I told several people last December that I had a horrible feeling about 2016. Personally it’s been a terrible year for me and I know I’m not alone. Several Raider fans; prominent ones; are now gone. Add celebrities and many people’s family members and 2016 is a nightmare that can’t end soon enough.

Over the holiday weekend, in one of the saddest stories I’ve heard in a while, we lost another person that touched many lives.

Tim Casto, owner of Oakland Raiders Homeport and founder of Oakland Raiders Rumors, Rants & Reports, lost his battle for life after a horrific fire burned down his home. He was the only one in the house. Neighbors said they heard small explosions. Tim had to be rescued by two firemen who were at a firehouse near by. His family lost everything they had. He was taken to a local hospital and was in a coma for days before passing away yesterday after life support was turned off. Loved ones talked about how grateful they were to the two brave firemen who entered the burning home to try to save him.

http://www.wsaz.com/content/news/Man-rescued-from-burning-home-in-Putnam-County-402462286.html

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Tim’s family; including his wife Karen and daughter Rhianna; were at his bedside praying for a miracle while Tim lay in a West Virginia hospital on life support. Here was a family who lost every possession they owned now having to deal with even more tragedy. There were prayer vigils and support coming from all over the country. What made it even worse was that during this time, Tim’s wife and daughter had birthdays. Karen spoke about her husbands deep love and kindness towards her and his daughter. His daughter posted on Facebook a few days ago asking for people to pray for her dad to wake up. Sadly he never did.

Tim (A.K.A. the Captain) was the owner and/or administrator of several of the largest Raider pages on Facebook. It’s hard to find someone who didn’t have an interaction or a debate with him on one of the sites. Tim was smart, knew football; especially the history; and was well respected. I liked him immediately.

He was also very caring often forwarding gofundme pages for people that were going through something. His sense of humor was seen so often, especially in his crazy avatar’s on Facebook depicting himself as different Captains. My favorite is still Captain Crunch and he even caused a stir with a Fidel Castro avatar.

When I first got back into writing, I thought I would put an emphasis on the Raiders. They hadn’t been good for years but I took a chance that things would get better. I started out young and had written about the Raiders for years on another site and wow, was it painful. With record setting losing streaks, fans were over the top nasty and as the years went on, less and less fans would be involved with the team. When I started again, I would sometimes write an article that wasn’t positive towards the Raiders, and some Raider fans would go crazy and attack me viciously. Even though I was right most of the time, fans had changed and honesty and truth was out of vogue. It was now about cheerleading and butterflies and puppy dog tails. When some fans tried to ban me, Tim defended me to the nines. I’ll never forget that.

Instead of scolding me about the negativity on his page, he told me he loved my writing and asked if I would send him all my articles so he could put them on all his sites. I was reluctant and told him no. He was really trying to grow his groups and most of the popular people on their were the cheerleader types; some minor social media bullies; and I was a bit turned off by it. He said he understood. He started to copy and paste some links to my articles and forwarded them onto his site anyway. Tim was persistent.

Tim and I would converse a lot online and it was fun. I got on him a few times for being a bit too controlling on his sites. He realized what I was saying and even if someone was way out there, he would let them talk. It helped make his pages more fun.

If Tim had something on his mind he would try to do anything to prove he was right. I loved battling with him. He was the type that had to have the last word so I would mess with him by adding little words to our conversations. He would laugh knowing what I was doing. He said, “I love debating with you; you know we like each other and you never take it personally and I’m the same way”. He GOT social media and all the petty and immature grudges were not what he was about. I liked that.

When Ken Stabler died and I wrote my semi-famous article on Ken, the two people I spoke with that night before writing it were Tim and Mike Yokum. Mike had petitioned to get Ken in the Hall of Fame for years. I knew how much they loved Ken and I needed to talk with people who understood what a big loss he was. I used Mike and Tim’s quotes and takes in the article. I soon was on various ESPN radio shows and other stations talking about Ken. Tim and Mike’s words helped me a lot.

There were some though that liked to take pot shots at Tim but he let it roll off his back. Social media can show how nasty and mean some people are; mostly men; and we talked about having to have a thick skin and not taking things personally. When Tim would bring up his much beloved predictions on who would get traded or cut in the near future, many would attack him. He was right a lot though and it was fun to see his post reactions to his detractors.

He was also a huge voice during the election sparking controversy with some of his more zealous comments. I appreciated his passion.

Tim was a great family man from West Virginia who loved his daughter and his wife immensely. He talked about them at times in a self deprecating manner and you knew he enjoyed his family a lot. Even his young daughter got in the act starting her own Facebook page showing her love for the Raiders as well.

I looked in my Facebook emails and saw the last time we sent emails to each other. It was a couple of months ago where Tim had said his family needed prayer. I sent him a prayer and he told me how much it meant to him and that he really appreciated it.

With the loss of Tim, social media/Facebook for the Oakland Raiders has a huge hole in it. He was a prominent voice on Facebook for the Raiders and there were few groups that he didn’t have a hand in it’s success. Personally, he was one of the reasons I didn’t take a writing job with a major company. He encouraged me to be honest and to keep telling the truth and that I had freedom where others didn’t. He was also the first person on the fan sites that supported me.

It’s going to be hard to get up in the morning now and not see Tim’s meme’s or his posts talking about the Raiders. He was a positive and supportive person online and would help anyone that was going through a hard time. This one hurts deep and I’ll miss him; a lot. He reminds me of a lot of the blue collar Raider fans. Kind and caring but a little gruff on the outside.

Thank you Tim for all you did for so many and for sharing yourself with all of us. Tim proved that you didn’t have to be famous to be great. He was a good man and in today’s world we need more Tim Casto’s.