DeMarcus Cousins: From Alabama Kid to Raiders Fan
DeMarcus Cousins doesn’t blend into a crowd. He cuts through it.
At 6-foot-10 and roughly 270 pounds, the former NBA All-Star moved through the fan section at Raiders training camp on August 7 and instantly became a second attraction. Half of Raider Nation surged toward him for photos. The rest just stared, sizing up a man who somehow made professional football players look small.
Cousins has called Las Vegas home for a decade. His allegiance to the Silver and Black, though, traces back much further, to humid afternoons in Alabama and a quarterback who once carried the hopes of an entire state.
From Mobile to the Black Hole
Growing up between Mobile and Birmingham, Cousins had a front-row seat to the legend of JaMarcus Russell. Russell was the five-star prodigy, the can’t-miss arm, the hometown phenom who just happened to attend Cousins’ rival high school.
Cousins watched the rise. The dominance at LSU. The buzz leading into the 2007 NFL Draft. Then the moment Russell became the No. 1 overall pick of the Oakland Raiders.
That was it. That was the hook.
“Regardless of how it turned out as far as his professional career ... he's the reason why I became a Raiders fan,” Cousins told Raiders.com.
For a kid from Alabama, the NFL felt distant. There were no home teams, no local stadiums packed with 70,000 people in the same colors he wore on his couch. His team lived on television screens and in box scores.
So when the Raiders packed up Oakland and moved to Las Vegas, Cousins took it personally.
“When the Raiders moved out here, it felt like a gift sent from God, specifically for me,” he said. “[Being] from Alabama, we never had our own professional sports team, so the team I was a fan of, I've always had to be a fan from afar. I feel like it was meant to be and that's how I know this place is home for me.”
From Lottery Pick to Raider Nation Regular
Cousins’ own path to the pros came with its own five-star expectations. He went from blue-chip recruit to one-and-done at Kentucky, then straight into the 2010 NBA Draft, where the Sacramento Kings took him fifth overall.
Oakland sat just a drive down I-80 from Sacramento, and in his fourth NBA season, Cousins finally walked into the Coliseum for his first Raiders game. The place, the people, the edge in the air — it all fit.
“I think it's a collective group, a collective community of passionate fans,” he said. “They kind of got that grittiness to them, not scared to do the dirty work. I like those type of fans. I like the hard workers, I like the 'us against the world' type attitude. That's what represents Raider Nation.”
The connection stuck. Even as his NBA journey took him from city to city, the Silver and Black remained constant.
Sharing Space With a Legend
If Russell opened the door to Raider fandom for Cousins, Charles Woodson cemented it.
Woodson, the Hall of Famer and defensive icon, became another pillar in Cousins’ personal Raiders pantheon. Over the years, their worlds overlapped. Friends introduced friends. Circles merged. The kid who once watched Woodson on TV ended up on a first-name basis.
“We have a lot of mutual friends that have kind of eventually brought our circles together,” Cousins said. “His legacy speaks for itself. He's one of one. Just being able to have a relationship with him, outside of also being a fan at the same time, I think that's really cool.”
For Cousins, it’s not just nostalgia. It’s lineage. From Russell’s promise to Woodson’s greatness, he sees the Raiders as a franchise built on big personalities and bigger expectations — the same kind of energy that defined his own career.
A Giant Among Giants
After practice in Henderson, Cousins and his family stepped onto the field to meet players. It’s not often NFL linemen have to look up at someone. On this day, they did.
Tyler Linderbaum. Kolton Miller. Maxx Crosby. All large men by any standard. Cousins still towered over them, a reminder that NBA size lives in its own category.
He didn’t just come to shake hands and smile for photos. He came to take a closer look at what this version of the Raiders might become.
What he saw left him bullish.
“The future is bright for the Raiders right now,” he said. “Got the No. 1 pick in [Fernando] Mendoza, we got an incredible pick in [Ashton] Jeanty as well. We've improved our O-line, our defense is unbelievable – I believe they could be top 5 or top 10 in the league.
“Our future is bright.”
From a kid in Alabama watching JaMarcus Russell light up Friday nights, to an NBA star weaving through fans at a Raiders practice in Las Vegas, Cousins’ journey with the franchise has spanned states, sports, and eras.
Now he’s planted in the same city as the team he once followed from afar, watching a new core form in front of him — and convinced the next chapter might finally match the size of the expectations.
