Ben Davidson

By Allyson Turner

Ben Davidson (AP)

At 6-feet-8, 275 pounds, with the trademark handlebar mustache and the nickname 'Gentle Ben', Ben Davidson evokes great memories in people who had the pleasure of knowing him and watching him play. Growing up a tall, clumsy kid, Ben played basketball and ran track in high school. After graduating early at the age of 16, he played football at East Los Angeles Junior College and the University of Washington. The New York Giants selected Ben in the fourth round of the 1961 draft but traded him to the Green Bay Packers after three pre-season games. After winning a championship with the Packers in his only season with the club, Davidson was traded to the Washington Redskins where he played for two years before arriving in Oakland.

Davidson, now 58, played right defensive end for the Raiders from 1964-71. He missed the 1972 season after injuring an Achilles tendon, and spent the 1973 season on the Raiders' taxi squad. Davidson finished his football career in 1974 with the World Football League's Portland Storm. He was a member of the famous "Eleven Angry Men" defense that set a pro football single-season record with 67 sacks in 1967. A fierce competitor, his presence was always felt on the field. Throughout his career and to this day, he has been active in the community by participating in a variety of charities. After football, Davidson appeared in several feature films, including Necessary Roughness, Conan the Barbarian and M*A*S*H. He also made several guest appearances on TV shows, including The Dukes of Hazzard, CHiPs and Happy Days.

Preston Ridlehuber, a former teammate of yours in Oakland, recently told this story:

Preston Ridlehuber: The thing that I'll always remember about Ben, he carried a nickname Gentle Ben. I remember one night we played an exhibition game in Birmingham, Ala. It was a night game and when we got back to Oakland, it was very late. It was training camp and we didn't expect anyone to be there. I'll never forget, it must've been 2:30 in the morning and there were kids galore. When we got off the plane, the players signed autographs but kept walking. I got in the car with the other players and turned around. There was his silhouette, this imposing figure, surrounded by 100 little boys and girls. I know he signed every autograph. That was Ben Davidson.

Davidson:
I figured if they wanted to miss sleep to get my autograph, the least I could do is sign them. Maybe the players had a different attitude back in those days. In the old AFL, we were the Avis of football; we were second place and we had to try harder. We had to put on a show. We were competing against the mighty NFL and I kind of enjoyed that. I thought it gave a little humility to all the players. It wasn't all guaranteed and if you didn't put on a show, they weren't going to come out next week.

Recently you said, 'Players today aren't hungry like we were.'
I think it's a by-product of high contracts. I've always likened it to these guys are making CEO salaries. They're big time. They're making big money and there is one minor difference: they're not able to tell someone else in a blue denim shirt to go do the job. They've got to go do it themselves. No one does it better than guys like Steve Young. He's a lawyer, successful and still has that hunger. Still hustles and still works hard. There are a few guys that do it, but if you don't have great strength of character, then it's pretty hard to continue that over the years.

Back then, guys played for the love of the game.
We sure weren't making a whole lot of money doing it so there had to be some other incentive there. Invariably I will run into someone in Oakland who will say, 'Hey, you used to go get my car at the race track.' There were probably 10 of us from the Raiders who worked at Golden Gate Fields Race Track in valet parking. Could you imagine having a professional football player run and get your car for you and if you were nice you gave 'em a dollar?

We played basketball in charity games during the off-season and we'd make usually $50 apiece. I did (construction) work for the company that built the Oakland Coliseum. I worked on a big pipeline job and I had to prove myself with the construction workers because they thought I was going to be a guy to stand around and take my paycheck. So the first day, they put me with their best worker, Julio Flores. Julio was gonna try to run me into the ground so I just kept up with him. He was a pretty small guy but tough and a good worker. One night we ended up drinking tequila. And you know it's just a basic fact of life if you've got another 100 (pounds) or so of body weight over someone you can certainly put more tequila in your body than the little guy. I drank him under the table. In fact he didn't show up for work the next day. That made me with the construction workers.

What was your top salary when you played football?
$43,000. For quite a few years I made more outside of football. If I could keep my name in the paper and keep saying enough weird things in interviews after the game, I could capitalize on that and supplement my meager football earnings and it worked out good.

You did some acting after football. How was that?
That was a fun thing. I guess I'm too old and too skinny now. I'm hoping maybe to be a character face. It would be a weird character, a guy 6-foot-8. I only weigh about 230 (now), so I don't get those parts. It's like dressing up and going to a Halloween party. You get to dress up and be someone else. Say someone else's words and I've always liked that.

Probably one of my favorite jobs was one called Busting Loose and I had a scene with Adam Arkin, who has gone on to big things. Somehow we got into a disagreement and we decided to settle it in a boxing ring. I hit him a couple of times and he kept bouncing up. I hit him again and I knocked him down and said, 'You know, you're all right kid.' And it was in front of a studio audience and the people in the audience gasped and broke into applause. I got scared, was it something I said that brought that reaction? That was a weird moment when I had that much control over the people watching me. I've done thousands of speaking engagements and it's kind of fun to study the audience while you're doing your thing. You get to see different people react differently to the same thing.

Actor Adam Arkin from Chicago Hope: Ben was incredibly game, and the audience loved him. It was interesting to see such a feared warrior on the football field have to rise to the occasion and do comedy in front of an audience. He did a great job. And he's a big guy.

Did you know that Behind the Green Door was an X-rated movie?
Yes. It was two brothers, the Mitchell Brothers, and they called me once and said, 'Hey Ben we need a big grizzled guy. He's a mountain man and he grows marijuana.' I said, 'No, no. I don't want to touch that with a 10-foot pole.' Then, a year later they called and said, 'Hey do you want to be a security guard in a tuxedo in a movie?' So I said, 'You know what, that'll be good for laughs.' So I went and it took about two hours and I put on my tuxedo. Did the deal and got paid. I had one stipulation in the contract that they were not to use my name advertising the movie. Several people sent me ads from around the country, especially Kansas City, and my name was in the ad. But I never pursued it. And the NFL took it in good humor. Otis Sistrunk was in two more of their productions. It got to be kind of a "Raider thing."

Hall of Fame cornerback Herb Adderley: I remember Ben being traded from the Packers to the Redskins because Vince Lombardi looked at him as a timid, big guy who didn't really have the heart for the size of the man he was. Ben knew that was why Lombardi got rid of him and I think that was the best thing that happened to him. Once he got traded he got better and he got credit for being one of the best defensive players and if you don't believe me ask Joe Namath. He deserves Hall of Fame consideration. I hope someday that he gets enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and he would be one of the few guys to prove Lombardi wrong.