The Raiders were a charter member of the AFL in 1960. They entered that league as a desperation move.
The AFL already had its eight teams set to begin its inaugural season. However, on the eve of the first AFL draft, the Minneapolis group was awarded an NFL expansion and subsequently bolted the infant league. Obviously, the NFL’s intentions were to squelch the new league.
An eighth team was in order with Minneapolis’ deflection and would take two months to find a replacement owner group. Meanwhile, Los Angeles owner Barron Hilton wanted to drop out of the AFL unless the league gave his team a natural coastal rival.
Oakland businessman Chet Soda was head of a group that purchased the final franchise. The team was first dubbed the “Señors” in April of 1960 via a "name-the-team" contest held by the local paper. What was odd about the nickname was that Soda was known for calling everyone he met señor. The public hated the name, and several weeks later, the nickname was dropped for the supposedly runner-up choice the "Raiders."
Things were not rosy for the Raiders in that first season. For one, the team was forced to play its home games across the Bay in San Francisco and averaged a mere 9,611 fans per contest. The situation was so rocky that in 1961, the team was loaned $400,000 from Bills’ owner Ralph Wilson in order to stay afloat.
The AFL merged with the NFL in 1970 and the Raiders were placed in the American Football Conference (AFC) along with their other AFL brethren.
Back in 1967 when the merger’s negotiations first emerged, the NFL wanted to kill off the franchise in order to eliminate regional competition with the 49ers. It was discovered that when the merger proposal went before congress for approval, any club that folded or moved would only cause every legislator in the state to rise up in opposition to the merger as a whole. After that revelation, the Raiders were safe.
The team later moved to Los Angeles in 1982 and became the "Los Angeles Raiders'
and then back to Oakland in 1995. The franchise has won one AFL title and three NFL crowns, each of which a Super Bowl.
Original owner Al Davis was on the coaching staff from 1963 to 1966 and was named the AFL's Coach of the Year in 1963. He passed away in 2011 and the team was inherited by Al's son Mark.
The Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas saw the Oakland Raiders, an American football club in the National Football League (NFL), move from their longtime home of Oakland, California, to the Las Vegas, Nevada, metropolitan area. The renamed Las Vegas Raiders play home games at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada, which was substantially completed on July 31, 2020.
The Raiders' move followed years of failed efforts by team owner Mark Davis to renovate or replace the Oakland Coliseum, which had been consistently rated as one of the worst stadiums in the NFL. NFL team owners approved the move, 31–1, at their annual league meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 27, 2017.
Origin Facts:
Established: 1960
Original Owner: Chet Soda
Original Colors: Black & silver
First Stadium: Kezar Stadium, seating 59,942
Retired Jerseys: none
What do you get when you take a bunch of your favorite Southern foods and serve 'em all together? You get an All-in-One Southern Dinner of course! This Southern-inspired dinner recipe has it all - cornbread, chicken, mixed veggies, and gravy!
- 1 (16-ounce) cornbread or cornbread muffins
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
- 1 pound frozen breaded chicken tenderloins, baked according to package directions
- 3 cups frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
- 1 (24-ounce) jar chicken gravy
- Preheat oven to 350º. Coat a 9- x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
- In a food processor, pulse cornbread into fine crumbs. Place crumbs in a large bowl; add butter and mix well. Reserve 2 tablespoons crumbs. Press remaining crumbs into baking dish to form crust. Bake 10 minutes.
- Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces and place in a large bowl. Add vegetables and gravy to chicken; mix well. Pour over crust; sprinkle with reserved crumbs.
- Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly.
National Leif Erikson Day is observed annually on October 9th. The day honors the Norwegian-born Leif Erikson. The Norse explorer earns credit for bringing the first Europeans known to have set foot in North America. Leif Erikson left the European continent in 999 and landed in North America around the year 1,000.
NATIONAL LEIF ERIKSON DAY HISTORY
In 1925, at the Norse-American Centennial, President Calvin Coolidge gave recognition to Leif Erikson as the discoverer of America due to research by Norwegian-American scholars such as Knut Geirset and Ludvig-Hektoen.
United States Representative John Blatnik from Duluth introduced a bill in 1963 to observe Leif Erikson Day nationwide. On September 2, 1964, the United States Congress passed Joint Resolution 88-566, authorizing the President to proclaim October 9 as Leif Erikson Day. President Lyndon B. Johnson and each President since have done so. In the proclamations, the Presidents have praised the contributions of Americans of Nordic descent generally and the spirit of discovery.
Some states officially commemorate Leif Erikson Day in addition to the federal observance. This occurs particularly in the Upper Midwest, where there are large numbers of people from the Nordic countries settled.
On October 9, 1825, a sloop named, Restauration, with 52 Norwegian Quakers on board, landed in New York Harbor, beginning what would become the first organized immigration from Norway to the United States. In commemoration of their journey and their exploring ancestor, Congress selected October 9 for National Leif Erikson Day.
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