Oxnard Will Never Be the Same Again : . . . and That Says Something Good for the Raiders in Their Latest Move South

OXNARD â€”  That’s what it’s all about, six little letters and one solitary dash, the dateline that raises what was once a sleepy little farming village into the big time.

In the old days, say, two weeks ago, before the arrival of the Raiders, Oxnard got its national attention the hard way, in a monologue by Johnny Carson, or when a building burned down. But now the Raiders train here. In more ways than Oxnardians can count, their lives are never going to be the same.

Said Stan Greene, assistant city manager: “I was in a high-rise at the Financial Plaza (adjoining the Raider practice fields) on the first day of rookie camp and I saw more binoculars and high-powered lenses than you could find in a camera store. There were lenses, they were probably strong enough to see from here to Santa Barbara. I could hardly fit in the elevator.�

The Raiders are being welcomed as saviors. John Herrera, the club senior administrator who negotiated the move, is being hailed as a combination Al Davis-Christopher Columbus. Herrera’s face has appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, on magazine covers and all the mini-cams in Ventura County that could hold an electric charge.

Among the Raiders, such celebrity is usually reserved for Davis or the players, so Herrera now has to answer to the honorary title of Mr. Oxnard.

There are silver-on-black “Oxnard Is Raiders Country� banners on light standards on streets all over town. There are Raider pennants and photos of the ’83 Super Bowl ring in restaurant windows. When the veterans reported Thursday, there was a champagne reception in the lobby of the Oxnard Hilton, with a four-piece Dixieland band and Mayor Pro Tem Dr. Manuel Lopez in attendance.

The Raiders spent about $350,000 to break up the parking lot next to the Hilton, on which they put their side-by-side fields, complete with sod, sprinkler system, fence and locker room.

Having been discovered by the Raiders, Oxnard is returning the favor. Herrera got almost one-fourth of the cost of the new site back in the month before camp opened, selling season tickets and group plans. He estimated that he did $80,000 worth of business. This is one of those deals that’s helping both teams.

The move is only a little less significant for the Raiders, ending the commuting phase of their move from Oakland.

Before their first three seasons in Los Angeles and for the 19 before that, they trained in--and made famous--Santa Rosa, a town in the wine country that loved them no less and now pines for them as much as Oakland did.

But a one-hour flight plus a 90-minute drive from the Raiders’ El Segundo base was too much. If the ongoing court fights were keeping Davis from sinking the $12 million into his Coliseum luxury boxes, he was ready to do this.

So he sent Herrera, a former general manager for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, to scout locations, as they say in the movie biz.

“The time came, we had to make a decision,� Herrera said. “We wanted to further implement the move to Southern California, and this would be another step.�

Herrera and Greene started and ended their negotiating in a hurry. The City Council approved their agreement April 9. The Raiders would stay at the Hilton and build a practice site next to it, which they did in a whirlwind 14 weeks.

The ripped up the parking lot, put up fence, put down sod and installed a sprinkler system, with a locker room next to it. The fields, themselves, cost more than $100,000.

And next year, they’ll move everything to a site a mile away, next to the golf course the city is building. The Radisson hotel group is putting up a hotel there and has guaranteed the Raiders 80 rooms for next July. The city will pay $17l,000 toward the cost of moving.

As football training camps go, this site, however temporary, is a little bit of heaven. The Raiders are one of three National Football League teams who don’t house their players in a college dorm in camp, and the only one to do something as expensive as lodging them in a hotel. The food here is rated several notches above that of the beloved old Raider haunt, the El Rancho Tropicana Motel in Santa Rosa.

The climate is temperate, with the dread afternoon workouts cooled by the breeze off the ocean 10 miles to the west.

“What we’re attempting to do is publicize the fact,� Greene said. “Our climate is Mediterranean, very, very mild. We’ve got some very beautiful beaches that don’t have the crowds they have in the L.A. area. We’re building a lot of beautiful hotels. We’re building a championship golf course next to the Raider complex, and we’re planning to get it on the LPGA. It was designed by Billy Bell, who designed Torrey Pines.

“We just have a lot of things going on. We have our own kind of charm. We’re certainly not Santa Barbara yet but. . . .

“Johnny Carson talks about Oxnard in the same terms he does Bakersfield and San Bernardino--very derogatory. That doesn’t bother me, as long as he spells it correctly.

There have been a lot of jokes--What’s an Oxnard? How do you get rid of an Oxnard?--It’s a German name, the name of the four brothers who founded the city 81 years ago. It started with their sugar beet factory.

“This was a little farming community until about 10-20 years ago, when it just exploded,� Greene said. “Now we have a beautiful marina. We have the only deep-water port between Long Beach and San Francisco. We bring in thousands of Mazda cars and bananas.

“There are two military bases in Point Mugu, and the Seabees in Port Hueneme. We have 125,000 people. We’re the 20th-largest city in the state of California.

“We have a new city council and all the department heads have turned over in the last five years. We feel it was a real coup, getting the Raiders. If you talk to John Herrera, I think he’ll tell you how open and friendly the city was to talk to, compared to some communities who absolutely wouldn’t talk to the Raiders.�

Of course, Raiders will be Raiders. Was there any concern over the possibility of, uh, breakage?

“That doesn’t bother us,� Greene says, laughing. “We’ve got sailors all over the place. If we can handle them, we’re not concerned about the Raiders.�

There is little to match the love that towns have for the teams that train there. They get to see the players in more relaxed settings. And unlike the home cities, these towns have no other major league team to call their own.

When the Dodger flight lands at Vero Beach each spring--a 707 among all those Piper Cubs--it’s an annual event, kicking off the local honky-tonk social season. The plane is greeted by a large crowd, making the people aboard feel as if they’re sailing into Tahiti under Capt. Cook. When camp breaks up, there’s another big crowd at the airport to wave goodby.

Even compared to that, the Raiders and Santa Rosa were special.

The Raiders have a free-spirited roster that always showed great imagination when it came to the few off-hours. In Santa Rosa, the social season had several highlights: the rookie party, and the air hockey, bowling and Foosball tournaments presided over by commissioner and linebacker Phil Villapiano.

“He started them because he figured he could win,� said center Dave Dalby, 34 and one of the last links to a time when Raiders were really Raiders.

One year, they brought Carol Doda, the famous San Francisco stripper, up to preside over the tournaments as queen. Winners of the tournaments were honored by a parade when camp broke up. They rode in the backs of pickup trucks in a 40-car motorcade of players and waved to the crowd. One year, Pete Banaszak won and rode in the back seat of Art Thoms’ limousine, throwing candy to the kids.

The publicity couldn’t be ignored by corporate America. One day, one of the Raiders met a man from Coleco, which makes toys and computers. He sensed a natural tie-in and volunteered to donate all sorts of equipment.

It didn’t work out exactly as intended, though.

“They held a big banquet for us at the Hilton in Oakland,� Dalby said. “Villapiano and Don Shinnick started throwing rolls. Then they started throwing potatoes. It made the 11 o’clock news. That ended Coleco’s involvement in the tournament. That was the last time we got equipment.�

There were several bars favored by the players, principally the Bamboo Room. Collectively, they were known as the circuit. Some guys used to try to hit them all.

Banaszak, a small, slow-running back who always figured to be cut this time, used to drink with the writers, asking them what they’d heard, how he stood, which running backs looked good in rookie camp. Banaszak used to wince every time he saw Davis pick up the telephone that had been installed at his special table in the El Rancho coffee shop.

And then there were the curfew stories.

Tight end Ken Herock, now a scout, used to tuck his lamp into bed and pull the covers up to fool the assistant coach making the rounds. One night. though, he forgot to unplug the lamp. When the coach switched on the light, the mound that was supposed to be Herock’s body lit up.

All that’s over now.

“It’s not the same,� said Lloyd Webb, the manager of El Rancho, from Santa Rosa. “There’s a different atmosphere. We do miss ‘em. That’s all I can say.�

All of that has moved south now, in search of new forms.

Davis has another table, in a corner of the Hilton coffee shop, complete with telephone. “We keep it behind the counter,� said a Hilton official. “Other people were using it.�

The Raiders go through their workouts in the shadow of a number of high-rises, a circumstance that never would have been tolerated in the old American Football League days, when spying was common. The Raiders, of course, are still the security champions of the universe, and there was some question if it would be tolerated today.

“I wondered about it,� Herrera said. “I hoped it wouldn’t kill it. It was something Al Davis had to look at it. But he didn’t think it was a problem.�

Added Herrera, laughing: “Someone asked me if I was worried about it. I said no, not until I found out the Broncos were on the eighth floor, and the Seahawks were on the 10th floor and the Chargers were on the 14th floor. Then I started to worry.

“Actually, that building is pretty well occupied.�

If the Broncos, Seahawks and Chargers are really up there, all they can see is some Raiders running basic plays through the cool shore breezes. Let ‘em watch and eat their hearts out.