Parke Hill Davis (July 15, 1871 – June 5, 1934)[1][2] was an American football player, coach, and historian.
 Davis, c. 1895 | |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 15, 1871 Jamestown, New York, U.S. |
| Died | June 5, 1934 (aged 62) Easton, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Playing career | |
| 1890–1892 | Princeton |
| Position(s) | Tackle, end |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1893 | Wisconsin |
| 1894 | Amherst |
| 1895–1897 | Lafayette |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 37–11–3 |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 1 national (1896) | |
Shortly before his death, Davis compiled a list of "National Champion Foot Ball Teams" for the 1934 edition of Spalding's Foot Ball Guide.[3] For this the NCAA recognizes him as a "major selector" of college football national championships in their official football records book. Davis' selections are the only ones noted by the NCAA to be based on historical research.[4]
Early life and education
editDavis was born in Jamestown, New York and attended Princeton University, where he was a lineman for the Princeton Tigers[5] and a member of its "tug of war team in 1889".[6]
Career
editFootball coach
editDavis went on to coach at Wisconsin (1893),[7] Amherst (1894)[8] and Lafayette (1895–98),[9][10][11] where he also served as athletic director.[12]
In 1896, Davis organized Lafayette's Law Club;[13] he appeared in a leading role in a stage production of The Rivals at the Easton, Pennsylvania Opera House;[14] he read Longfellow poetry at the Freshman Initiation gala;[15] and he led Lafayette to its first national football championship, an honor he would, himself, bestow upon his team some 37 years after the fact.
The biggest win of the 1896 season came in Philadelphia against Penn on October 24.[16][17][18] A standout for Lafayette was a newcomer named Fielding "Hurry Up" Yost.
Yost began playing football at West Virginia University in 1894 at the age of 23.[19] A 6-foot, 200-pounder, Yost was a star tackle at WVU into the 1896 season. But after his team lost three times to Lafayette in home games played on three different fields over the course of three days,[18][20] Yost became a remarkable personification of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." He transferred in mid-season to join what would be Coach Davis' national championship team.
True to his nickname, just a week after playing against Davis in West Virginia, "Hurry Up" was playing for Davis in Lafayette's historic 6–4 win over the Quakers.[18]
The fortuitous timing of Yost's appearance on the Lafayette roster did not go unnoticed by Penn officials. They called it "the Yost affair." The Philadelphia Ledger quoted Yost as saying that he came to Lafayette only to play football. The fact that Yost appeared in a Lafayette uniform only once, in the Penn game,[21] and that he returned to West Virginia within two weeks of the contest, did not help appearances.
Yost assured all concerned that he would return to Lafayette for at least three years of study.[22] But 1897 found "Hurry Up" no longer a student or a player, but a coach at Ohio Wesleyan. In 1901, he was hired as head coach at the University of Michigan, beginning a storied 25-year, Hall of Fame career.
Attorney
editAfter concluding his own six-year career as a football coach, Davis became an attorney[23] in Easton, Pennsylvania, where Lafayette is located. He lived there the rest of his life.
In the October 1900 meeting of the Lafayette Democratic Club, Davis was the "orator of the evening", after the group unanimously endorsed the national ticket of William Jennings Bryan.[24] In 1901, he won election as District Attorney of Northampton County, Pennsylvania,[25] of which Easton is the county seat.
He became such a part of Easton and the college that he was proclaimed a "loyal son of Lafayette" after giving a speech in 1901 urging on the football team before its game with Princeton, his own alma mater.[26]
The "ex-coach and loyal supporter of athletics of Lafayette"[27] served as an umpire in football games[28] and as starter at the college's track meets.[29]
Football historian and rules committee member
editDavis wrote an early history of American football in 1911, tracing the sport's origins to ancient times:[30]
...abundant evidence may be marshalled to prove that this is the oldest outdoor game in existence. In the 22nd chapter of Isaiah is found the verse, "He will turn and toss thee like a ball." This allusion, slight as it may be, is sufficient unto the antiquary to indicate that some sort of game with a ball existed as early as 750 years before the Christian era, the epoch customarily assigned to the Book of Isaiah.
An acknowledged expert on the formative years of the sport in the 19th century, Davis described the period between 1869 and 1875 as the Pioneer Period; the years 1876–93 he called the period of the American Intercollegiate Football Association; and the years 1894–1933 he dubbed the Period of Rules Committees and Conferences.[3]
He helped select the 1913 College Football All-America Team while serving as Princeton's representative on the American Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee.[31]
He served on the Rules Committee from 1909 to 1915, playing a key role in shaping the evolution of the game. Among the innovations with which he is credited are the division of the game into quarters, numbering of players, abolition of inter-locked interference and the creation of end zones.[32]
Even after leaving the Rules Committee, Davis promoted his ideas for improving the sport, which included making it illegal to advance a recovered fumble:
This feature of football is uncouth, unfair and a relic of a long bygone era... The proper disposition of this fluke play is to change the rules so that the ball shall be put down for scrimmage at the point where a fumble is recovered by the side recovering the fumble and no run allowed. If the fumble is recovered behind an opponent's goal line the ball shall be put in play at the point where it was fumbled.[33]
Davis was a friend and admirer of Walter Camp, "Father of American Football."[34] In a 1926 authorized biography of Camp, author Harford Powel Jr. turned to Davis for historical perspective, including accounts of Camp's "heavy disappointments (which) should be mentioned, for fear it might be thought that Camp was one of those players who do not know the feeling of failure."[35]
He reviewed the sport's first half-century in "Fifty Years of Intercollegiate Football", which appeared in the 1926 edition of Spalding's Official Football Guide. Davis' description of football's earliest years paint an image of a sport very different from the game as it became known in the 20th century:[36]
The tactics of the times made the play essentially a kicking game. The backs kicked punts, drop kicks, and place kicks... Not only was the ball kicked as at present, but it was kicked, and cleverly kicked, while bouncing upon the ground.
The game was opened, as now, by a kick-off. The player of 1880 might, if he chose, drive the ball far down the field. Or, technically kicking the ball by merely touching it with his toe, he might pick it up and run with it. Players when tackled invariably endeavored to pass the ball back to another member of their side for a further advance, a method of play so highly developed that it was not infrequent to see a ball passed as many as five times during a single play.
In addition to his work on the Guide, Davis authored articles on football for the Encyclopædia Britannica and compiled a glossary of football terms.[32]
Dan Jenkins reported in the September 11, 1967, edition of Sports Illustrated, "Davis went all the way back to the first inflated pig bladder to pick the national champions for every season. He used no special formula. He simply looked at the schedules and the results and chose his teams."[6]
Davis' list was titled "National Champion Foot Ball Teams" and compiled for the seasons from 1869 to 1933.[3] In all, he selected 94 teams over 61 seasons as "National Champion Foot Ball Teams". For 21 of these teams (at 12 schools), he was the only major selector to choose them. Their schools use 17 of Davis' singular selections to claim national titles. Davis died months after his selection of the national champion 1933 teams for the 1934 Guide.
For the 1896 season, Davis selected his own team and his alma mater to share the title. Lafayette and Princeton had fought to a 0–0 stalemate early in the season.[37]
In addition to naming each year's champion, Davis added statistics from the 1873 through the 1933 seasons to his annual Guide. These included the longest scoring plays from rushing, returns, passing plays and interceptions.[38] The 1934 edition was Davis' last to include these compilations, as he died soon after its completion. Through the 1937 edition, the records were included with the notation, "Compilations of the late Parke H. Davis."[39]: 223–32 [38]
Davis also named an All-Time All-America football team in 1931.[40]
"Parke Davis Day"
editDavis' health may have been a concern in the spring of 1934. Princeton announced that it was inviting the sporting world to honor its famous alum on "Parke Davis Day", which was set for the following October 13. As The Lafayette reported:
The purpose of this event will be to commemorate the long and faithful services which Mr. Davis has given to football. Mr. Davis, a graduate of Princeton, came to Lafayette in 1895. He raised the Maroon from a position of obscurity to a level with the football giants... Lafayette owes much to Parke Davis and should contribute something to this event which is being held in his honor.[41]
But within weeks of the announcement... and months before "Parke Davis Day" was to be held... the honoree was dead.
Rather than attending the planned celebration in New Jersey, "(c)ollege associates, former football stars and members of the bench and bar were among the friends", who arrived in Easton as mourners for June 8 funeral services held at Davis' home. They included Congressman Abram Andrew and legendary Wisconsin coach Phil King, both former teammates at Princeton, and fellow football historian and Princeton grad William H. Edwards.[2][42]
National championship selections
edit
The 1934 edition of Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide contains the chapter National Champion Foot Ball Teams, 1869–1933.[3] The list is marked as being "Compiled by Parke H. Davis".[3]
The official NCAA records book credits Davis with retroactive selections for the years 1869–1932, and with a contemporary selection of co-champions for the just-completed 1933 season.[4] He is the only major selector indicated as using historic research for his selections rather than a poll or mathematical system[4] (although Bill Schroeder of the Helms Athletic Foundation did as well).[6][48]
Critics have faulted his work for having a heavy Eastern bias, with little regard for the South and the West Coast.[49]
Posthumous selections for 1934 and 1935
editDavis died mere weeks after completing his compilations for the 1934 Spalding guide.[3] The printed book contains an obituary and tribute to "the game's foremost historian".[3]
Davis' national champions list was subsequently reprinted in the 1935[39] and 1936[50] editions of the Spalding guide. The title of the chapter was changed to Outstanding Nationwide and Sectional Teams, and the byline to "Originally Compiled by the late Parke H. Davis".[39][50] Each edition adds new co-champions for the just-completed season.
These new champions, who played their seasons after his death, were not selected by Parke H. Davis but are commonly attributed to him.[6] The NCAA does not include the 1934 or 1935 selections in their list of picks by "major selectors".[4]
| Season | Outstanding Nationwide Teams |
|---|---|
| 1934[39] | Minnesota, Pittsburgh |
| 1935[50] | Princeton, Minnesota |
Head coaching record
edit| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin Badgers (Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest) (1893) | |||||||||
| 1893 | Wisconsin | 4–2 | 1–1 | 2nd | |||||
| Wisconsin: | 4–2 | 1–1 | |||||||
| Amherst (Triangular Football League) (1894) | |||||||||
| 1894 | Amherst | 7–5–1 | 0–2 | 3rd | |||||
| Amherst: | 7–5–1 | 0–2 | |||||||
| Lafayette (Independent) (1895–1897) | |||||||||
| 1895 | Lafayette | 6–2 | |||||||
| 1896 | Lafayette | 11–0–1 | |||||||
| 1897 | Lafayette | 9–2–1 | |||||||
| Lafayette: | 26–4–2 | ||||||||
| Total: | 37–11–3 | ||||||||
| National championship Conference title Conference division title or championship game berth | |||||||||
References
edit- ^ Bibliographic information on: Davis, Parke H., Football – The American Intercollegiate Game, 1911
- ^ a b "PARKE H. DAVIS BURIED.; Many Prominent Men at Funeral of Football Authority", The New York Times, June 9, 1934
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Okeson, Walter R., ed. (1934). Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide 1934. New York: American Sports Publishing Co. pp. 206–208.
- ^ a b c d Official 2007 NCAA Division I Football Records Book, page 73, 2007 Archived 2009-07-31 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ WolverinesPedia
- ^ a b c d Jenkins, Dan, "This Year The Fight Will Be In The Open", Sports Illustrated, September 11, 1967
- ^ "A Brief History of the Wisconsin Badgers Football Team", Front Row USA Archived May 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine The Badgers were 4–2–0 under Davis in 1893.
- ^ College Football Data Warehouse Archived November 7, 2015, at the Wayback Machine Davis' record at Amherst was 7–5–1 in 1894.
- ^ College Football Data Warehouse Archived November 7, 2015, at the Wayback Machine Davis' record at Lafayette was 7–2–0 in 1895, 11–0–1 in 1896, and 9–2–1 in 1897.
- ^ "A Correction", The Lafayette, page 145, February 10, 1899 Archived February 16, 2012, at Archive-It This February 1899 article discusses the appointment of a committee to "extend a vote of thanks to Mr. Parke H. Davis for his services as coach of the football team during the past season", which would have been 1898.
- ^ College Football Data Warehouse Archived September 24, 2015, at the Wayback Machine Lafayette was 3–8 in 1898.
- ^ "Around Campus.", The Lafayette, page 135, February 14, 1896 Archived February 16, 2012, at Archive-It
- ^ "Law Club.", The Lafayette, page 6, September 25, 1896
- ^ "Around the Campus.", The Lafayette, page 231, June 5, 1896
- ^ "Freshman Initiated.", The Lafayette, page 48, October 30, 1896
- ^ "Lafayette College Foot-Ball.", The Lafayette, page 97, January 15, 1897 (misprinted as 1896) Archived February 16, 2012, at Archive-It
- ^ Davis, Parke H., Football – The American Intercollegiate Game, pages 451–452, 1911 Note: the book incorrectly gives the date of the game as October 23, 1896; the game was played on Saturday, October 24, 1896.
- ^ a b c "Lafayette Yearly Results, College Football Data Warehouse". Archived from the original on November 14, 2009. Retrieved June 28, 2009.
- ^ Maramba, Kris Wise, "Fielding Yost, another son of Marion County, excelled with Wolverines", Charleston Daily Mail, December 18, 2007 Archived December 20, 2007, at archive.today
- ^ "Lafayette vs. University of West Virginia", The Lafayette, page 36, October 23, 1896 Archived February 16, 2012, at Archive-It
- ^ "Lafayette College Foot-Ball.", The Lafayette, page 100, January 15, 1897 (misprinted as 1896) Archived February 16, 2012, at Archive-It
- ^ "Editorial Department" and "Yost a Bona-fide Student", The Lafayette, pages 66–68, November 20, 1896 Archived February 16, 2012, at Archive-It
- ^ "Parke H. Davis Gives Data and Comments on Season", The Lafayette Weekly, page 1, January 8, 1913
- ^ "Democratic Club.", The Lafayette, page 43, October 19, 1900
- ^ "Notes", The Lafayette, page 79, November 22, 1901
- ^ "College Smoker", The Lafayette, page 54, November 1, 1901
- ^ "Lehigh Smoker.", The Lafayette, page 85, December 1, 1905
- ^ "Football.", The Lafayette, page 18, October 4, 1901
- ^ "Track Meet.", The Lafayette, page 210, May 11, 1900
- ^ Davis, Parke H., Football – The American Intercollegiate Game, page 3, 1911
- ^ "Bob McWhorter Is Picked on All-American Eleven". Atlanta Constitution. December 9, 1913.
- ^ a b Associated Press, "Parke Davis Dies After Fine Career", Ogden Standard-Examiner, June 6, 1934
- ^ Intercollegiate Football Researchers Association, "The College Football Historian", Volume 2, Number 1
- ^ The-Game.org Archived April 5, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Powel, Jr., Harford J., Walter Camp – The Father of American Football, page 24, 1926
- ^ Powel, Jr., Harford J., Walter Camp – The Father of American Football, page 51, 1926
- ^ "Lafayette College Foot-Ball.", The Lafayette, page 96, January 15, 1897 (misprinted as 1896) Archived February 16, 2012, at Archive-It
- ^ a b Noel, Tex, "History of Annual Association's College Football Records Books", 1st-N-Goal for Past Times Sports, May–June 2007
- ^ a b c d Okeson, Walter R., ed. (1935). Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide 1935. New York: American Sports Publishing Co. pp. 233–235.
- ^ Shield & Diamond, page 4, Winter 2006
- ^ "Parke Davis.", The Lafayette, page three, May 15, 1934
- ^ Edwards wrote Football Days – Memories of the Game and of the Men Behind the Ball, with an introduction by Walter Camp, in 1916. The book liberally quoted Davis.
- ^ Burton, Clarence Monroe; Stocking, William; Miller, Gordon K.; The City of Detroit, Michigan – 1701–1922, page 496, 1922
- ^ Walbridge: "Our History"
- ^ Charles Rinehart, College Football Hall of Fame. Accessed July 3, 2009
- ^ 2007 Lafayette Football Guide, page 121, 2007
- ^ "Lafayette College Foot-Ball.", The Lafayette, page 99, January 15, 1897 (misprinted as 1896) Archived February 16, 2012, at Archive-It
- ^ McLellan, Bruce (September 3, 1983). "A Belated Look at Some No. 1 Teams". The Macon Telegraph. Macon, Georgia. Retrieved November 8, 2022.
- ^ Vautravers, James. "Parke Davis". Retrieved March 11, 2022.
- ^ a b c Okeson, Walter R., ed. (1936). Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide 1936. New York: American Sports Publishing Co. pp. 222–224.
External links
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