The Raiders’ surprise mid-week house cleaning has elevated a former NFL linebacker into the role of interim head coach.
As Antonio Pierce sees it, he was made for this role all along.
“I’ve been fortunate. I played at a high-level,” the new Raiders interim head coach told reporters on Wednesday. “Going back to my roots and coaching at Long Beach Poly. At high school, I was the head coach there. I was at the New York Giants in 2017 and then college (Arizona State) for four years. I had opportunities to leave and go to other organizations and decided not to.
“The short story and the matter of fact is I grew up in Compton, California. I was born a Raider. I was born with the Raiders rolling in the Coliseum in L.A. I was rolling with N.W.A. talking Straight Out of Compton, rocking Raider hats. So, when an opportunity came to work with Josh (McDaniels), (defensive coordinator) Pat Graham and Dave (Ziegler), I jumped on it. So, that’s what set me up for this. I was born this way.”
