Raiders Owner Mark Davis inducted into Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame, where Vegas sporting history and its future converged

Mark Davis called it a "full-circle moment" for himself.

Being inducted into the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame not only brought back memories for the Raiders owner, from family summer trips to Las Vegas when he was a younger man (who could forget Strip staples Jimmy Durante, Cher and Don Rickles?) to taking in a title fight at the old Convention Center (the unforgettable Muhammad Ali-Jerry Quarry rematch that had just as many fists flying in the stands as in the ring).

But it also meant Davis was joining, in this select Sin City sports society, the guy he fondly referred to as "the original Las Vegas Raider" – the late David Humm. He was a fan favorite backup quarterback who not only won two Super Bowl rings with the Raiders, but was also born and raised in Las Vegas and was the first, and lone, inductee into this Hall in 1997.

"I loved him to death, my dad loved him to death," Davis told me. "The fact that my dad was down here to induct him at that time is really special. His family is just dear to my heart and so it's exciting to be going into this Hall of Fame and be a teammate of David's again."

Davis' induction came 10 years and 10 days after I joined him on a private jet from Las Vegas to Oakland, hours after he spoke at UNLV and pledged to move to Southern Nevada…so long as certain parameters were met.

Friday night, two hours before his induction into the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame, Davis exhaled at the passage of time as he spied photos of Allegiant Stadium's construction.

"It went fast," he said. "But a lot was accomplished in those 10 years. But like I've said, it's about 'we,' not 'me.' There's just so many people that played a role in where we are."

Davis' experience with and knowledge of Las Vegas' sports history serves him well.

As in the Raiders playing the first professional football game in Las Vegas – an AFL exhibition against the Houston Oilers at old Cashman Field on Aug. 29, 1964. The Raiders, who challenged the city's then-segregated hotels with the teams' integrated rosters, won that day, 34-20, before a sold-out crowd of more than 12,000.

Or his boxing acumen.

And, as "recently" as 15 years ago, UNLV's Runnin' Rebels being the only sports show in town.

Before the NHL's Golden Knights showed up as an expansion team and won a Stanley Cup in its sixth year of existence.

Before Davis' Aces, who have won three of the past four WNBA titles, moved from San Antonio and rebranded.

Before UFC became an international brand.

Before MLB and the A's are scheduled to set up shop on the corner of the Strip and Tropicana Blvd. in 2028.

Before the NBA reportedly lands in Sin City shortly thereafter.

From a personal perspective, this class of inductees was a collision of my UNLV and Raiders worlds with two of Jerry Tarkanian's top lieutenants in Tim Grgurich and the late Mark Warkentien joining Davis. In a five year-stretch, from 1987-91, the Rebels appeared in three Final Fours and won a national title.

"Jerry Tarkanian and that championship team, that celebrated team of Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony and Larry Johnson, they were the heart and soul of Las Vegas in sports and everybody back then would clamor for that," said Hall of Fame sportscaster Jim Gray, a confidante of Davis.

"That was really the identification that everybody had for sports in Las Vegas. So for Mark to go in with some of those folks … who built the foundation here that led to this, I'm sure it's gratifying for him."

Indeed.

"They took the country by storm," Davis said, "and everybody's imagination about Las Vegas."

There has always been a certain synergy between the Raiders and the Runnin' Rebels.

The Tuck Rule against the Patriots in the 2001 NFL playoffs is to Raider Nation what Greg Anthony's phantom fifth foul vs. Duke in the 1991 Final Four is to Gucci Row.

The Raiders have only been to the playoffs three times since that snowy night in New England and the Rebels have only won three NCAA tournament games since that upset loss to the Blue Devils.

Even the Rai-ders and Re-bels sing-song chants sound eerily similar.

So, of course the Raiders owner being feted on the same night as two of the architects of UNLV's long-lost dynasty made perfect, symmetrical sense.

Even Raiders superfan Augmon, who, along with several of his 1990 championship teammates, lit the Al Davis Torch before a game last season, introduced Grgurich.

Grgurich came to the desert from Western Pennsylvania, where he rooted for a certain Raiders rival.

"I'll tell you what, when I was growing up in Pittsburgh and coaching at the University of Pittsburgh, we hated them and they hated us," Grgurich, Tarkanian's top assistant from 1981-92 before becoming UNLV's head coach for seven games in 1994, told me with a deep laugh.

"I was there for the Immaculate Reception. I was there."

Yes, nearly six months to the day after Davis was at Ali-Quarry II.

"And when you talk about how hard our practices were [at UNLV], the defensive backs for the Raiders … they were walking killers," Grgurich continued. "They were like our practices."

Way back in 1999, when I worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, I wrote a story on the number of people with UNLV ties being with the Portland Trail Blazers.

Anthony, Augmon and Isaiah Rider were on the court while Grgurich was an assistant and Warkentien, who had been on Tarkanian's staff and later served as the school's assistant athletics director, was Portland's assistant GM at the time, while a scout, the strength and conditioning coach and his intern were all also Rebels.

"What we're doing definitely has a UNLV flavor," Warkentien told me at the time. "We want athletic, multiple-position, very hard-playing, get-after-you kind of guys. So it fits our prototype.

"We want guys who play with a little bit of an edge. We had those types of guys at UNLV."

On the more, ahem, gentlemanly side of things, there was golfer Ryan Moore, who won an individual national title at UNLV in 2004 and has five PGA wins to his name entering the SNSHOF.

And yet…

"I probably shouldn't say on this, but I'm still a Seahawks fan," the current Las Vegas resident said, alternately bristling and smiling. "I grew up there. I've always been a fan.

"I will say, the Raiders are definitely my second team that I'm pulling for at all times. I can have one of each; I think that's fair."

On this night, where Las Vegas' glorious sporting past met its hopeful future, it was more than fair.

Especially with Davis also looking to the future.

Yes, I asked him about No. 1 draft pick Fernando Mendoza.

"Off the field," Davis said, "he's got every intangible you could ever imagine. If he could actually play football to that level, we're going to be in good shape."

You might even call it a full-circle moment.