OAKLAND – His hair was wet, compliments of a Gatorade bucket shower from Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora, and he was dripping with pride.

The Giants were right about Tom Coughlin.

“The critical thing for me was I knew that there would be nothing more important in his life than to win football games, a burning desire to that, and that’s what we were looking for,” John Mara said after Giants 30, Raiders 21, “so that he wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. And obviously we needed somebody who was able to work within our structure with a general manager and everything and that has worked very, very well. They don’t always agree, but they move on, and we make a decision in the best interests of the organization.”

GM Ernie Accorsi can go on and on about what a man of integrity and honesty he knows Coughlin to be. Mara was asked about a year ago when some Giant players, stricken with culture shock, viewed the successor to Jim Fassel as Tom Terrible.

“My view at the time was, ‘Stop bitching and start playing football,’ ” Mara said. It happened to be Wellington Mara’s view as well. “It’s not that big of a deal if you can’t wear white socks in the hotel lobby.” The late great owner’s son chuckled. “I mean, just suck it up and get on with it, and I think by and large, they have done that. When you’re winning, a lot of those things go by the wayside. When you’re losing, stuff like that gets brought up.”

Coughlin made it uncomfortable to lose. He is coach of the division-champion Giants. He restored the pride to an organization that had fallen into despair.

“I’ll tell you what I told them,” Coughlin said. “We are The Team of Record, honoring the death of our two great owners, Mr. Mara and Mr. Tisch. Now alongside of that, we are the NFC East champions and we honor them with this divisional title.”

steve.serby@nypost.com