One reason I won't compromise is because I believe honesty helps you win over the long haul. You can win a game tomorrow and lose a team. You can lose a game tomorrow and win a football team.
The club continued to make significant player decisions without involving me. In the end such a breach of trust and confidence meant that I had no option but to leave.
To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who hits the line hard.
I always believe in going hard at everything, whether it is Latin or mathematics, boxing or football, but at the same time I want to keep the sense of proportion. It is never worth while to absolutely exhaust one's self or to take big chances unless for an adequate object. I want you to keep in training the faculties which would make you, if the need arose, able to put your last ounce of pluck and strength into a contest. But I do not want you to squander these qualities.
The way to be successful is through preparation. It doesn't just happen. You don't wake up one day and discover you're a lawyer any more than you wake up as a pro football player. It takes time.
I'm in pro football to win, to have the Raiders dominate, to have the Raiders global, and we're not going to be able to do that with a half-filled stadium.