RAIDERS : Marvin, on Injured Reserve, Says He Will Cross Picket Line, as He Did During the Strike in 1982

Amid indications from both sides that they’d rather not, Raider players and management trudged to their respective sides Monday to get ready for a strike.

The team changed its schedule, abiding by a Management Council directive. Today, normally a day off for the players, there will be a meeting at 10 a.m.

“They want to see who’s going to cross (a picket line),” said tackle Brian Holloway, vice president of the National Football League Players Assn.

Despite acknowledged reluctance all around, only one Raider has declared that he will cross. He’s guard Mickey Marvin, now on injured reserve and during the off-season a lay preacher from North Carolina.

“I crossed in ‘82,” Marvin said Monday. “I’m a man. I can stand on my own two feet. I think I’ve made it clear where I stand.”

Barring an 11th-hour settlement, the players are planning to picket today, and the coaching staff will begin importing a non-union squad made up largely of players cut in camp, including quarterback Scott Woolf, halfback Martin Sartin of Cal State Long Beach, linebacker Jim Ellis and tight end Jack Owens. Vince Evans, former USC and Chicago Bears quarterback who has been out of football for several years, called to volunteer, but there is some question if the team will take him up on it.

The new Raiders may practice Wednesday for the first time, with the intention of playing a game against their Kansas City Chiefs counterparts in the Coliseum Oct. 4, the day the real teams were to have met.

Raider management is suggesting it’s doing this because it has to.

“According to a directive from the Management Council, we’re obligated to field a team,” Raider Coach Tom Flores said.

Did they considered rebelling?

“We’ve been directed to do this,” Flores said. “If you don’t follow directions, you’re subject to a substantial fine and loss of draft choices, so we’re complying with the directive we received.”

Would Flores prefer that his striking players stick together, even if on the other side of a picket line, rather than file back in, one by one?

“As a coach, you would like the players to stick together,” Flores said. “But I don’t speak for each one of them, individually. . . . And to be honest, we’ve been asked not to comment too much.”

How would he feel about a game between two non-union squads counting on the Raiders’ record?

“It’s an interesting thought,” he said. “I’ve thought about that. I don’t think I should comment.”

Similarly, the Raider player representative, Sean Jones, went about his union chores dutifully more than enthusiastically.

“Our owner (Al Davis) doesn’t want a strike,” Jones said. “The players--it’s really awkward.”

No Raider player who isn’t a serving officer of the union has been heard to voice any desire to strike, and players volunteer their distress daily. Monday, reserve tight end Trey Junkin called it “insanity” and added that the warring sides are acting like “little kids.”

The Raiders, however, are expected to respect the picket line, at least in the beginning. They’re not one of the teams that has threatened to cross en masse, as the Bears have.

“I talked to Gene Upshaw and Doug Allen (NFLPA director and a member of his staff, respectively),” Holloway said. “That’s a question that comes up. They flew out (to Chicago) to see (the Bears). They said that’s absolutely not the sentiment of the team. But we’ll know shortly, won’t we?”

The Bears voted unanimously Monday to strike.

The players are betting that TV advertisers’ pressure will sink the non-union schedule. Holloway said that if the non-union players try to play at the Coliseum, the AFL-CIO will put up a picket line and no union worker will cross it. Also, he said, the Raider players plan to hold a competing “family day,” posing for pictures and signing autographs in a nearby park.

Under the Management Council’s schedule, the players were given Monday off. Many of them couldn’t be reached, and turned up at El Segundo anyway, hanging around, as some do on normal days off, to lift weights, watch film or play cards in the locker room. Players went home with their toilet articles and football shoes, since they might not be back for a while.

Someone asked Flores if he intends to show the new Raiders the film of the Detroit game.

“Wise guy,” Flores said, smiling.