ESPN’s Tim Keown wrote a long profile on Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis, the son of former owner Al Davis, and it is a must-read.

This is the opening paragraph of the story:

MOST DAYS START the same — behind the wheel of a white 1997 Dodge Caravan SE outfitted with a bubble-top Mark III conversion kit, a VHS player mounted to the roof inside and a r8hers personalized plate. Mark Davis pilots this machine from his East Bay home to the nearest P.F. Chang’s, where he sits at the left end of the bar, same spot every time, puts his white fanny pack on the counter, orders an iced tea and unfolds the day’s newspapers. Beside him on the bar, next to the papers, is his 2003 Nokia push-button phone with full texting capability. When someone calls and asks him where he is, he says, “I’m in my office,” and sends a knowing nod to the bartenders. It gets ’em every time.

That’s the opening paragraph!

The story only gets better from there. Keown writes of Davis’ many years of trying to win over his father’s approval, and how he’s handling the team’s possible move to Los Angeles.

There’s also this:

When his father was alive, Mark was not allowed to fly on the team charter. It was a chain-of-succession, president-and-vice-president deal (with a healthy side of superstition), so Mark flew Southwest, bought three seats, boarded first, pulled two reserved placards from his bag, slipped them into the tray tables and lay down. “What could they do?” Davis asks. “I paid for ’em.”

Seriously, go read the entire story. It’s spectacular.