I’ve been handicapping for over forty years, will serve my thirtieth season leading Qoxhi Picks and their Game Day selections in 2010. My son, Kevin, was born 30 years ago, and has grown up with a knowledge base on what really drives National Football League winners that was built on my introduction into picking winners, which was offered me by my father, John, who was a respected coach and analyzed the games from that perspective.

Dad could explain why a team was going to exploit the tendencies of another, but was unable to discern why some dramatically favorable matchups by his calculations went totally belly up.

“Just didn’t get their Irish go-go-go, going,” Dad would say after an unexpected loss with a team that seemed to have all the matchup advantages. While Dad would turn his attention back to finding his coaching and talent edges, I became more interested in those teams that lost when they appeared to have all the necessary advantages to succeed.

During my teens and all through college, I tracked first National Football League games, and later American Football League games and NFL matchups before the two leagues merged in 1970, which was my sophomore year in college. I had spent six years basing results on straight-up results alone, from age 7 through 12, but in 1963 I took into account the point spread on the NFL Championship Game played between the New York Giants and Chicago Bears.

My father would throw his napkin at the dinner table when I would boldly say that I wanted an underdog that was up against one of his top plays from the talent and coaching perspectives he was studying. The spirited arguments that would ensue such a prediction was always a battle of philosophies, his talent and my motivation, and while loudly debated they were always cordial enough that Mom could ask if we wanted more potatoes between us advancing our points.

“You think that every time a team looses they are ready to put up a big effort," Dad would argue. “If that were so, most teams would win every other week,” Dad would add while questioning my approach. It was a point of view that stuck with me for a while, but by the time I graduated college, six years after that dinner table conversation, I had developed charts to indicate when a team was best positioned to play over their perceived talent level and only one of the criteria was that they lost last week. Losing the prior game helps in the motivational equation, but it alone did not project success for a team.

The addition of the point spread to a method first developed to locate underdogs that win straight up; generated profits that had the oriental guy who ran the football cards through the college dormitory skip my floor.

I was much more a baseball fan growing up, first for the San Francisco Seals and then, when I was 7-years old, the arrival of the San Francisco Giants. But, football was much more intriguing to me by the time I graduated from college in 1973. This appreciation for the NFL led to me earning an internship with the Oakland Raiders the summer after completing college, and that led to Ron Wolf hiring me to work the Santa Rosa training camp before my six-week internship was even complete. That led to meeting Al Davis, who hired me for a full time position with the Raiders at the start of the regular season.

After losing our opening game against the Vikings in Minnesota, the Raiders ended the Miami Dolphins two-year winning streak with a 12-7 decision over the World Champions.  That victory completely erased the sting of the opening loss, which was a major factor for the Raiders success against Miami. Now, off this satisfying win, and headed back on the road as a favorite over a division rival, my numbers showed the Raiders were headed into a trap against Kansas City.

My first position after Davis hired me was assisting the coaches with their needs at the practice field, and my office was positioned between the locker room and the meeting rooms. This offered a first hand view of the team. I had seen the scowls in the week’s work leading up to the Dolphins game off the bitter Vikings defeat, and now was observing smiles and high-fives on the heels of the Miami win.

It was that knowledge, and my life of handicapping, that prompted my response to Davis on the day before we were scheduled to depart for Kansas City. The moment I said it I realized I had crossed a line that might blur my commitment to the team. He was in the hallway of the Raiders business offices on Oakport Street and headed for his Thursday afternoon workout at the field house. I was on my way to pick up the coaches mail when we passed in the hallway and Davis said, “How ya doin’ young man?”

“Find sir,” I saluted out a response.

He was almost by me, left shoulders almost touching, when I responded to his second question which was tossed out in a rather glib confident manner given our recent win over the defending World Champions, “And how’s our team?”

“We’re in big trouble, sir,” I had said before I really thought through the consequences of my response. In that instant I would have done almost anything to take back those five words, replace them with the reply he thought he had prompted, something like, ‘great’.

My response caused Davis’ body to jerk in a way that was at once threatening and also intimidating. His green eyes seemed to take on a reptilian stare that sent shock waves through my head and down my spinal cord. With his cold stare came the demanding words, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Suddenly, the sensitive area I hand instinctively entered transformed from a mistake to the greatest opportunity of my life. Al Davis was asking me what I meant while picking a football game, and I had his full attention given the team in question what his. Still, I was not here to reveal that my passion was isolating winners against the spread as much as his was exploiting defenses deep, so I relied on first hand knowledge to make my case.

“Sir, it’s Thursday, and the Kansas City Chiefs are fully focused on us while we are still in the locker room talking about beating Csonka, Griese and Shula.”

Davis’ demeanor turned from holding me for treason to recognizing I was offering him something worth consideration. His words were more dismissive, “Listen young man,” Davis said while reaching out with his right hand and gently patting me twice on my left cheek, “You just do your job; I’ll take care of the team.”

As he walked away I leaned back against the wall in the hallway, for a moment catching my breath and thinking this was the best thing that could have happened. I got to tell Davis his team was in trouble and now he could do something about it.

Either Davis didn’t heed my warning, or, and this is the truth, he couldn’t do anything about it.

The Chiefs didn’t make the playoffs in 1973, and the Raiders did, but that Sunday in Kansas City the Chiefs beat Daryle Lamonica in his last start as the Raiders quarterback, 16-3, and Ken Stabler took over behind Jim Otto in the Silver and Black offense.