“The Autumn Wind is a Pirate
Blustering in from sea
With a rollicking song
He sweeps along
Swaggering boisterously…”
If you’re a Raider fan, you hear those words in one iconic voice. That voice is that of the late John Facenda. It was a poem written by the late Steve Sabol and produced in 1974. The poem accompanied what became the Raiders theme song.
Now, in the same year that Steve Sabol enters the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Facenda will join him as the recipient of the Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award.
Facenda voiced many of the NFL Films’ work. He became known as the voice of the NFL over 20 years from 1965 until his death in 1984 at the age of 71. But no single piece of NFL Films footage is more iconic than his reading of The Autumn Wind.
He lived to see all three Raiders Super Bowl wins, so it’s also fitting that Tom Flores — who coached the Raiders to two of those Super Bowl wins — gets inducted this year via the Senior Committee.
Raiders great Charles Woodson gets in this year on his first ballot. Others to be inducted this year are Alan Faneca, Calvin Johnson, John Lynch, Peyton Manning, Bill Nunn, and Drew Pearson. They will be enshrined at 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 8 at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton Ohio.
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