Davis' induction came 10 years and 10 days after I joined him [on a private jet from Las Vegas to Oakland](https://www.espn.com/blog/las-vegas-raiders/post/_/id/14572/las-vegas-raiders-owner-mark-davis-serious-about-move-to-sin-city), 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.
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."
"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.