Detroit Lions

Late Raiders owner Al Davis once helped Lions coach Jim Caldwell

Published Jun. 7, 2015 1:48 a.m. ET

foxsports

Al Davis championed a lot of changes that made the NFL the league it is today.

Among the Raiders' late patriarch's finer accomplishments? The inclusion of minority coaches like Jim Caldwell.

Davis, who hired the NFL's first African-American head coach (Art Shell) and first Latino head coach (Tom Flores), once took a young Caldwell in for a three-day coaching apprenticeship in the late 1970s. There, the former Iowa assistant learned the principles of Oakland's staunch bump-and-run coverage -- and learned the man who owns the team sees prospective coaches by talent and talent alone.

"He took time with me," Caldwell, now the Detroit Lions head coach, told ESPN. "Walked me around at practice. He never left my side at practice. We'd walk over there with drill work, go through it. Then at nighttime, he would come back in at night and he and I would watch film from 10 o'clock at night until the wee hours of the morning. Go back to the hotel, get some sleep, come back and do it all over again. Three days in a row. And this was a guy who was running the whole operation."

Davis' generosity stuck with Caldwell for a lifetime. He instituted a similar three-day coaching program when he took the reigns in Detroit.

So far, coaches from Ohio State, Michigan, and Nebraska have taken Caldwell up on the offer. Caldwell said he's trying to pay a kindness forward from a late pioneer of the game.

"So from that experience I really believe in allowing guys to come in and see what we do, and I think that's the way it should be," Caldwell said. "It helped me out tremendously in my career."

(h/t ESPN)