LONG BEFORE Brooklyn became the hipster haven
of today, it was something else entirely. In the
1940s, New York City’s most populous borough was sliced
into ethnic neighborhoods, and while each enclave was
distinct, there were shared characteristics. Moods soared
and sank based largely on the outcome of the latest Dodg-
ers game. There was a push-pull between loyalty to the
ethnicity of the neighborhood and loyalty to the United
States. And there was a pulsing sense of possibility, a
belief in a greater world beyond the Brooklyn Bridge.
In Flatbush, at Erasmus Hall High, then the largest
public school in the country, a teenager named Al Davis
grew fixated on how he could stand out from the area’s
other Jews (and Italians and Irishmen)—and, in turn,
how he could get out. He wasn’t
the brightest kid, nor the most
athletic, endowed as he was with
a skinny, angular frame and av-
erage coordination. One point of
differentiation: Davis’s force of
personality. “Al Davis,” recalled
Lawrence Kallenberg, a Brook-
lyn contemporary from a rival
school, “made you notice him.”
Simultaneously, a mile away,
another Jewish striver, Woody
Allen, was fashioning his own
Brooklyn escape. Among other
comedic characters, Allen would
conceive of Leonard Zelig, a fig-
ure who could insinuate him-
self into any situation. Davis,
likewise, moved easily among
tribes, taking on characteristics
of others and placing himself in
great historical moments. Class-
mates would later be surprised to learn Davis wasn’t the
star QB, the valedictorian or the toughest kid at Erasmus
Hall. He was just a Zelig who passed himself off that way.
In college, at Syracuse, Davis tried out for the baseball
and basketball teams. Only after failing at those did he
turn to football. And while he didn’t actually play, he
became obsessed with strategy, attending practices and
taking notes, trying, in a sense, to hack the sport. Even-
tually he was chased off by coach Ben Schwartzwalder,
convinced that Davis was spying for another team.
After graduation, in 1950, Davis interviewed for college
coaching positions and, according to Mark Ribowsky’s
’91 biography Slick, showed up at Adelphi College repre-
senting himself as Syracuse football star George Davis. Al
Davis was eventually put in charge of the freshman team.Belichick’s
shroud of
secrecy.
Mahomes and
the spread O.
McVay and the
trend toward
younger coaches.
All traceable
back to Davis.