The passing of Jack Tatum....what a shock! I was standing right next to him in Ricky's just last November...
I'll never forget it. Crusader Raider and Dave Chapman were in town from England for their annual Raiders pilgrimage. We were riding their coat-tails as usual......when Ricky and his wife Tina heard that Keith and Dave would be coming to Ricky's for the Raiders Rally the night before the game, they made us all V.I.P.s. We arrived about an hour before the Raiders Rally was scheduled to start, and when we walked into Ricky's....they still had another event in progress....the Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto fight on pay-per-view. We walked in right at the height of the fight, they put VIP bracelets on each of our wrists, and we were ushered into the "VIP Room" in the back of Ricky's where the fight was on a big screen. Several Raiders and ex-Raiders were in the room.
After the fight was over, and the Raiders Rally began, we were having a good time, listening to Raiderhed perform. I was standing by the bar ordering a beer, and I looked over and saw Jack Tatum sitting at a table right next to me....about 6 feet away. He was talking to a young black guy in his early 20's probably. I missed the beginning of their conversation, but when I started listening....Jack was explaining something to him....saying something about hitting players hard, as he demonstrated with his hands how he would hit. The young guy looked at him, and it was like a lightbulb went on in his head, as the realization hit him as to who he was talking to. His eyes got big, and he asked...."THAT WAS YOU?" Jack smiled, looked back at him, slowly nodded his head up and down.... and answered, "yep......that was me", as his head kept nodding, and he kept smiling.
