McKenzie a thoughtful new-look for the Raiders

ALAMEDA - I didn't know where I was.

That's the first thing you should understand. I never had been in this part of Raiders headquarters. Frankly, I hadn't been in many parts. But the Raiders had set up an interview with new general manager Reggie McKenzie, who had been director of player personnel with the Packers. And here I was in a strange office in a strange wing of the building and no one was watching me or guarding me.

I was waiting peacefully, blissfully.

After a while, someone from the public relations staff greeted me and led me to another room where McKenzie was reading a text from his wife. He was standing near a round silver-and-black conference table and he wore Raiders gear, including shorts and sneakers, and when he had read the text, he smiled and invited me to sit down.

He is a large man in the way former NFL linebackers are large - he played (1985-1988) for the Raiders and briefly in 1992 for the 49ers. And he speaks slowly. You notice this immediately. He does not speak slowly because he lacks intelligence. He is highly intelligent. This, too, you notice right away in the complexity of his ideas and his choice of words. He was, in fact, valedictorian of Austin-East High School in Knoxville, Tenn. He still is proud of that. "Clearly," he said.

He speaks slowly, deliberately. He examines every issue from every side. He is thorough and careful and alive to possibilities he has not yet considered. His deliberate talking implies his confidence in his ability to decide.

He grew up on Lilac Street in Knoxville. His mom worked in daycare and elder care and as a Sunday school teacher, and his dad was a social worker. His twin brother Raleigh had a longer NFL career than Reggie and now is a college scout with the Raiders.

In the second grade, McKenzie had his Rosebud moment. He was taking a test that involved writing words in cursive correctly and neatly. He thought he had done a good job - he wanted to do a good job - but a girl did better and she came in first and he came in second. Coming in second didn't feel good. Now, he always tries to come in first.

His wife, June, is a lawyer and still lives in Green Bay with his two sons. Two daughters go to college. He will bring out the family a year from now. "I didn't want to put that all on my wife to handle everything at the house with the move," he said. "It would have been way too much. And I didn't want any resentment towards daddy for picking them up and getting them out here. The way we're doing it is perfect. They're into so much. My sons are 15 and 12 and they are just finishing ninth and seventh grade."

He gets lonely sometimes and he speaks to his family on Skype. Some nights when it's 9:30 in the Alameda facility and he's alone in the quiet building and he hasn't even thought of leaving, his cell phone will ring and it will be his wife and she will whisper, "Go home."

This is something else you should know. McKenzie answered every one of my questions. He put up no barriers. Here is an example.

Cohn: Were you a good football player?

McKenzie: Yes. I was good. I don't think I was great by any stretch but I thought I was a good solid football player.

Cohn: What grade would you put on a good solid football player - A, B, C, D - like that.

McKenzie: I would say good solid football player, B-minus, C-plus. I thought from an overall career that's what I'd give myself. A couple of years, I thought I was a B player.

Cohn: Were you the kind of player you now would like to draft?

McKenzie: Yes.

Cohn: Tell me why.

McKenzie: The qualities I thought I brought to the table were - this is just outside of numbers - my football intelligence, instincts were good. I thought my ability to learn was really good. I thought my work ethic, my toughness were good. From a physical standpoint, I thought I was a power player. I played with good strength. I played the game physical. I thought I was an above-average athlete in regards to speed, quickness, explosiveness. I was better than average, but I don't think I was special in speed, quickness, even size. I was just a solid 6-2, 244-pound linebacker. I was nothing special when you see a 6-3, 6-4, 255 that runs 4.5. I wasn't one of those guys.

Cohn: Reggie, when you saw guys like that when you were a player, what did you feel about them?

McKenzie: Well, I felt like, &‘Woo, this guy, he's pretty athletic. This guy can run.'

Cohn: You didn't hold it against them?

McKenzie: No. No. I looked at them like, &‘I'm glad he's on my team.'

And there was this exchange between us:

Cohn: Do you worry you will do good job?

McKenzie: Of course. I don't dwell on it. I try not to play the what-if game from the standpoint of wins and losses. But I do want to make sure that I understand that it's a game of wins and losses. That's my hope to make sure we're always working towards winning. And if I can add a guy here or make an adjustment here in communication with the coach or what we're doing as a system, whatever thing we can improve, we'll try to do that. When you're winning those decisions are even better.

We want to build for the long haul. I didn't want to try to do a quick fix. Even in this building (process), it's not a rebuilding. When you hear rebuilding it's, "OK, you know you're going to lose a lot of games but you're trying to get better for the future." I don't like that whole rebuilding statement because, unfortunately, people look at it as you're looking to lose this year to get better next year. And that's not what we're doing. We want to win this year and we want to win early and often, and we're trying to put our team in that situation to where we can win early and often. Hopefully, we do.

McKenzie took a deep breath after saying so much. By now, we had talked almost half an hour, although McKenzie had allotted 15 minutes for our chat. I am the one who ended the interview, out of concern for his schedule. Otherwise, he would have continued.

On my way out, I got lost, and an employee led me to the exit. As I said, I never had been there before.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.