Raiders Training Camp, Then and Now

The Las Vegas Raiders have a state-of-the-art facility for training camp these days in Sin City, which many people believe is the best in the National Football League, but that has not always been the case.

60 years ago, the Silver and Black threw together a makeshift facility for training camp.

The Raiders, after their founding in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League, held their first three training camps at Santa Cruz High School and stayed in a motel in a town that is best known for its amusement park on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

“We had a lot of guys out there,” said Pro Football Hall of Fame center Jim Otto, known as “The Original Raider.” “… It was, to a certain degree, a rag-tag bunch. But we had some pretty good guys. We all helped put that team together and were kicking butt.”

Quarterback Tom Flores, who years later coached the Raiders to two Super Bowl victories: “Santa Cruz, 1960. That was a long time ago. I’m sure the statute of limitations has expired, so I can talk to you.

“I don’t remember too many fans. Nobody knew who we were, nor did we or they care. We’d tell them: ‘Do you know where Oakland is? … OK, do you know where San Francisco is? Well, we’re right across the bridge.'

“Some of us were just out of college, some were out of the NFL, and some were out of Canada. “There were football players of all ages. The love of football, we all had that in common.”

Flores has seen the Raiders’ facility in Las Vegas, and he said: “Oh man, their workout facility is friggin’ breathtaking.”

In 1963, the Raiders hired San Diego Chargers assistant coach Al Davis as coach and general manager, and one day he was driving north on Highway 101 when he came across the El Rancho Tropicana Hotel in Santa Rosa, about 60 miles from Oakland.

Davis stopped and looked at the open area behind the hotel and decided to create several practice fields on the grounds, and the Raiders held training camp there until the team moved to Los Angles in 1982.

“ The El Rancho was not a luxury motel,” recalled John Rauch Jr., son of Raiders assistant coach John Rauch recalled. “It was like a kind of Western motif, and they had three wings back in the back of the hotel.

“Two of those wings are where the Raiders stayed and they built a practice facility out behind the hotel. ... Probably had three football fields available to them and they built a locker room – not the greatest, but it was doable.”

John Madden later became a Hall of Fame coach with the Raiders: “When we trained in Santa Rosa, they had a horse show up there, where they would show horses, and they had these kids that would take their horses and show them. They would keep them at the motel and then take them out of the things they carried them in.

“And so, (linebacker)Ted [Hendricks] got this one kid to let him ride the horse onto the practice field one day.”

This is where Hall of Fame tackle Bob Brown walked the length of the practice field on his first day of training camp with the Raiders, got into a three-point stance, fired out, and broke one of the wooden standards of the goalpost before slowing walking back to the locker room.

Brown also could be seen often in the same area shooting wild birds.

"You knew when the Raiders were in town," said former Raiders linebacker Jerry Robinson, who grew up in Santa Rosa. "And even if you didn't look in the newspaper to find out whenever they came, you knew they were in town because the city was so excited. People were happy because they knew they'd practice at the El Rancho Tropicana.

“{As] a little kid watching Otis Sistrunk, the Snake [Ken Stabler], the Mad Bomber [Daryle Lamonica], [John] Matuszak, [Jack] Tatum and the Mad Stork [Ted Hendricks], running around the town of Santa Rosa, man, to know that I'm part of their history, too. They were all in this together. It's just one of the greatest feelings in the world.”

Said linebacker Phil Villapiano: “Every year, when I was packing for training camp, I would tell my wife how much I hated it,” linebacker Phil Villapiano said. “But actually I loved it, because we had to much fun, and I just couldn’t wait to get there.”

After the afternoon practice, the Raiders would go next door to The Bamboo Room “to replenish our fluids” and play air hockey and several pinball machines before returning to the El Rancho for dinner.

It’s not nearly the same, but hopefully, Las Vegas also is happy the Raiders are there.

The Silver and Black open the preseason by hosting the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Aug. 13, at 4 p.m. EDT/1 p.m. PDT.

Please tell us your thoughts when you like our Facebook Page WHEN YOU CLICK RIGHT HERE.