By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Forty years ago this month a young, unknown assistant coach embarked upon a questionable career path, taking over a team going nowhere in a fledgling league with its own dubious future.

It was 1963, so Al Davis' slicked back Fonzi haircut was hardly the distinctive trademark it would eventually become.

Not that anybody was paying much attention when he left the San Diego Chargers for Oakland to become head coach and general manager of the mess that was the Raiders. The American Football League was three seasons old and the Raiders, at 9-33, were its punching bag.

Nobody talked about the Raider "mystique" then. Just Raider mistakes. Long before there was "just win, baby," there was the lament, "Will these guys ever win?"

Now, as they sit on the Super Bowl stage this week in San Diego, the Raiders and their 73-year-old general partner have long since been inextricably linked in tale and triumph.

They are well-reasoned favorites to win a fourth Super Bowl and there must be both fulfillment and a sense of irony in the symmetry of the journey.

In that first season in Oakland, Davis took the Raiders from 1-13 to 10-4, a turnaround that still stands as the biggest in pro football. Three years later, he was running the AFL as commissioner and his go-for-the-throat tactics helped force a merger with the NFL and bring about the birth of the Super Bowl.

Along the way, Davis has taken the Raiders from dregs to champs and back more than once. He has taken his franchise from the East Bay to Exposition Park — and returned.

He's won in the disparate ages of free spending and the restrictive salary cap. And, with the foresight of a seer, he has plucked unknown assistants from the coaching ranks and driven them to succeed as head coaches — or just driven them away.

Some will tell you that the passing of decades has mellowed the old maverick. But there isn't much truth to it. He remains as contrary as he is cunning; as driven as he is despotic.

Just as you know he saw more than bad karma in the decision that allowed New England to retain Tom Brady's fumble and keep the Raiders out of the last Super Bowl, it is also understood he has spent every day since preparing for this Sunday.

Lots of things have changed since Al Davis took over the Raiders 40 years ago. But he hasn't.