I am not sure jif but I think I remember seeing him play on tv. I do remember the old All Star game between college seniors and the NFL champions. He was held out and a blood disorder was mentioned. Later it was announced he had leukemia which was a stunner. As a Browns fan I was looking forward to him playing in the same backfield as Jim Brown. A real shame we lost this talent so young.
Syracuse had jim brown...ernie davis.. and Little ( forget his first name). They all played in the same time frame and all wore number 44. Ben Schwaztwalder the ex second world war hero was the coach.
Floyd Little, Jif. I believe he had a stellar pro career with the Broncos. I don't remember if I ever saw Ernie Davis play on TV (not many TV games in those days), but I was well aware of him and followed his success at Syracuse. I was pleasantly surprised that he won the Heisman because I did not think they would give it to a black player. As a teen-ager at that time, I had become painfully aware of the racial prejudice that existed around me and throughout the country. There was no question that he was the best player in the country and deserved the award. His untimely death was very sad.
Like Ernie Davis, I'm originally from Elmira NY. Ernie was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Elmira at a young age. Elmira at the time had two high schools. Ernie who was two years ahead of me went to Elmira Free Academy (EFA), I went to Elmira Southside (SHS). So I guess you can say that I saw him play a lot in person. When Ernie was in high school he was a great basketball player. He was really a great guy. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything negative about Ernie. BTW, we never beat Ernie's football or basketball teams while he was at EFA. I've haven't seen the movie yet. I hope it accurately depicts what a fine person he was. PJ in Jersey
I saw the movie tonight, it was a really good movie. Ernie is portrayed as a very thoughtful and comited young man. There are two entities that do come out very bad in this movie. 1. West Virgina Mountaineers and Morgantown WVA. The first game he played down there he endured terrible racial discrimination, the fans the refs the WVA players. It was pretty bad. 2. Dallas Texas, the Cotton Bowl, the people of Dallas and the Texas Longhorns and Darryl Royal. I was ashamed of how that all went down, even given that it was 1960 and times were different. But the Texas players in the movie were race baiting boors, the spat on Davis, they taunted the Syracuse black players, they were told by their coaches to attempt to injure Davis. It was an ugly portrayal of the Longhorns. Just for grins I googled the game, and found a write up on the Dallas Morning News website. It gave a much different tone to the game than the movie portrayed. Not suprising since it was written by a Dallas Sportswriter on 1-1-1960. 1960 Cotton Bowl I recommend you see the movie, it's well done, not an academy award winner but a good movie none the less. Terry
Yeah it didn't get in the paper what some of those young black athletes had to go through in those days. It's was a shame, but it also points out how far we have come. I would bet that players who did that stuff to the black athletes don't look back at it with a lot of pride and many of them have changed their mind. I also remember in the 50's when Miss State, I believe it was Miss State, won the SEC basketball championship but the state wouldn't let them go to the NCAA tournament because they didn't want their team playing black players. Now if you look at their basketball team it's mostly black. I wish Davis had lived to play in the NFL.