In The Princess Bride, Westley only had to make it through the Fire
Swamp once. But San Jose Mercury reporter Tim Kawakami has to brave
the danger that is the Oakland Raiders’ Alameda headquarters on a
regular basis, and that’s much, much worse. It’s not an easy job, but
it’s never boring. By now you’ve probably seen the video of , which
has become a viral superstar in the few short hours it’s been up
today. Herrera offering to punch Kawakami, and the reporter replying
that he’d “love to own a piece of the franchise” has become the quote
of the month so far.
But what was it actually like to be in the eye of the NFL’s most
dysfunctional hurricane? When will Lane Kiffin actually be fired? And
most importantly, just when does Al Davis arrive for work each day? I
talked with Kawakami about all of this — turns out he lives just
down the feeway from me — and more. Let’s talk silver and black
and blue, after the jump.
Tim Kawakami: Not really. But things are not going well with the
organization. They have a head coach they don’t like, and tensions are
high. (Raiders front office personnel) are thinking about their
loyalty to Al, so tempers are on edge. They can’t yell at Lane Kiffin,
so they yell at me. It’s not surprising. But although I wasn’t
shocked, something of this nature rarely happens. You can never really
be prepared for it.”
I wrote a column describing how a Raiders official distributed printed
copies of an ESPN.com article critical of Kiffin to the press, and the
question I asked Kiffin at the press conference centered around that.
That’s when Herrera interrupted and began yelling. I didn’t mention
Herrera’s name in the article, but I will now. Since he started
yelling in front of five cameras, I guess it”s OK to have it out
there. And he did distribute it. Others blogged about it before I ever
wrote it.
Not at all. You can see in the video that he has this look on his face
that seems to be saying, ‘See? Look everybody, this is what I have to
put up with here every day.’ In fact, Lane called me today to
apologize for what happened. But I told him that I don’t need an
apology, and certainly not from him, who had nothing to do with it.
Not angry at all, and you can see that on the video, I think. It was
like it was in slow motion, like I was in the middle of a hurricane. I
was trying to be calm. The video is out there for everyone to see and
judge for themselves.
Kind of crazy. I have to say that there are certain members of Raiders
Nation who are not happy with me right now. Al Davis loyalists will
support him to the bitter end. And hey, I salute Al. I don’t agree
with a lot of his decisions, but I’ve said before that he’s
accomplished more in his life than I ever will, and that’s a fact. But
a lot of people have written in support of the way I handled myself.
Some Raiders fans have said that they were embarrassed over what
happened.
Al’s still a sharp guy, and he knows football, but the energy level
just isn’t there the way it used to be. Things don’t go at a normal
speed at Raiders headquarters. Al wants to fire him, but at the same
time he has to figure out what to do afterward, and he’s not ready for
that yet. He’s got to hire someone else, and that’s not an easy thing
to do when you don’t get to work before 4:30 p.m. each day.
No one’s ever seen him at the office before then. I KNOW that he’s not
there in the mornings. So he may sit at home and plot his moves until
3 a.m., because he’s a night owl, but at home there’s no one to talk
to about it. Things get done when you’re in the office in the morning
working the phones, and that’s hard to do on Al’s schedule. By the
time he gets in, the day is over.
Al knows football. But he’s also paranoid; he’s into conspiracy
theories about himself. He was that way when he was 40, but even more
so now. And the ability to think around that gets harder as he gets
older, so that effects his judgment. Also, he used to have people
around him who were good at public relations. Guys like Bruce Allen,
who were there during the Gruden years. Allen was a real people person
and could help Al deal with the outside world. But Bruce is gone now.
Al has absolutely no one around him who is good in dealing with
people. It’s just Al in the darkness now.
Do you know the Deng Xiaoping story? That’s the infamous one, I guess.
It was at the press conference announcing the hiring of Kiffin.
Afterwards I was talking to Al, and remarked that I thought it was a
strange hire, given that Kiffin was so young and had no head coaching
experience. Al didn’t like that, and said: ‘I’ll bet you don’t even
know who Deng Xiaoping was.’ I was like, what? What does that have to
do with anything? Al pressed it. ‘Who is Deng Xiaoping?’ So I thought
for a minute, and said, ‘Well, if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t he the
General Secretary of the Chinese government during the Tiananmen
Square massacre?’ And Al repiles, ‘But what can you tell me about him
other than that? See? You don’t even know anything about your own
culture.’ I said, ‘Al, I’m Japanese-American, not Chinese.’ And Al
said, ‘Ohh, geez. I bet you’re going to kill me on that now.’ It all
happened in front of about 20 reporters, so I didn’t have to.
Well, I’ve covered the Philadelphia Eagles with Buddy Ryan, the Los
Angeles Rams with Chuck Knox, the Lakers, the 49ers, the Warriors, but
nothing’s been like this. Covering the Raiders is like covering
boxing. You just never know what’s going to jump out at you. What
happened Monday just illustrates what’s going on there in vivid
fashion. It’s a peek behind the curtain. You never really know what
you’re going to see.
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