Ernie Davis was born on December 14, 1939 in New Salem, Pennsylvania and lived till May 18, 1963. He was an American Football player who turned up as the initial African-American to get hold of the Heisman Trophy.
Ernie Davis took part in competition for Syracuse University dressed in number 44 and then got drafted by the Washington Redskins. In December 1961 his trading was done to the Cleveland Browns. He was 6 ft 2 inch tall and carried a weight of 210 pounds. He was brought up very close to Pittsburgh industrial center of Uniontown.
Ernie Davis shifted to Elmira, New York when 12 years old as accompanied with his mother and stepfather. He opted to play for Small Fry Football League of Elmira for the Superior Buicks and got the name as a Small Fry All-Star in the years 1952 and 1953. He did carried on with the game in grade school too and landed up getting selected in the form of an All-Star player.
His abilities related to this particular sport became crystal clear at Elmira Free Academy. During his junior as well as senior years, he got named as Elmira Player of the Year and high school All-American. Further in the year 1959 in the form of a sophomore, Ernie Davis went ahead and led Syracuse to the NCAA Division I-A national football championship and managed get success over Texas in the Cotton Bowl.
Ernie Davis got the nickname as the "Elmira Express" from Al Mallette who was the sports writer of Elmira Star-Gazette. He got voted as the Most Valuable Player of the 1961 Liberty Bowl as well as the 1960 Cotton Bowl. In the year 1979, he got inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The diagnosis of acute monocytic leukemia was made in the summer of 1962 and he started getting treated.
However it was a deadly disease and Ernie Davis met the end of his life in Cleveland Lakeside Hospital when 23 years old. His burial place was at Woodlawn Cemetery that is based in Elmira, Chemung County, New York. A statue has been built in his remembrance in front of Ernie Davis Middle School.
Ernie Davis
