Snake: The Legendary Life of Ken Stabler
By Mike Freeman
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About this ebook
The first in-depth biography of one of the most talented and infamous legends to play in the National Football League—the life and times of pro football’s first bad boy, famed Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler.
Ken "The Snake" Stabler was the embodiment of the original Men in Black—the freewheeling, hard-hitting Oakland Raiders. The league’s first swashbuckling pass thrower, the mythical southpaw Southerner famous for come-from-behind drives late in the game, Stabler led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl championship in 1977. In an era dominated by gentleman quarterbacks like Roger Staubach and Bob Griese, this 1974 NFL MVP, four-time Pro-bowler, and Super Bowl champion was an iconoclast who partied as hard as he played and lived life unapologetically on his own—not the NFL’s—terms.
Though Stabler’s legacy is larger-than-life, there has never before been an exclusive account of him, until now. Snake goes deep under the surface of Stabler’s persona to reveal a man who, despite his penchant for partying and debauchery, was committed to winning and being the best player he could be. From his college days playing for Bear Bryant at Alabama to his years with the Raiders under coach John Madden, his broadcasting career to his death in 2015 and the revelation that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as C.T.E., Snake probes the myriad facets of Stabler’s life on and off the field to tell his complete story, and explores how his legacy and the culture and times that pivotally shaped it, continues to impact football today.
Mike Freeman
Mike Freeman is an NFL Insider for CBSSports.com. Before that, he was an NFL writer, investigative reporter, and columnist for the New York Times; a columnist for the Florida Times-Union; and a sports reporter, features writer, and investigative writer for the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Dallas Morning News. He lives in New Jersey.
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Snake - Mike Freeman
Dedication
To Kelly . . .
I will never be able to thank you enough
for your kindness and care.
Contents
Dedication
A Daughter Remembers Her Father
Introduction
Part One: I’m Not the Man You Think I Am
CHAPTER ONE The Italian Campaign
CHAPTER TWO The Bribe That Changed Football
Part Two: The Eternalness of Snake
CHAPTER THREE 5:30 A.M.
CHAPTER FOUR Corvette Blues
CHAPTER FIVE Mudder
Part Three: Game Changer
CHAPTER SIX The Perfect Raider
CHAPTER SEVEN Throw Deep
CHAPTER EIGHT Lifting the Steel Curtain
CHAPTER NINE Sea Change
CHAPTER TEN Breakthrough
Part Four: Dadskers
CHAPTER ELEVEN Lot Four
CHAPTER TWELVE He’s Still Got It
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Family
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
Sources
Photos Section
About the Author
Also by Mike Freeman
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
A Daughter Remembers Her Father
Kendra Stabler Moyes was asked to talk about her dad. Her words are beautiful, not solely because they show how strong the connection was between a quarterback dad and his girls, but also because they illustrate a man few people ever truly knew.
Everyone knows Snake. Few people know Ken Stabler the father.
My parents divorced when I was very young,
Kendra says. "I would spend summers with him in Gulf Shores, Alabama. My favorite memories are from those summers. He had a great home on Ono Island. A long pier led to his speedboat. We would catch crabs off the pier from the traps and cook them for dinner. We would fish, cruise in his boat. Long summer nights spent playing with my cousin Scott. Hanging with my Nana. My dad and his mom and his sister, Carolyn, were very close. We all just loved hanging out. It was simple.
"I was seven when he won the Super Bowl, and shortly after realized he was a much bigger deal than just being my dad. It was a very different upbringing because my parents were divorced and my dad was always gone playing football. He basically grew up while I did. He retired when I was a sophomore in high school. I would spend some Christmases with him wherever he was playing. Wake up, open gifts, go to a football game. Not your average Christmas. I do remember how nice he always was. After the game, families would wait outside the locker rooms and wait for their husband or dad to come out. Back then fans would also be waiting outside to meet their favorite player and get autographs. My dad would stop for every single person that asked. He always took so much time to meet his fans, get to know them, and he made them feel like they were a part of our family. He was always the last one to leave because of this.
As a little girl I didn’t appreciate it and didn’t want to share my dad, because my time with him was so precious. As I got older I realized how amazing that was that he always took so much time with people. It didn’t matter who you were. You could have been the president of the United States or the janitor and he treated you equally and that never changed throughout his life. I have so many great early memories of him. He was just my sweet, fun, goofy dad.
Then, Kendra probably gave the best description of her father I’ve ever heard:
What I think made him special was his way of making people feel so important,
she said. "Making them feel like they had been friends with him forever. I love that he stayed true to his southern roots. He was humble and a gentleman. He loved his mother and baby sister like no other. He protected them. My dad is fiercely loyal. He wasn’t the best husband, I have to admit. Three marriages but I do think he found true love with his partner, Kim Bush, of sixteen and a half years. I love that he lived life on the edge and did it his way. He didn’t conform. He was wild but responsible. He would get knocked down but kept getting up. He was gracious. He was goofy and loved to laugh. His philanthropic work was the most important to him. He always said you can always do more. Give back. Make a difference.
"He loved playing football and the joy he brought to his fans. He loved animals, music, art, and people. He loved his coaches and what each of them taught him. He had so much respect for them. He loved his family more than anything. He was so proud of each of his three daughters. Always bragging to each of us about the other. His grandsons were his world. He was a huge light in their lives. He is, and will always be, our hero. There will never be another Ken Stabler."
Introduction
It was several days before Oakland’s Super Bowl matchup against the Minnesota Vikings, and Oakland coach John Madden had seen enough. He called off practice.
Ken Stabler had thrown dozens of footballs in that practice and not a single one hit the ground. Deep passes landed gently into the hands of receivers. Short passes moved with great speed but with similar accuracy. Nothing went high or low. Each was thrown perfectly. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw,
said Madden.
The Raiders had seen Stabler sharp before. Most of the time, in fact. He was the most accurate passer of his time and, many decades later, he’d be known as one of the most accurate quarterbacks to ever play the sport.
But this was different. Stabler had reached a level that had shocked everyone. In fact, the entire Raiders team was nearly flawless that day. Practice lasted twenty minutes, some twenty-five shorter than usual. Madden barely had to explain it to the team. They all knew why. He’d approach Stabler later on: I think you’re ready.
Stabler didn’t disagree. I’m ready,
he said. We’re all ready.
That gorgeous passing demonstration continued what had been a trait of his, the best combination of flamboyance, skill, and coolness under pressure the sport had ever seen. No player was more comfortable in his own body (or chasing female ones) than Ken Stabler.
As Stabler honed his throwing skill, he paid a visit to the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles the week of Super Bowl, which was being held at the Rose Bowl. Just went to share a few thoughts about football with some of the librarians there,
he’d say to me years later, the smile almost coming through the telephone.
That Super Bowl week, in some respects, would be a continuation of the Stabler way. Actually, on the Stabler scale, visiting a few Playboy bunnies was tame—the Stabler equivalent of sneaking a glance at a woman wearing a pretty dress when she’s not looking. From the time he was a teenager wrecking a police car, to his Raiders days collecting the undergarments of the women he slept with, he was a destroyer of the myth that a man needed sleep and clean living to play quarterback. In fact, he thrived on obliterating the notion that a football player had to be a robot to be successful. This was a belief he’d embrace at a young age and would continue to hold throughout his career. Off the field, all that mattered were women, fast cars, and fast boats. And bourbon. As long as life moved quickly, Stabler was happy. The turmoil, the messiness of it all, attracted him. There was the time his second wife (or was it his first?) caught him cheating on her in the parking lot of a bar. Or there was the repeated drinking up until game time. Stabler needed to push the edge. It was his joy.
Even the way Stabler was covered in the media was different from any other NFL player at the time, different even from Joe Namath, one of the gold standards of high-profile, lady-chasing quarterbacks. This from the December 14, 1987, issue of People magazine: "Former football great Kenny Stabler, who wrote about his years of hard drinking and womanizing in his best-selling autobiography, Snake, finds himself between the covers again. This time around, he’s the model for the boozing and babe-chasing exploits of the character called Billyjim (the Twister) Thibodeaux in Between Pictures. It’s a new novel by Jane Loder, the writer-producer of the documentary ‘Atomic Cafe.’ Loder says she and Stabler had a romance when she was 15 and he was in his early 20s. ‘In the book Billyjim overdoses, but in real life Kenny got married and settled down,’ she says. ‘Her name does not ring a bell with me,’ says Stabler, but adds he plans on getting a copy of the book."
Off the field, in his years as a player, the messier the better; yet on it, there was a gorgeous meticulousness with how he played football. He cherished order and calmness, and these facets of his game would engender respect and even love for him in return from teammates and coaches.
The Super Bowl on January 9, 1977, was indicative of Stabler’s talent but also his ability to morph into whatever the game plan needed. The game, initially at least, didn’t go as well as that canceled practice, though. Stabler’s offense was able to move the football but early drives ended with field goals instead of touchdowns. This caused John Madden to nearly go apoplectic on the sideline. Then Stabler approached him and would say something prophetic. The offense came off [the field] and I was really pissed,
Madden says in the book Badasses. "My thought process was immediate: ‘Gotta get seven, goddamnit. Don’t want too many threes.’ I believed in finishing, and I’m thinking. ‘Fuck it, we got to get that ball in the end zone, goddamnit!’ So Stabler put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘John, don’t worry. There’s plenty more where that came from.’ He was like a little kid. It kind of calmed me down. I thought, ‘Shit, we are moving the ball, and he is right, and there is plenty more where that came from.’"
One of (Stabler’s) greatest strengths,
the late Al Davis told me, was his ability to remain the same person under great duress on the field as he was off the field. No one kept their composure like he did. He was very skilled but also very cool.
When you’re the quarterback,
Stabler said, everyone looks to you for leadership. If you look like you’re panicking, the team is gonna look at you and say, ‘Why the fuck should I follow that guy?’
Stabler’s coolness would sooth Madden and his accuracy would pick apart the Vikings. A 16–0 halftime lead grew to 26–7 in the fourth quarter and a 32–14 final. Defense won that game. The running game won the day. But that game illustrates one of the lesser-known aspects of Stabler’s personality—his ability to adapt and not allow his ego to succumb to jealousy or insecurity. Stabler wouldn’t be perfect in this endeavor, but he was damn close.
Stabler had entered that Super Bowl as the AFC’s top passer, with 2,737 yards and 27 touchdowns. That season, his seventh in the NFL, Stabler completed 66.7 percent of his throws, and in the Super Bowl, though he would only pass 19 times, he averaged 15 yards a pass; his throws to the game’s Most Valuable Player, Fred Biletnikoff, led to touchdowns on three of Biletnikoff’s four catches.
After the game, the Raiders partied. This is to be expected. And while the drinking lasted most of the night, the alcohol didn’t inhibit Stabler’s ability to think deeply. The thoughtful and contemplative part of his personality was another facet few people outside of his Raiders and familial orbits knew.
I remember how relieved we were to win,
Stabler recalled. There were a lot of people who thought the Raiders would never win a Super Bowl.
There’s a pause. There were people who thought I’d never make it to a Super Bowl. Yet there I was, this guy from a small Alabama town, a Super Bowl winner . . . there I was. Unbelievable, isn’t it?
Flash back to the AFC divisional playoff game against the Miami Dolphins on December 21, 1974. The game is in Oakland. Two minutes and eight seconds left. The Dolphins have a five-point lead over the Raiders. Stabler has the football in his hands.
The completions came quick and sharp. Six yards. Twenty yards. Darts and lobs and strikes. It was vintage Stabler. The football eventually ended up at the Miami eight-yard line with 35 seconds left. Oakland took its final timeout. Madden remembers having to say little to Stabler during that pause. He would get in such a rhythm sometimes,
says Madden, that it was best to just get out of his way.
Smart coaches do that. For Stabler in that moment, like others, time would slow. Remember playing in the backyard? There was a casualness to it. No pressure. That is how he played, even at the most crucial, pressure-blasted moments.
Once the timeout ended and the play began, Stabler began to scramble, then Miami defensive lineman Vern Den Herder grabbed Stabler from behind. Stabler began to fall and as he did, he managed to get a modicum amount of power into the throw. Not much. Just enough. The football floated into the hands of Raiders running back Clarence Davis. The final score: Raiders 28, Miami 26.
This play would forever be known as the Sea of Hands—the irony being that Davis had notoriously bad hands. The Raiders would go on to play the Steelers in the AFC title game that year.
It was the Sea of Hands that would grow the Stabler legend exponentially. So many years later, Stabler refused to take credit. He called it a total Raiders effort. Giving credit, too, was also a Stabler trademark. Stabler had a saying: I’m always thinking and thanking. Thinking because he was analytical, and thanking because he knew his success relied on teammates, the way theirs relied on his.
I cried after that play,
says then–Dolphins coach Don Shula, mostly joking. Mostly. I admit it. Stabler made me cry. But Stabler made a lot of people cry.
The Raiders were fun. They were impossible not to watch. They were equal parts brilliant and carefree. Even when they weren’t part of one of the most well-known plays in NFL history, they were doing the impossible. In many ways, this was the definition of them and their quarterback.
One of the most Raiders-like plays happened in September 1978. The Chargers were beating the Raiders, 20–14, with ten seconds left in the contest. Stabler dropped back to pass and was hit, and, in a move that would show both his skill and smarts, he pretended to fumble the football forward, toward a teammate. There was a scramble for the football, which was careening off bodies and the ground and finally ended up in the hands of tight end Dave Casper. He recovered it in the end zone for a touchdown. This series of accidents
would lead to another nickname for a wild play: the Holy Roller.
The description from the Raiders’ play-by-play man is fantastically Raiders: The ball, flipped forward, is loose! A wild scramble, two seconds on the clock, Casper grabbing the ball—it is ruled a fumble! Casper has recovered in the end zone! The Oakland Raiders have scored on the most zany, unbelievable, absolutely impossible dream of a play. Madden is on the field. He wants to know if it’s real. They said yes, get your big butt out of here! He does! There’s nothing real in the world anymore! The Raiders have won the football game! The Chargers are standing, looking at each other! They don’t believe it! Nobody believes it! I don’t know if the Raiders believe it! It’s not real! Fifty-two thousand people minus a few lonely Raider fans are stunned. A man would be a fool to have to write a drama and make you believe it! This one will be relived forever!
My thought when I went into the huddle,
Stabler told me, was, ‘Do not take a sack under any circumstances.’ Well, that thought was tested when Woodrow Lowe—fellow Alabama guy, by the way—got to me. That thought came back to me: ‘Don’t get sacked.’ So I just rolled the ball out there and hoped something would happen. [Dave] Casper inadvertently kicked it three times. Total coincidence he kicked it.
Stabler laughed knowing it was anything but a coincidence.
Scenes from a life lived largely, and often, unapologetically . . .
Stabler used to say about the Pro Football Hall of Fame: If I got inducted, it won’t change how I put my socks on every day.
Then came February 2016. Stabler had died of colon cancer in July 2015. Hall of Fame voters, who had wrongly rejected his candidacy for decades, gathered in a large hotel ballroom in downtown San Francisco beginning around six thirty in the morning. The arguments were made, the votes were tallied, and some hours later, at a press conference, Justin and Jack Moyes, the grandkids of Ken Stabler, stood before the media and talked about one of the newest entrants into the Hall of Fame. It was Stabler’s twenty-seventh year of eligibility.
Stabler’s death rocked many people, including me. I think he died without many truly understanding just how impactful he was as a quarterback, but also as a father and human being. He lived a rock star’s life, but deep underneath there was a different man who would later cherish just being around his daughters and grandkids. I wanted to make sure this part of his legacy was told as well. That is one of the main purposes of this work.
My grandfather, he was just a really good man,
Justin said. I never saw him turn down an autograph. He was just special. He loved football, and that was life for him. He loved watching us play, came to every single one of our games, and we were super-lucky to have him in our lives.
And such is the complicated persona of Ken Stabler: devoted family man meets devoted party boy. The story from People in November 1977 begins this way: ‘I’ve got bad ways. Part of me wants the dog, TV, kids and fireplace, the other part wants to chase,’ admits Oakland Raider quarterback Ken Stabler while sipping whiskey at Clancy’s, a team hangout. After home games the Raiders often take over the mike and entertain the crowd. Alabama-born Stabler’s contribution is to yodel Dixie. ‘Drunk, you can do anything,’ he reckons, then adds thoughtfully, ‘Even when I’ve been bombed the night before a game I’ve played good.’
To Stabler, life was a party.
He was a fan of firecrackers: big ones and small ones. He’d bring hundreds to camp, and then hide throughout different parts of the complex and toss them behind unsuspecting victims. He told me about this once and, after telling the story, laughed for several seconds, and then smiled. Decades later, it was still funny to him.
Stabler also recounted a story about a toy tank, those aforementioned firecrackers, and how I scared the shit out of John Madden.
One of Snake’s teammates had crafted a small remote-controlled tank. Snake acquired it and after doing so left a note in the player’s box: Don’t worry. The Snake will return.
In a remarkable piece of engineering, Snake had attached a number of his more powerful firecrackers to the tank, and equipped them with a longer fuse, just long enough so the firecrackers wouldn’t detonate until they reached the coaches’ offices. Vroom, vroom, vroom went the tank. Just as it rolled into the office, the fireworks went off. Madden came running out, screaming, and as he stood there, the tank rolled between his legs. Later, on occasion when sitting in his office, Madden would stuff cotton in his ears.
The Raiders were a team that knew how to have fun—like Snake. But they were also great professionals. Madden allowed the players to be themselves and never regretted extending that trust even when one or two (or three or four) of them busted curfew on occasion. In some ways, curfew busting was a Raiders tradition that began even before Snake. There was the night veteran tight end Ken Herock decided that a curfew wasn’t for him. Herock developed a plan. He took two pillows and placed them in the bed, the pillows serving as his torso. Then Herock put a desk lamp in the bed as a substitute for his head. A blanket was pulled over the entire disguise. When a coach came into the room to check, he turned on the light switch by the wall, and the lamp lit up. Herock was busted.
In the 1970s, as sexual freedom and civil disobedience continued in earnest throughout American society, football was still a militaristic, bland apparatus. Personalities were crushed under the weight of uniformity. But Stabler was symbolic of something else. In many ways, he was the first NFL player who was publicly unrepentant about having sex, drinking beer—a lot of beer, and a lot of whiskey—and living life as he wanted, not as the NFL wanted. The entire Raiders team was this way.
Stabler was more than a partier, though, more than football’s avatar for the unrepressed. He was a gorgeous marksman, the league’s first cocky, swashbuckling pass thrower, his insides riddled by whiskey, concussions, and gall.
He was an accurate enough thrower to be a downfield threat in the