Diversity is nothing new to the Raiders. Literally since the inception of the franchise in the American Football League in 1960, it’s been woven into their fabric.
The Raiders quarterback that inaugural season was Tom Flores, the first Latino starting quarterback in professional football. In 1968, the Raiders made Eldridge Dickey the first Black quarterback to be drafted in the first round (though they immediately moved him to wide receiver). Twenty years after Flores broke a barrier as a player, he became the first head coach of color to win a Super Bowl when he led the Raiders to a win over the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XV.
Flores was succeeded by Mike Shanahan in 1988. Just four games into Shanahan’s second season, he was fired and replaced on an interim basis by Art Shell. A Hall of Fame player with the Raiders from 1968 to 1982, Shell went 7-5 and was promoted ahead of the 1990 season, making him the first full-time Black head coach in NFL history.
But the Raiders’ willingness to blaze trails hasn’t been limited to football operations. In 1997, they hired Amy Trask as the NFL’s first female CEO. And in 2022, the franchise hired Sandra Douglass Morgan as the first Black woman team president in league history. When Antonio Pierce and Champ Kelly were…
