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Bruins, college football, ESPN, football, Jefferson HIgh School, Los Angeles City College, Milt Davis, National Football League, NFL, pro football, Rose Bowl, UCLA, UCLA Bruins, UCLA Football, Westwood
Milt Davis, former UCLA and (then) Baltimore Colts star. Photo courtesy of baltimoresun.com
A STORY ABOUT A FORMER UCLA STANDOUT WHO TOOK A STAND AGAINST RACISM IN PRO FOOTBALL
This past football season a friend of mine, who I knew from tailgating at UCLA football games at the Rose Bowl,
Clued me into a man named Milt Davis, who played for the Bruins in the early 1950s for coach Red Sanders, one of the members of a team that enjoyed much success as he played in the 1954 Rose Bowl.
This man was a local SoCal guy, playing football and running track for Jefferson High School and Los Angeles City College before earning a partial track scholarship to matriculate in Westwood in 1952.
He was drafted by the Detroit Lions in ’54, but things ultimately didn’t work out with them when after a stint in the army, the Lions told him that being a black man and being that they didn’t have any other blacks for him to room on the road with, he was going to get cut.
Davis then made the Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts after a tryout, where in 46 games over a four-year career with them he made 27 interceptions, including ten picks – returning two for touchdowns – in his rookie year in 1957;
The Bruins sure could have used him this year, as bad as their defensive secondary was!
He was involved in what was known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played”, the 1958 NFL Championship Game (there was no Super Bowl per se) against the New York Giants, forcing a fumble in the Colts’ 23-17 overtime win at Yankee Stadium that in essentially started pro football on the road to becoming this country’s most popular spectator sport that it continues to bask in today,
The rebooted XFL beginning two weeks after the Super Bowl and getting ESPN coverage being an illustration of that.
The most impressive thing about Davis that I learned was that after being fed up with the prevalent racism and segregation that he and the other blacks in the NFL suffered from on the road as far as hotel and restaurant accomodations, he walked away from the Colts and the NFL after the 1960 season to earn a doctorate from UCLA, beginning a teaching career at Marshall High School in Los Feliz and L.A. City College that lasted until his retirement in 1989.
As it turned out,
I’m glad that my friend turned me on to this athlete who went on to do such good things in his post-athletic life,
That though he wasn’t a superstar like Jim Brown and was never elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH,
Milt Davis was a guy whose best one-word descriptions would be,
Unsung and Underrated.
My friend stated that Davis should have been and still should be inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame;
Which I agree with, though to be honest I’m not sure that the people at the Morgan Center who vote for who gets in that Hall know enough about him.
Hopefully this post will shine a light on this man, if anyone reads it;
Particularly the folks responsible for deciding who gets a plaque at the Morgan Center on the Westwood campus.
In the meantime,
Let me take the time to thank my friend for schooling me to this local SoCal athlete from the past that may not have been as famous as other athletes from that time,
But made a positive impact on football and education nonetheless.
A FINAL FUN FACT ABOUT MILT DAVIS:
He went to Jefferson High School at the same time as my two aunts and my uncle.
Of course it’s stating the obvious as to wondering if those two aunts and uncle of mine were acquainted or were friends with him;
That would have been very cool!
Davis’ football trading card while with the Baltimore Colts. Image courtesy of ebay.com