Art Shell had plenty of success during his first tenure. (Getty Images)
Art Shell had plenty of success during his first tenure. (Getty Images)

As is usually the case for the Raiders every year or two, they're either thinking about firing their coach or have just done so. Dennis Allen is out as of this week, Tony Sparano is in on an interim basis, Jon Gruden says he's not interested, and we'll get to speculate for the next several months about the next coach to try to turn around an organization that seems hopeless.

It's hard to remember now, but the Raiders were once one of the league's dominant squads, and though we tend to remember Al Davis as the eccentric owner who used overhead projectors and who was addicted to firing coaches, he was once a fantastic coach and owner who led his team to Super Bowls (three championships and two runner-ups).

And he wasn't afraid to be different. He was the commissioner of the American Football League, which very well could have taken over the NFL before both sides compromised and merged (Davis did want to destroy the NFL). He moved his teams to different cities against the league's wishes, and 25 years ago, he became a trend-setter, hiring Art Shell to become Los Angeles' coach.

Shell was a Hall of Fame offensive lineman, but when Davis shook his hand and signed his contract, Shell also became the first African-American to coach an NFL squad in the modern era (the last to do so before him was Fritz Pollard for the Akron Pros in 1921).

Much like Sparano, Shell was tapped by Davis to take over only four games into the season after the Raiders started 1-3 and fired coach Mike Shanahan. Shell, also much like Sparano,was the team's offensive line coach, and he was considered a favorite of Davis, perhaps because Shell had been a Raiders assistant since 1983.

"It is a historic event and I understand the significance of it," Shell said upon his promotion, via the L.A. Times. "But the main thing is, I know who I am and I'm proud of it ... But I'm also a Raider and I don't believe the color of my skin entered into this decision. ... If you know Al Davis and you know this organization, you'll understand that."

That's probably true. Because as we know, all Davis cared about was just winning (baby). In fact, after Los Angeles lost all four exhibition games in 1989, Shanahan -- who was entering his second season -- was almost fired by Davis before the start of the regular season. Team officials were whispering that Shanahan was too young and too overwhelmed to handle a team trying to get back to the playoffs for the first time in four seasons.

But like the Raiders of today, some observers felt that the team's fate was sealed no matter who was coaching. They were going to be bad, and they were going to lose.

Wrote the L.A. Times' Bob Oates the day after Shell was hired:

As the first black man to coach an NFL team since the 1920s, Shell is taking over at the wrong time and place. If he is the league's greatest coach since Vince Lombardi, he has a chance. If he isn't, he will find it very tough going on a team that is pushing its many problems off onto him.

Indeed, the Raiders are being unfair to this particular man, who is a nice guy and a knowledgeable coach. They are asking him to correct their mistakes.

If he can, he should be the next commissioner. Or at least the next owner.

Funny thing. Shell turned around the team, which went 6-0 at home the rest of the season and finished the year with an 8-8 record. Shell didn't perform miracles, but he pulled a respectable season out of a team that seemed on the verge of imploding a quarter of the way into the year.

The next year was poised to be a big one.

"This team has the makings of being an outstanding football team," Shell said. "I expect to make the playoffs, yes."

And they did, going 12-4 in 1990 and advancing to the AFC Championship. They did it again the next year, going 9-7, and they did it a third time in 1993 with a 10-6 record. A year later, after yet another winning record, Shell became the first African-American coach in the modern era to be fired. Perhaps as was to be expected, the Raiders didn't have a winning season for the next five years.

The team would go through five coaches during the next 11 seasons (only Jon Gruden had any semblance of success) before hiring Shell again. After a 2-14 season in 2006, the lone year of his second tenure, Davis fired Shell for a second time.

The two never spoke again.

"You know, I'm a Raider. Die-hard Raider." Shell told silverandblackpride.com in 2012. "I could not have gotten to where I got without [Davis] because he gave me an opportunity to be a player, he gave me an opportunity to be an assistant coach, head football coach, and to coach that football team twice. ... I'm honored to say that I am a Raider."

And that moment 25 years ago today was significant. Even if the league still has issues with the hiring of minority coaches, Davis' forward-thinking positively impacted the game for the next quarter of a century.

"I played next to Art for 15 years and he was always a student of the game and wanted to be a head coach ... but until today a head coaching job in the NFL was out of reach," Gene Upshaw, former executive director of the NFLPA, said the day Shell was first hired. "However, I always felt that Al Davis would hire the first black head coach in NFL history."

For Davis, that's not such a bad legacy.