[Deathwatch] Glenn Davis, athlete, 80

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Glenn Davis, 80, Mr. Outside of Army Backfield, Dies
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Published: March 11, 2005

Glenn Davis, the 1946 Heisman Trophy winner who teamed with Doc
Blanchard on the undefeated Army teams of the mid-1940's to form
college football's most celebrated backfield pairing, died Wednesday at
his home in La Quinta, Calif. He was 80.

The cause was complications of prostate cancer, said his stepson, John
Slack III.

Davis, a speedy and elusive halfback, was known as Mr. Outside.
Blanchard, a bruising fullback who won the Heisman as college
football's top player in 1945, was Mr. Inside. Each captured
all-American honors three times, and they were pictured together on the
covers of Time and Life magazines.

Davis scored 59 touchdowns (43 rushing, 14 receiving and 2 on punt
returns) playing from 1943 to 1946. His career rushing average of 8.26
yards a carry (358 carries for 2,957 yards) remains a collegiate
record, and he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in
1961.

"He had an elusiveness about him, a kind of fifth speed," Blanchard
once said. "He'd get out and look like he was running wide open and
then run faster."

Davis was perhaps the greatest all-around athlete in West Point
history. He was a star center fielder on the baseball team, an
outstanding sprinter, and he played basketball. He posted the highest
score that had ever been attained on the academy's physical proficiency
test.

During the World War II years, the exploits of Mr. Outside and Mr.
Inside - the nicknames bestowed by George Trevor, a sportswriter for
The New York Sun - were featured in homefront newsreels.

"Surely, I don't think of myself as a hero, but maybe we made people
feel better at just the right time," Davis told Bill Pennington in the
book "The Heisman."

Glenn Woodward Davis, a native of Claremont, Calif., and the son of a
bank manager, was a football star at Bonita High School in La Verne,
near Los Angeles, playing alongside his twin, Ralph, who became an
outstanding shot-putter at West Point. Ralph Davis died in January.

As a plebe, or freshman, in 1943, Davis scored eight touchdowns and was
seventh in the nation in total offense for an Army team that was 7-2-1.
He was dismissed from the academy in December 1943 for failing
mathematics, then gained readmission after several months of remedial
work.

The Cadets, stockpiling talent under Coach Red Blaik when many colleges
curtailed or dropped football because of the war, were 27-0-1 with
Davis and Blanchard playing together from 1944 to 1946.

Davis scored a collegiate-record 20 touchdowns in 1944 and was
runner-up to Les Horvath of Ohio State in the Heisman balloting. Army
went 9-0, averaged 56 points a game and was voted the nation's No. 1
team. He scored 18 touchdowns in 1945 and finished second again in the
Heisman vote, this time to Blanchard, as the Cadets were 9-0 once more
and again the national champions.

Davis had 13 touchdowns in 1946 for an Army team that went 9-0-1, a
third straight undefeated season spoiled by a memorable 0-0 tie with
Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium.

At 5 feet 9 inches and 170 pounds, Davis was brilliant in the open
field. A favorite play was to have him start off right tackle, then cut
to his left, go to the sideline and try to outrun everyone. Davis was
also a passing threat and a safety on defense.

Davis and Blanchard played themselves in "Spirit of West Point," a
Hollywood movie filmed in the summer of 1947 during their 60-day leave
from military service. Davis joined the National Football League's Los
Angeles Rams in 1950 after serving in the infantry and was voted to the
Pro Bowl.

But a knee injury incurred in the filming of "Spirit of West Point"
hampered his mobility and ended his pro career after the 1951 season,
when the Rams won the N.F.L. championship.

While on Army leave in 1948, Davis dated Elizabeth Taylor, and he
married the actress Terry Moore in 1951. They were divorced two years
later.

After leaving pro football, Davis was a longtime promotional executive
for The Los Angeles Times. Blanchard, now 80 years old, became an Air
Force pilot, flew in the Vietnam War and retired from the military as a
colonel.

In addition to his stepson, John Slack III, of Baton Rouge, La., from
his marriage to the former Harriet Slack, who died in 1995, Davis is
survived by his third wife, Yvonne; his son, Ralph, of California; a
sister, Mary Gammons, of Pomona, Calif.; and four grandchildren.

Blaik paid Davis a supreme compliment in his memoir "You Have to Pay
the Price," written with Tim Cohane.

"Anybody who ever saw Davis carry the football must realize there could
not have been a greater, more dangerous running back in the history of
the game," Blaik said. "He was emphatically the greatest halfback I
ever knew. He was not so much a dodger and sidestepper as a blazing
runner who had a fourth, even fifth gear in reserve, could change
direction at top speed, and fly away from tacklers as if
jet-propelled."