So it is for another of the stars of the team that dominated the NFL in the 1960s. Many of them lived to see the 50th Anniversary of their wins in Super Bowl I and the Ice Bowl, but in the 3 and 2 years, respectively, since, have passed away.
William Delford Davis was born on July 24, 1934 in Lisbon, Louisiana, in the northern part of the State, near the Arkansas line. He grew up in nearby Texarkana, Arkansas (there is an adjoining city of the same name across the State Line in Texas), and became a 2-way lineman at nearby Grambling State University.
In many places in the South, there were colleges and universities set up to be black people's equivalent to nearby white ones. Florida A&M was established in Tallahassee, near Florida State; Tennessee State in Nashville, near Vanderbilt; and, in Louisiana, Southern University in Baton Rouge near LSU, and Grambling State in Grambling, near Louisiana Tech in Ruston.
Along with running back Paul "Tank" Younger and lineman Buck Buchanan, Davis was among the early stars produced by Grambling head coach Eddie Robinson, who went on to win more games than any college football coach, regardless of race or level, before him, and raised the profile of black colleges' football programs in general.
Cleveland Browns head coach and general manager Paul Brown had been a pioneer in re-integrating pro football, so he knew what the top black-college football players were capable of. He selected Davis in the 1956 NFL Draft. But another draft claimed Davis, that of the U.S. Army, and he missed the 1956 and 1957 seasons. In 1958 and 1959, Brown played Davis all over the offensive and defensive lines, to see where he would most help the team.
Davis may not have convinced Brown that he was particularly well-suited for any position. Or, he may have done a better job of convincing Vince Lombardi, head coach and GM of the Green Bay Packers. He traded for Davis, and put him at defensive end, and he became one of the greatest players that position has ever known.
The Packers won the NFL Western Division in 1960, their 1st such title in 16 years. They lost the NFL Championship Game to the Philadelphia Eagles. With a little more tinkering, Lombardi got them to the 1961 Championship Game, and a defense led by Davis and linebacker Ray Nitschke wrecked the high-powered offense of the New York Giants. The offense, quarterbacked by Bart Starr, protected by an offensive line with Jerry Kramer and Forrest Gregg, and with star runners Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor, ran riot through the snow of what would become Lambeau Field on New Year's Eve, and the Packers won 37-0.
The sack was not an official NFL statistic during Davis' time. David "Deacon" Jones of the Los Angeles Rams, Davis' chief competitor for the title of the NFL's best defensive end, created the term for tackling the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage. Football historian John Turney determined that Davis had "possibly more than 120." Davis believed he was the franchise's all-time leader, and when you consider that he was a teammate of Nitschke, and that they later had Reggie White at defensive end (albeit having spent the 1st half of his career with the Eagles), that says something.
Definitely still a team career record is the 21 fumbles that Davis recovered. He would make 5 Pro Bowls, all in a row from 1963 to 1967. He would help the Packers make it back-to-back NFL Championships in 1962, with a 13-1 record, their only loss a nationally-televised Thanksgiving Day shocker to the Detroit Lions.
And he helped them win 3 straight NFL Championships from 1965 to 1967, the last 2 setting up wins in Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II. The last of these NFL Championship Games was the game known as the Ice Bowl. On another New Year's Eve, the game-time temperature was 13 degrees... below zero. That's without the wind-chill factor.
NFL Films footage of the day shows Davis walking into Lambeau Field, in a heavy coat and a fur-lined hat, with a big smile on his face, as if he's sure that his team, used to cold Wisconsin weather (if not quite this cold), would be far more ready to play than their opponents, the Dallas Cowboys, used to the warm South. The Cowboys put up one hell of a fight, but the Packers won, 21-17.
Earlier in the year, on June 4, 1967, what was then called the Cleveland Summit was called by Davis' former Browns teammate Jim Brown, to bring prominent black athletes together in support of Muhammad Ali, who had been stripped of the Heavyweight Championship of the World by the governing bodies for boxing, following his April 28 refusal to be drafted into the Army, and his subsequent indictment for draft evasion.
Davis attended what's now usually called "The Ali Summit," and supported Ali, even though he himself had been drafted and served his 2-year hitch. Also attending was Washington Redskins flanker Bobby Mitchell, who died earlier this month.
Here's who's in the picture. Back row:
* Carl Stokes, Ohio State Representative, running for Mayor of Cleveland. He would be elected, becoming the 1st black Mayor of a major American city.
* Walter Beach, recently retired Browns player, previously an original member of the Boston (later New England) Patriots in 1960.
* Bobby Mitchell, the 1st black player for the Washington Redskins, flanker, later elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
* Sid Williams, Browns linebacker, later U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, husband of Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California.
* Curtis McClinton, running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, who had lost to Davis and the Packers in Super Bowl I, 5 months earlier. He would help the Chiefs win Super Bowl IV.
* Willie Davis.
* Jim Shorter, defensive back for the Redskins, formerly for the Browns.
* John Wooten, guard for the Browns. Front row: Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Front row:
* Bill Russell, who had just completed his 1st season as head coach of the Boston Celtics, while still playing for them. This made him the 1st black head coach in modern major league sports. He would lead the Celtics to 11 NBA Championships as a player, the last 2 as player-coach.
* Muhammad Ali. He would be permitted to return to boxing in 1970, having his conviction for draft evasion overturned in a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971, and regain the title in 1974.
* Jim Brown, who retired in 1966 as the NFL's all-time leading rusher, and is still often considered the greatest player in NFL history.
* Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then still using his birth name of Lew Alcindor, and finishing his sophomore year at UCLA, which he had just led to a 30-0 record and the National Championship.
Beach Williams, Wooten, and of course Jim Brown had all played for the Browns on their 1964 NFL Championship team, which got back to the NFL Championship Game in 1965, but lost to Davis and the Packers.
*
Willie Davis retired from football after the 1969 season, having gotten an MBA from the University of Chicago. He ran a distributorship for Schlitz Beer, making a fortune. He later served on its board of directors, and also did so for Dow Chemical, Johnson Controls, K-Mart, MGM Studios, Sara Lee, and other companies. He was hired by NBC as a color commentator on NFL telecasts, one of the earliest black men so hired, and this inspired him to establish All-Pro Broadcasting which operated several radio stations.
He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1981, and later to the NFL's 1960s All-Decade Team, the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1999, The Sporting News listed its 100 Greatest Football Players, and he was ranked 69th. In 2010, the NFL Network ranked its 100 Greatest Players, and he came in 86th.
According to Pro-Football-Reference.com, Willie Davis had the 4th-highest "Approximate Value" of any NFL player in the 1960s. The 3 ahead of him? Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown and Fran Tarkenton.
His own son, Wyatt Davis, is finishing up his sophomore year at Ohio State, and was named an All-American and All-Conference guard last season.
Wyatt Davis of Ohio State, exercising a Big Ten tradition:
When your team clinches a berth in the Rose Bowl,
clench a rose in your teeth.
Willie Davis lived out his life in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica, California, and died there today, April 15, 2020, after being hospitalized with kidney failure about a month ago. He was 85.
In a weird coincidence, he died on what would have been the 80th birthday of another Willie Davis, the Gold Glove center fielder who helped the Los Angeles Dodgers win the 1963 and 1965 World Series.
Jerry Kramer, Hall of Fame guard on the 1960s Packers: “A principled human being. A beautiful guy. A consistent guy, the same guy at 70 that he was at 42, 35 or whatever. A very special human being.”
Dave Robinson, who was the other defensive end on the 1st 2 Super Bowl winners, and also in the Hall of Fame: "There's only one Willie Davis. I just feel sorry for the people who never got a chance to really meet, sit down & talk to the man... he would've changed your life."
David Maraniss, who interviewed Davis for his biography When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi: We've lost another legend. Willie Davis, great player out of Eddie Robinson's Grambling, defensive captain, better person, Hall of Fame in every respect, one of many Lombardi era Packers as successful off the field as on it, Dr. Feelgood could light up the field, & any room.
Donald Driver, receiver on the Packers' Super Bowl XXXI winners: ’ve had the pleasure of spending time over my 20yrs with some phenomenal icon and legends. Today, we loss one of them. My friend Willie Davis. Our prayers go out to Willie family and friends. #RIPWillieDavis #REST87
Just since October 13, 2018, of last year, the Packers have lost 5 Hall-of-Famers: Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Forrest Gregg, Willie Wood and Willie Davis. With Davis' death:
* There are 10 surviving players from the 1961 NFL Champion Green Bay Packers: Paul Hornung, Herb Adderley, Jerry Kramer, John Roach, Tom Moore, Dale Hackbart, Nelson Toburen, Lee Folkins, Gary Knafelc and Boyd Dowler.
* There are 12 surviving players from the 1962 NFL Champion Packers: Hornung, Adderley, Kramer, Roach, Moore, Toburen, Knafelc, Dowler, Howie Williams, Ed Blaine, Ron Gassert and Gary Barnes.
* There are 14 surviving players from the 1965 NFL Champion Packers: Hornung, Adderley, Kramer, Moore, Dowler, Tom Brown, Junior Coffey, Bill Curry, Ken Bowman, Steve Wright, Bob Long, Marv Fleming, Carroll Dale and Dave Robinson.
* There 18 surviving players from the Packer team that won Super Bowl I: Hornung, Adderley, Kramer, Dowler, Tom Brown, Curry, Bowman, Wright, Long, Fleming, Dale, Robinson, Red Mack, Jim Grabowski, Phil Vandersea, Donny Anderson, Dave Hathcock and Jim Weatherwax.
* There are 20 surviving players from the Packer team that won Super Bowl II: Adderley, Kramer, Dowler, Tom Brown, Bowman, Wright, Long, Fleming, Dale, Robinson, Grabowski, Anderson, Weatherwax, Don Horn, Chuck Mercein, Ben Wilson, John Rowser, Bob Hyland, Jim Flanigan and Dick Capp.
* And there are 7 living participants in the 1967 Cleveland (Ali) Summit: Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Curtis McClinton, Jim Shorter, John Wooten and Walter Beach.
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