Paul Bunyan and Daniel Boone Were Some Great Fairy Tales

But

So was "Big" Ben Davidson In Silver & Black Who Was No Fairy Tale

"To win games over and over as we did wasn’t as sound as being a bunch of renegades and screw-ups, it’s sound of guys that paid attention to business and worked hard."-Ben Davidson

By Larry Garcia a.k.a. RDL

This is an interview and story of a legend that most of us remember who would show up on the tube or in a fairy tale story? Was it a fairy tale for some of us fans who were to young to remember? Tall as the forest and the kind of song Paul Bunion would dance and step stone his way through swinging thunderous blows through a crowded and congested forest that would rumble and shake the ground as they fall.  No, not Daniel Boone or Paul Bunyan  who's song had such lyrics as "Was a Big Man". But a true story of a true legend by the name of "Big" Ben Davidson #83 who had the throw back curled handle bar mustache who stood tall at 6'8 and 270 lbs of a mad bull that would tower over his opponents with a charge of swinging blows surging his way at the matador running for his life with a pigskin in hand.

Ben Davidson attended East La Junior College for 3 semesters; transferred to University of Washington for 2 ½ years, finished up his 2 years playing football and majored in Geography.

"Big Ben Davidson has a world map on his wall and just left Turkey last month.  “I’m a millionaire now, I’m walking around with a million Turkish leers in my money clip.  The Turkish leer is now I million, three hundred thousand to the dollar and here in the states it’s worth 89 cents”, said Ben. (Laughing)." 

The Draft

"Back then there weren’t that many draft rounds, there were about 20 teams in all. I wasn’t a starter at Washington State; I was a back up guy.  Back then was one platoon; one group of guys would play offense and defense.  They would play for 7, 8 or 9 minutes and then the second string would go in and finish out the quarter and then the 1^st group would go back in.  When I got the morning newspaper in Seattle and started looking at the list of draft choices.  I started at number 20 and worked my way up, 19,18, and 17 and got to 10 and I still wasn’t drafted! So I told myself “Man this is terrible, now I have to go out and get a job, I wonder what I can do?”  But I kept plugging away and there I was a 4^th round draft choice University of Washington drafted by the New York Giants!”

I was Traded But I Got The Last Laugh

"I wasn’t a very good player back then and I only lasted three weeks with the New York Giants.  The Giants ended up trading me for a 5^th round draft choice to the Green Bay Packers and that’s where I spent the rest of my 1961 rookie year with the Packers who won the division of the Western Division Championships in the NFL and the New York Giants won the Eastern Division Championship in the NFL. The good thing about that was that I got both my pictures in both game daybooks for both teams and the last laugh at Alex Sherman who was the coach for the Giants."

Becoming A Misfit & Raider Material

"I was released by the Green Bay Packers and ended up going to the Washington Redskins for two years.  And that’s where I got to be a misfit, and that was my only two losing seasons as a football player.  With the Redskins I wasn’t very well coached, I wasn’t with a very well team and I got fired for being over weight!  Guess how much I weighed?  I was 6’8 and weighed 268 pounds and they told me not to weigh more that, well, I came in one day at 270 and got fired.  So a misfit I was and to fat to play for the Skins at 270 lbs." 

"I was in training camp back in 1964 in Carolina at Dickerson University training camp.  We stayed in a dorm and there’s a payphone in the hall way, I’m staying on the second floor, the payphone rings, someone answers it and yells, “Ben it’s for you!”  So I go down and answer it and it’s Ron Wolf!  Now, in Oakland California how do you find the telephone number to where I’m at in Pennsylvania?  And it turns out that Ron Wolf and the Raiders have it and Ron Wolf tells me that they would like for me to come down to play for them.  I told them, “It’s a deal!”

"I went off to Oakland and my first night in training camp with the Raiders they put me in a hide-bed, a folding bed!  Now those beds are not much more than six feet long and I was 6’8!  Do I have my feet hang over or do I have my head hang over?  And finally I threw the mattress on the floor and got a nights sleep. Now, I’ve been playing in the NFL in some nice stadiums like D.C. Stadium, which later became RFK Stadium and all of a sudden here I am at Frank Youell!  It was like a high school stadium that seated something like 18,000 people and you had to walk through the crowd to get there.  The fans were so close that you had to be careful when running out of bounds because you might run over or into some of the fans.  I told my self what did I get myself into here, 6-foot long beds and an18,000 seated stadium, but it all worked out in the end.  Al Davis was the coach; I got to play for Al and had a great time!  We won a lot of games through those years together!

I Hope I Contributed

"I think that the three best consecutive years the Raiders ever had where 1967, 68 and 69.  Through those three years of regular season games we lost four games.  We lost one game in 1967, we got twice as bad in 1968, we lost two games and then we got back on track in 1969 by losing one game and tying one.  There were pretty good teams back in those days and I would like to think I contributed."

Ben's Wars In Trenches Of Champions

“I played In Super Bowl II following the 1967 season. Unfortunately that was our second loss that year against the Green Bay Packers. The following year the New York Jets who represented the AFL beat us, and then Joe Namath and company (New York Jets) went on to beat Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts of the NFL at that time.  The following year the Kansas City Chiefs beat us in the AFL Championship Game and went on to play in Super Bowl IV and beat the Minnesota Vikings for their 1^st loss.  But the team that beat us won the Super Bowl, so we were a pretty good team back in those days.”

John Madden Was A Great Coach, But Ron Wolf Was A Work Force

"John Madden was a very in tensed coach and way ahead of his time.  He had great organization abilities, very thorough and recruited a great bunch of guys.  But I really thought Ron Wolf had a lot to do with the early success of the Raiders.  I thought Ron Wolf was a great personnel guy and of course to go to the Super Bowl with two different teams as he did was a pretty good accomplishment.  He went on to be the head personnel guy for the Green Bay Packers and helped put together those great Green Bay Packer teams a couple years back for his second Super Bowl with Favre and company and using the Raiders as his first."

Our Ethics and Reputation As A Team

“We worked hard in practice and played hard, we were well prepared and we had a reputation as being a bunch of thugs and convicts but we were actually a pretty good bunch of guys.  Back then with the Raiders there wasn’t a whole lot of pressure.  I remember coming out of the locker room for the kickoffs and we had the attitudes of “well, here’s another win, I don’t know how we’re going to win but we’re going to win.”  Year after year we had great success by just playing hard for 60 minutes and at the end things would work out and mostly go our way.  I remember that Heidi game when we scored those TD’s in 11 seconds and came from behind to win that baby!  We were so scary to gamblers that they didn’t know how to bet on us and or what to think of us, because they didn’t know how we were going to play.  Sometimes we’d play lousy and then come back and pull plenty of games out at the end."

"To win games over and over as we did wasn’t as sound as being a bunch of renegades and screw-ups, it’s sound of guys that paid attention to business and worked hard.  You don’t just keep coming out of the 4^th quarter in better condition than other teams to win; that’s part of the deal, it’s like a heavy weight fight, you beat on each other for 11 rounds and the guy that’s in better condition and tougher in that last round is going to get it.  We would be down for 31/2 quarters and surge back to victory over our opponents at the end."

George Blanda: The 4^th Quarter Miracle Worker

“When it came to George Blanda you never worried that pressure was going to get him and be his enemy, because he was going to go out there and get them.  When he’d go out there under those must produce to win with seconds on the clock conditions you’d just have confidence in him.  Because he’s been there before, he’s a warrior, he’s a veteran that’s done this over and over again with confidence and did whatever it took to win it."

"I remember one game in 1969 in Kansas City against the Chiefs at the end of the game he completed a long field goal to win the game.  Blanda wasn’t the type that had that long distance reputation, but was good enough to just somehow make the points to win. That's why we called him the "Miracle Worker", whether it be at the Field Goal or QB he'd win it.  The poor guy was always put in those must win situations, always and he never complained once about it. I remember one game the Chiefs had a guy by the name of Morris Straut, he was 6’11, they put him in front of the goal post to block it. When Blanda kicked the ball it wasn’t that high but just barely sailed over Morris' out stretched finger tips through the uprights. Somehow Blanda did what he had to do to win that game and did it repeatedly.”

Mad Bomber and the “Snake”

• Here’s a great Trivia for you Raider fans, who and what was the name of the team that “Snake” played for in semi-pro? 

• It was the “Spokane Shockers”.  Yes, the “Spokane Shockers” and that’s a local name there that has to do with wheat. 

I was with the Raiders before Daryle Lamonica got there and I played through his whole career with the Raiders.  But let me tell you something about Kenny Stabler that a whole lot of people don’t know.  When Kenny Stabler found out that he wasn’t going to be the starter because of a bad knee that the Raiders weren't to sure of he got mad and went to Alabama and ended up playing semi-pro football in Spokane Washington." 

"In the Eastern edge of  Spokane Washington  is a great wheat growing area there, the wheat of fields and the shock of wheat was used a lot over there as a term for wheat growing and that’s how the semi-pro’s came up with that name."

"Till this day people come and grab me by the shirt and say, “Ben, Ben, you know Ken Stabler played here? And I tell them, OK, OK, leave me alone!" (LOL)

My Hanging Buddies

I used to hang out with a bunch of great defensive guys back then like Carlton Oats, Dan Birdwell, Ike Lasiter and Tom Keaton who became great friends with me.  We (Tom Keaton) used to go on some great motorcycle rides together and still do.  We would go 60, 70, 80 thousand miles together.  We’ve rode together as far as Panama, Mexico more than once, British Honduras, Yucatan, Guatemala, and even took a trip around the USA together that was a 4-month trip and 14 thousand miles.  We did that for Kawasaki who sponsored us for that.  

What’s  "Big" Ben Up To Now?

Ben Davidson is owner and manager of a pretty good size apartment complex in Southern California and loves to spend his time traveling around the globe with his wife.  Ben and his wife have been to several parts of the large geographical areas of Africa, which is one of their favorite places to visit.  One of the only few places that Ben and his wife haven’t given a visit to but almost did was Ivory Coast because they found 50 bodies in the field and decided that wasn’t a good idea and the Cruz ship they were on decided not to stop, "but maybe sometime in the future," said Ben.

Sometimes Jim Otto puts a player reunion together and that’s when Ben gets to visit and reminisce with some of his buddies from the past.  Look around the parking lot comes game day or at the Raider Drive Booster Club tailgate site off of 66^th street near the creek on you’re right as you enter the gate.  Ben Davidson stops by along with other former Raider greats to eat some of our BBQ that’s at least a 3-4-table spread.  They like to stop by and eat the ribs that are cooked with a pitchfork over a flame of mesquite.

A Special Thanks To Ben Davidson and the Raider Organization for making this interview possible.