-Hopes are high for new Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza.

Why he has some fans so excited, and what's realistic in his rookie year, plus... As the Aces prepare to defend their WNBA title, a star player pens an important letter to her toddler.

What message she wants to get across, that's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

With the first overall pick in this year's NFL draft, the Las Vegas Raiders selected Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza.

After leading the Hoosiers to a perfect season and their first National Championship, the Heisman Trophy winner is now the latest source of hope for a suffering Silver and Black fan base that hasn't seen a playoff win in more than two decades.

Here to explain what Mendoza could mean for the franchise entering its seventh season in Las Vegas is John Tournour, better known as JT the Brick, host of Raider Nation Radio.

JT, welcome to Nevada Week.

-Amber, great to see you.

Thanks for having me.

-You described the first day of this draft as, quote, what should be one of the most important days in Raider history in Vegas.

Why?

(John Tournour) It has to be, because Mendoza is a game changer.

The Raiders-- You don't get the number one pick often.

And when you do, coming off last season, you got to nail it.

And being around this gentleman and his family for a couple of days here in Vegas, he's the real deal.

So the Raiders now have an opportunity to have the player at the most important position who can turn things around, hopefully quickly.

A lot of people now have a different look: Let's take our time.

Let's get it right.

But with Brock Bowers, Ashton Jeanty, and Fernando Mendoza--I know we'll get to Maxx Crosby--there's a big three or four now within this organization.

And every great team in the NFL has three or four stars, and the Raiders have three new young ones on rookie contracts.

So the time is now.

-What about that offensive line?

Last season it was hard to watch Geno Smith take all that punishment.

He didn't get much protection up front.

What kind of danger is Fernando Mendoza going to be in if he's playing?

-Great question.

They got Tyler Linderbaum, the center from Baltimore, and they paid him big money to come in here.

So he's going to change everything.

He's going to be the anchor.

Kolton Miller is coming back at left tackle.

Jackson Powers-Johnson, who I think now with the right coaching, an upgrade on the offensive line, is going to be really good.

And then, Amber, they drafted a bunch of offensive linemen over the last two years, and they just need one of them to start out of four or five.

So I think they're going to be much improved.

But as you pointed out, last year was difficult.

Geno didn't have a chance.

Ashton Jeanty didn't have much of a chance.

The play caller got fired.

The head coach got let go.

So last year, everything that could go wrong went wrong.

That's why this off-season was so important, because the Raiders brought in, in free agency, seven new starters before the draft.

And I'm predicting in the draft they probably got at least three to four potential new starters.

Those are 10 players overall that should change everything.

-So new head coach in Klint Kubiak, coming off the Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks team.

How does he combine with Fernando Mendoza?

-He's a great play caller.

He's very cerebral.

He's very low-key, and I just think he's going to build plays for Mendoza, which will be his strength-- a short passing game, the ability to explode.

But the key will be getting the running game going, because the Raiders are only going to be good if they can run the football at the point of attack.

And that's Ashton Jeanty, who I think is going to be a superstar in this league.

So it's a great question, because if the offensive line improves quickly and drastically, then the Raiders can get going.

Think about the Raiders on 3rd and 4 or 3rd and 5, where they don't have to hurry up at the line of scrimmage, maybe change the play.

They can hand it off on 3rd down and pick up a 1st down.

How about on 1st and 10?

They can hand it off for 11 yards.

I think this is going to be about ball control in the Mendoza era.

And it might be Kirk Cousins who ends up starting, because they brought him in, and he knows this Kubiak playbook better than anybody.

His best three years in the league with Minnesota were with Klint Kubiak, so he's very familiar as we get Fernando Mendoza up to speed.

-How soon could we see Fernando Mendoza start?

-Well, that's the big question.

I mean, a lot of people-- Normally, when you take a No.

1 pick overall, traditionally, he starts Week 1.

That's how it goes.

You can go back to all the great quarterbacks.

But here's a different scenario: The Raiders had the first pick.

They struggled so much on the offensive line.

You'd like to see that offensive line play a few games with Cousins to prove that they can protect him.

Now, what I think is going to happen if Cousins does start and he wins a couple of games, he'll stay.

If he doesn't win a couple of games quickly, you can go to Mendoza and do it there.

But if Mendoza is great in the off-season and in the preseason at camp, whoever is the better player is going to play, because the Raiders want to win now.

-Okay.

So Rob Rang of Fox Sports said Mendoza is "an ideal schematic and personality match for Las Vegas."

Why personality match?

-I've been doing, this is coming up almost on 30 years for me.

I've never seen a player who cared more about his mom, his family, than this guy.

And I've interviewed all of them.

He says everything right.

He's always prepared.

And I think we're looking for that type of leader-- cerebral, a guy who's very calm, but a guy who has a big personality inside the huddle.

He's the ultimate teammate.

And a lot of times, as you know, a quarterback when they're drafted number one has got a big personality.

They might be outgoing.

They might be a little bit cocky.

He's toned down.

He cares more about doing this correctly.

And we saw, when he transferred from Cal Berkeley and went to Indiana, nobody thought he'd win the Heisman Trophy, win the National Championship in Indiana with Ohio State and Michigan and, let alone, have a perfect season, the first quarterback ever to do that with the Heisman in the modern era during a college football playoff.

So I think he's "patient," is the word I would use.

He's not going to be a diva, telling everybody in the off-season, I need to start.

He's going to listen to his coaches.

He's going to listen to everyone involved.

And most importantly, he's going to listen to his family.

I met his mom and dad, and they build a wall around his mom, who, as you know, has MS and she's in a wheelchair.

And I never saw anything like this in my entire life, that the brothers, the two younger brothers, Fernando, and his father surround his mother and take care of her.

And you see a family dynamic which is going to be perfect with the Raider family as he comes to town.

-So then there must have been at some point this clean break from the Raiders of the '70s, you know, the real rough around the edges.

Because when I'm hearing a personality match for Las Vegas, I'm thinking, you know, Kenny Stabler, for example, or back to Jim Otto and like, that kind of Raider.

But this is a different time.

-Yeah, this is a different time.

I spent last weekend with Fred Biletnikoff and a lot of the legends who were here in town, and the Raiders of the '70s were probably the greatest Raiders of all time.

They were the mavericks; they were a bit wild.

They had a lot of fun, but they always won.

And they played hard, and they were great teammates.

The way I look at Fernando Mendoza is I would look at him like Jim Plunkett.

Jim Plunkett was drafted No.

1 overall, won the Heisman.

But Jim had a big struggle when he came into the league with New England.

He got beat up, and he really struggled and then moved to the 49ers.

And Al Davis brought him to the Raiders and said, I don't need you right now.

You need to rest and heal.

And then when he needed him, he put him in.

And Jim Plunkett won two Super Bowls, a Super Bowl MVP.

So I'm telling everyone, when you look at Fernando, think of the great Jim Plunkett, who was very patient with his career and went on to an iconic career.

But I think Fernando is going to have the opportunity to really turn this city around because of his leadership and his poise.

-And he's going to be wearing the Jersey No.

15-- -Amazing.

- --of Tom Flores, the former Raiders quarterback.

How did that come to be?

-Well, he wore it in college.

And when you look at 15 overall, it's really important.

The first quarterback for the Raiders was Tom Flores, and the franchise began in 1960.

And Coach Flores, who's with us, is really proud of this.

And this is a great connection, Latino, the connection to Plunkett and Flores.

And I can tell you this from the inside: That jersey is moving.

I'm going to get you one.

Get it now over at The Raider Image.

Everyone in the Raider Nation is buying that 15 jersey, and he's going to have to prove it.

He's going to have to prove that he can live up to that legacy of the great Tom Flores, one of the greatest Raiders of all time.

-Yeah.

I saw a headline the other day, "How to get a Fernando Mendoza Jersey in Las Vegas," as if it's a struggle.

It's a hard thing to do right now.

-You're gonna have to get in line.

You know me; we'll get you one.

But it's important.

If you can go online... The Raiders really care about their image, right?

Their uniform is iconic with the silver and black.

A lot of teams want to change their uniform and have all these different styles.

Mr.

Davis, before Mark Davis, wanted to stick with the silver and black.

It's often copied.

You see NBA teams now wearing silver and black.

It's an iconic jersey, and that Raider jersey is going to fly off the shelves.

You got Maxx Crosby, Brock Bowers, Ashton Jeanty, Fernando.

So I think when you go to Allegiant Stadium this year, you're going to see a lot more home Raider jerseys in the crowd.

-You bring up Al Davis, Mark Davis.

There is now a succession plan in place for the Raiders, which I guess had to happen because Mark Davis has no children.

He's in his early 70s.

So what is the plan?

-Well, the NFL has a plan of succession.

Mark's time was now to give his plan.

So there's some new owners, Egon Durban, Michael Meldman.

We have some really good--Tom Brady, as you know.

They're minority owners, but Mark is the majority owner of the team.

So he's just putting his business in order.

Normally, I don't comment much on people's trust or personal trust in what they're doing, but Mark's the owner of the Raiders, and he just wanted to set it up for the future, in case he decides to move on.

But from talking to Mark, Mark has never been more passionate about winning now.

He's done so much for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so much for the alumni.

He brought the Raiders to Vegas and what that's done for the rest of the owners and the amount of money they're making and the high profile of the Raiders in Vegas with the Super Bowl here--it'll be two times that we're having the Super Bowl coming up here in three years--the Pro Bowl.

So everything that Mark's done with his legacy, there's one big finishing point, and he's going to be here a long time, is to win a Super Bowl.

So with his succession plan and what he's going to do privately, that's up to him, as you bring up, but he's got a lot of unfinished business.

-And he also has done a lot for the Las Vegas Aces.

We're going to be talking about them coming up.

You brought up how the Raiders in Las Vegas, the NFL in Las Vegas, has impacted other owners.

Can you elaborate on that, because I know the Raiders' value has gone up as a team, how much they're worth, but you're saying the rest of the league has benefited as well?

-Yes, because all the owners get appreciation on the value of the league and their team.

So every ownership group has made--I don't want to predict--billions or hundreds of millions of dollars on this move to Vegas, because it just raised the tide.

To have a team here, the amount of infrastructure it brought to the NFL financially is incredible.

I mean, we wanted to stay in Oakland.

The plan was always to stay in Oakland.

The Raider's hand was forced to come here, and it's turned out.

I woke up today, and I looked on my Facebook memories.

Ten years ago today, the Las Vegas Review-Journal had the cover story about the Raiders and talk, coming to Vegas.

And now, after all these seasons here, I think the owners appreciate what Mark's done now, because this is a global city of sports and entertainment.

We're getting the Final Four because of Allegiant Stadium.

We're getting the National Championship in college football.

None of that happens out at Sam Boyd Stadium.

None of that happens without Allegiant Stadium.

So part of Mark's legacy, along with others who brought the team here, is going to be Allegiant Stadium being the number one stadium in the world for revenue, and on top of that, bringing more sporting events here.

And in regards to the NFL and your question, it's making a lot of money for the other owners.

-Okay.

So it's making money for a lot of other people.

-Yes.

-Is it benefiting the Raiders?

How has it worked out for the Raiders, this move to Las Vegas?

-Well, it's benefited the Raiders because they have more cash flow and they have a lot more money coming in to spend on players.

Now you got to get it right with the players.

If you don't have the right players and the right coaching, as we've seen in the last couple of years, nothing's going to change.

There are too many opposing fans coming to our stadium because they love our stadium and they want to see their team.

Imagine you could-- -And they want to come to Vegas.

-Yeah.

Imagine if you can come see the Buffalo Bills and you had to choose between Denver, Kansas City, Detroit, or Jacksonville, and you wanted to save your money to go to one place.

It would be Las Vegas.

And I think that tide is going to turn when the Raiders are winning consistently.

And I think in the next two to three years, the Raiders will be a perennial playoff team, and you'll see more of a split of Raider fans compared to opposing fans because-- Look, everyone's welcome in Vegas.

I say this all the time.

We we know what our airport tourism is like.

We know what our casino corridor is like.

People want to see football at Allegiant Stadium.

We just need more Raider fans than opposing fans, and that's happening.

-All right.

JT the Brick, thank you for getting us excited about the Raiders upcoming season.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.

-We move now to the WNBA.

The defending champion Las Vegas Aces opened the 2026 season May 9th against the Phoenix Mercury.

It's a rematch of last year's WNBA Finals, when the Aces swept the Mercury in four games.

Since then, Aces guard Chelsea Gray has been making her own headlines.

She won the 1-on-1 Championship in the off-season league Unrivaled, and she wrote an open letter in The Players' Tribune to her two-year-old son, saying, in part, quote, I know one day when you're older, you'll have questions about me and your mom, about your life and your family, and I want to tell you everything.

A four-time WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, Aces Guard Chelsea Gray, thank you for joining me.

-Thank you for having me.

-Was this a difficult decision to write this letter?

What went into it?

(Chelsea Gray) It wasn't difficult.

I had help with my wife.

It was authentic to us and our story.

It was probably more-- like right now, obviously, it's a lot more for me than for him, but one day if he has questions of, like, his journey and how cool this kid was when he was two years old, I wanted him to have something to be able to kind of reflect on.

-How cool is he?

-He's the coolest little two-year-old.

He has, like, such an electric energy.

He's particular.

He's funny.

He's outgoing.

He loves trucks, cars.

Like he, all the kid stuff, he's just free.

And he's around all these cool people all the time, and he ends up being one of the coolest in the room, so I love it.

-He's cooking with you?

-Yeah, he loves to cook.

He, every morning we go downstairs and he's like, he does the eggs.

He cracks the egg for me, and then I break it open and I put it in there.

He loves to do little things, stirring, like he loves to help.

He has his own little play kitchen that my wife put together for him.

So it's like, our quality time in the kitchen for sure.

-His name is Lennox, and some people might say that this was brave of you to write a letter like this.

What do you think about that?

-I don't necessarily feel that it was like an item of bravery.

It's just me.

It's me on a paper; it's me in a letter.

It's our family in a letter.

It's him.

And I've always been the person that kind of spoke my truth and just, it's me with my family all the time.

You see my parents all the time.

You see my wife and son.

And so it's authentically me no matter what.

-And so you were feeling this, you wanted to write it down so he could read it later, as you said, something for you to read when you're just about ready to spread your wings.

But for all the other people who are out there reading this, what do you want them to gain from it?

-Part of this letter and what people can probably gain from it, if anything, is that two things, yeah, it can be true.

You can have this professional life, but you can also have this home life at home and be super present with your son and be intentional.

It takes some intentionality to be able to, to be able to do this, because we're so busy.

We're traveling.

He understands that Mommy goes to work, Mommy goes to basketball, Mommy always comes back.

And my wife does a great job of being able to hold down our home while I'm away.

And she's awesome.

And so it's like when I come home, we don't skip a beat.

And so kind of getting used to you got to stay on it and be intentional about it.

But two things can be true.

You can, like, be at the highest stages, like, go for all the awards, all the accolades, but also be at home and be a rock star mom as well.

-And you've proven that, because in your time raising Lennox, you won your fourth WNBA Championship, and then you just won the 1-on-1 Championship in Unrivaled.

What was Lennox's reaction to that win?

-So the WNBA Championship, like he was just happy kind of to be on the court and in midst of all the chaos.

He just loves running around.

And he saw the confetti, and he's like, Oh, yeah, Mommy won basketball.

But I think it was the trophy that really took him.

And he was, like, he was hitting the trophy.

He had a reflection.

He was looking at himself.

So that was cool.

And then when I won on 1-on-1, there's a video clip of him just running to me.

It was, it's like the most mom moment ever.

I'm just like, that is the clip that I'm gonna save for the rest of my life.

And he came out.

My wife actually was like, He was about to go down, like, to go to sleep.

And I was like, Hold on.

Let's change.

Mommy's about to win.

Let's put you back out there.

And so-- -Diaper change?

-Yeah.

Like he was in his sleep clothes.

Like, we put him right back into his outfit, and he just came running out.

I was like, Oh, man.

Like, those are the moments you kind of live for.

-Totally.

In the letter you also write, quote, One thing I hope, Lennox, is that the world you grow up in is more open-minded than the one I grew up in and, one day when you read this, you're surprised to learn that it wasn't always easy to be yourself for people like me and Mama.

It was a hush-hush type of thing.

And that had me wondering, how easy is it now for you and your wife to be yourself?

-Yeah.

There's still things in the back, back of our mind where this world and where this society sometimes can be, but there's just, he's so pure and so like, happy and joyous.

It's just like, we just dive head first into that aspect of it.

There's-- there might be questions later down the line when he has like, Okay, what was it like for me growing up when I'm two and I have two moms.

So we do a really good job of making sure he's just surrounded by love, that he doesn't skip a beat.

He doesn't know any different.

He doesn't know that there is a difference.

He just has two parents that really, really love him.

He has a family that he can lean on anytime.

-And you wrote about your Draft night, and you said that you couldn't have your wife there because there was just so much to lose by sharing your truth back then.

That was back in 2014.

What would have happened had your wife been there do you think?

-I don't know.

I honestly don't know.

I look back on it, and I wish she could have enjoyed that experience.

We have so many more that sometimes that one, just like, We forget that you weren't there.

Like I called her in the back, like everything.

I don't know.

The pictures probably would have been different.

She was still as happy for me as she would be if she were in person.

It just, it's more celebrated now than it was before.

And it's not that quite like long ago.

We're talking about 12 years ago, but now I'm happy to see that everybody's open and honest with whoever they choose to bring.

-I wondered if you wrote that letter because you thought that Lennox might ask you about that later, like seeing pictures or if you wanted to get it off your chest maybe?

-Um, no, I just I, like, I just wanted to know, like, how far me and his mom has come and where our relationship now, and we brought you into this world to enjoy this love and to enjoy the joy of living and enjoy happiness and travel and experiences as young as two years old.

And he's going to keep growing and understanding the life.

And it's been cool to kind of see life through his, through his eyes.

-Yeah.

Talking about changes within the league over the last 12 years, you mentioned in the letter about how normal it is to have him in the locker room and how that wouldn't have been the norm 12 years ago.

What do you think led to that change?

-I think everybody is kind of, like, welcoming.

And now that there's so much media and there's eyes and everything, you're allowed to kind of express yourself in different ways.

So him coming in the locker room, it's created this like family environment, right?

All locker rooms aren't the same.

I can only speak from my experience.

And in Vegas, it's a family environment.

You know, we've had Becky's kids around and in practices, and then Lennox comes around now and Cheyenne's kids come around.

And it's, it cultivates this, like, family and this bond and this chemistry and a trust that if you trust somebody and for them to, like, go watch your kid, like, there's this trust there that, you know, that's underlying.

And so him coming in the locker room is joy.

He came in the locker room after our preseason game.

And so it was, it was pretty cool.

He's surrounded by such great women all the time.

And so hopefully that just bleeds off and it gives him some some good stuff.

-Totally.

Head Coach Becky Hammon, you wrote about her in this letter as well.

Did she read the letter?

-She did.

She was like, My gosh, I was in tears.

-I bet, because you don't really get to say those kind of things to your coach really, right?

-Sometimes I think-- It's been really cool.

Becky, and the culture that she's cultivated since she's been here, is very, very open.

You can come to her about almost anything.

And so I've come to her about being a parent, being a working mom, all the things.

And so it's been, it's been nice to have that.

-Yeah.

Being a working mom, I think a lot of moms out there can relate how tough it can be.

What is an aspect of it, though, when you add that extra layer of being a professional athlete that people might not think about?

-It's tough to be away.

You have to compartmentalize like no other.

I think athletes naturally do it.

But being a parent, being a mom, being super present if you want to be that, you know, people parent differently, and that's whatever, whatever somebody wants.

But compartmentalizing is something that I've learned, and-- -What does that look like for you?

-It doesn't matter if I win by 20, lose by 20.

When I come home, all he wants to do is play with trucks.

And it's actually like, it's kind of cool, because I get a chance to kind of [exhales] get away from it.

And you know, you sometimes when you were younger and you're in high school, you're in grade school and you will look at a problem, and you're just like, Okay, how do I solve this problem?

How do I solve this problem?

And you step away, you come back to it, and it's like, Oh, the answer is right there in front of me.

I was able to see it.

And that's what my son has been.

It's like you step away from basketball, you come back to it with fresh eyes, because all you're doing back at home is playing with trucks and running around in the grass.

And life is so short, so it makes me a little-- it's appreciated, appreciate it a little bit more.

-The moments.

And then there may be some people out there who say, you're a professional athlete, you can just hire a nanny, which maybe in past years might not have been true because of pay.

But things have changed.

I mean, what do you think about the pay changes, first off.

-First off, I love the pay changes.

It's great.

-Congratulations on your new deal.

-Thank you.

The pay changes are great.

It's, I think now basketball is allowing for women athletes to solely have that as their job.

Before we would have to have to create different jobs, go overseas, combine all this money to be able to survive, honestly.

And as far as nannies, I have one.

We have one, and it's great.

You bring somebody into your home and into your space, and you just have to find the right fit, honestly.

And it's been cool to kind of see different relationships because, you know, who you surround yourself with is who is going to be impacting your child.

And we're very, very selective in who we let in.

-Lennox is set to be a very special person based on all the people he has around him.

-Thank you.

-Chelsea Gray, thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you so much.

-And we continue now with another story of a powerful woman and mother.

The devotion and concern Ruby Duncan had for her seven children inspired her life as a welfare rights activist and tireless advocate for low-income families in Nevada.

Today our community mourns the loss of Ms.

Duncan who passed away on Sunday, April 26 at the age of 93.

In the 1960s and '70s, Duncan and several mothers from Las Vegas' Historic Westside led an anti-poverty movement and took their fight to the world famous Las Vegas Strip.

This later became the subject of a book and documentary called Storming Caesars Palace.

In March of 2023, Vegas PBS, along with several community partners, hosted a screening and panel discussion about that documentary.

And our Maria Silva asked Ms.

Duncan how she'd like to be remembered.

(Ruby Duncan) Oh, just a kind human being that wanted to make sure no one go hungry, no one go homeless, no one do not have great health care.

That's what I want to be known for.

Go vote.

-Ruby Duncan was indeed a kind human.

Her legacy lives on at the local school named in her honor, where she loved visiting with students.

To learn more about Ruby Duncan's incredible life and legacy, please visit our website, vegaspbs.org.

And I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.