C1 SPORTS Sunday, August 16, 2020 >> MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/SCSENTINEL AND TWITTER.COM/SCSENTINEL » santacruzsentinel.com Santa Cruz Sentinel - 08/16/2020 Page : C01 SUPRO FOOTBALL RFCITYRAIDERS SIXTY YEARS AGO, THE FIRST-YEAR OAKLAND RAIDERS TRAINED IN SANTA CRUZ RAIDERS ARCHIVES — ALBERT KAYO HARRIS AND ASSOCIATES PHOTOGRAPHERS The Raiders’ first day of training camp practice at Santa Cruz High in 1960, the franchise’s inaugural season in the AFL. Raiders met for practice at Santa Cruz High “We had no Santa Cruz High. money, so we By Jim Seimas “We had a lot of guys out there,”
[email protected] hung around said Pro Football Hall of Fame Six decades ago this summer a lineman Jim Otto, now 82. “… it the hotel or the group of misfits from all parts of was, to a certain degree, a rag-tag Boardwalk. the country assembled in town, bunch. But we had some pretty We’d look at the a vacation destination in North- good guys. We all helped put that pretty girls on ern California, in an attempt to team together and were kicking achieve football glory. butt.” the beach, which Some players were All-Amer- They stayed in a historic, but is what most icans who went unselected in now-defunct, middle-rate hotel guys do with no the inaugural American Football off Pacific Avenue. It was a hop, League draft earlier that year. skip and jump away from Memo- money in their Others didn’t stick in the heralded rial Field, their practice facility, pocket.” National Football League. Some which was dotted by gopher holes — Oakland Raiders were local standouts attempting and ruts.