make sure former players are holding up mentally, physically and monetarily. All of that is a direct result of the trend that Al Davis started and his son continued.
“It’s really quite surprising to me when I talk to players from other teams that don’t have that,” Haynes said. “The Raiders are still very unique in having special relationships with their former players. … I think it makes you feel like you’re part of a family. If something were really to happen and I really needed some support and help, I wouldn’t even think twice about contacting the Raiders when Al was alive and even now with Mark.”
The Legacy Brick program is a physical manifestation of the Raiders’ familial relationship with their alumni. The Raiders haven’t allowed fans to attend games this year, so the majority of their fans and alumni haven’t seen the bricks at the stadium in person. That’ll have to wait for future years to come, but the program has made an impact, nonetheless.
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Many former Raiders players knew the franchise valued them from their playing experiences. Still, many of them were pleasantly surprised to receive the bricks and find out they were enshrined forever at Allegiant Stadium.
“It is just phenomenal to understand and know that you’re gonna be a part of history,” Reece said. “It’s an awesome feeling. It’s easy for me to sit up here and say it because I’m still involved in the organization and I’m still in the organization, but what’s really cool and special to me is when I get calls from guys that I played with. Younger guys than me that came underneath me and guys who were above me and over me. When they get their brick in the mail and I get a call from them and they express how special it is to them to receive the brick as a Raider alum, that’s what’s really cool.”
On the field, the Raiders have historically been known for their relentless pursuit of victory by any means necessary, toughness and physicality. Off the field, they’ve made it a goal to bridge the gap between football and real life. In Oakland, Los Angeles and now Las Vegas, they’ve created a place where alumni and their families feel welcomed and feel like they’re still a part of the franchise. That allows them to continue to influence the current players on the roster and help foster the mutually beneficial relationship between alumni and the team.
“These are the guys that built this organization,” Badain said. “They’re the guys that made the Raiders the Raiders. And then the future players will be like that, too. That should show you what this organization really cares about. It cares about its players, both when they’re on the field for us and then when they’re no longer playing for us. There’s an entity and an organization and a family that cares about them. This is the Raider family, and these people are very important members, if not the most important members of the family.
“You take care of your family.”
(Photo of Eric Allen brick: Michael Clemens / Las Vegas Raiders)
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