Al Davis - Early Life

Early Life

Allen Davis was born in Brockton, Massachusetts on July 4, 1929 to a Jewish family. Louis Davis, his father, worked in a variety of trades in Massachusetts; having found some success in the garment manufacturing field, he moved to Brooklyn in 1934 with his wife Rose and two sons Jerry (born in 1925) and Allen. Louis Davis rented a sixth-floor walkup for his family off Utica Avenue, became very successful in the garment trade, and put his two sons through college before seeking a more comfortable dwelling in Brooklyn's Atlantic Beach area. Although there are a number of stories extant of Louis Davis backing his younger son in anything so long as the boy did not get caught or back down from a confrontation, most of these stories derive from Al Davis. Childhood friends depicted him as more of a talker than a fighter, though very good with his mouth. Young Al's sport of choice was basketball, and he gained a reputation of a hard player, if not the most skillful. As a boy, he was determined to play for Coach Al Badain at Erasmus Hall High School, passing up the opportunity to attend school closer to his house. Although he was only a reserve on the Erasmus team, and did not play much, Davis studied Badain's coaching techniques, and felt he learned much from him—in the 1980s, with Badain ill and in need, he brought the elderly former coach to the West Coast to witness Davis's Raiders in the Super Bowl, and paid the man's debts.

Despite Davis's slight role on his high school team, Raiders media guides later published descriptions of Davis which depicted him as a schoolboy star, only to have the claims scaled back—slightly—in future editions after reporters investigated the matter. His lack of football playing experience (he did play football for his high school fraternity) made him one of the few to be a head coach in the NFL or AFL despite never having played even for the high-school varsity.

Davis graduated from high school in January 1947, immediately enrolling at Wittenberg College in rural Ohio. The school had recruited Davis, though it did not extend him a scholarship. He spent a semester there, occupying himself with baseball and plans to transfer to a higher-profile school. In mid-1947, he transferred to Syracuse University. Although Davis repeatedly tried out for the various varsity teams, the height of his athletic career at Syracuse was warming the bench for the junior varsity baseball team. Frustrated by this, he briefly transferred to Hartwick College, also in New York State, in 1948, but soon returned to Syracuse. Despite Davis' lack of athletic success, he commonly mingled with varsity athletes, many of whom assumed he was also one but on another team. Unsuccessful in his efforts to join the men's basketball team, Davis became interested in football strategy, and haunted the football team's practices until asked to leave by the head coach, suspicious of Davis for taking notes. Davis also took the academic courses in football strategy given by the assistant coaches, and ordinarily attended only by players.