Raider Great Pete Banaszak, of the 1969
AFL & 1976 World Champion Oakland Raiders teams, was here in South
Florida for an autograph session August 17th. A group of us rode up from
Landlubbers to the Boynton Beach Mall for his 1pm to 3pm autograph
session. We had a chance to hang out and get to know Pete, who was
really cool and extremely sociable with us. He was pleasantly surprised
to her about our club in the heart of Dolphin land, and expressed an
interest, time permitting, in coming down to our Silver & Black
sanctuary to hang out with us. Currently, Pete lives up in the
Jacksonville area where he's a Jaguars radio announcer.
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Photo from a 1978 Rams-Raiders
program
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From 1966-1978, Pete was a member of twelve
Raider teams that were AT LEAST three games over .500 every
single year of his career. In fact, seven of the twelve years he
was a Raider, they won at least ten games (back when we only played
14). He was around for the Heidi Game, the Immaculate Reception,
Super Bowl II & XI, the Sea-of-Hands, Ghost-to-the-Post, and
of course... the Holy Roller in which he "fumbled" the
ball to Dave Casper for the touchdown. He is the NINTH all time
leading scorer in Raiders history, with 312 points (47 rushing
TDs, 5 receiving TDs) and ranks ahead of some pretty distinct
company: Clarence Davis, Dave Casper, Mark van Eeghen, Todd
Christiansen and many others. In fact, if you took kickers off
that list, he'd be ranked number six. In his best game as a
professional, he rushed for 123 yards (@ San Diego 10-26-69 in a
24-12 victory). He led the team in rushing & scoring in 1975
with 187 carries for 672 yards and 16 rushing touchdowns (the
second highest TD total in one season in Raider history), and
was a fifth round draft choice out of the University of Miami in
1966. |
Pete,
Thanks for coming out and giving the South
Florida Raiders a chance to meet you and admire that ENORMOUS Super Bowl
XI ring of yours.
by
Joe Oliveira |
