It began like any other day that morning in our 9th grade science class. Our teacher, Mr. Ott, was about to talk about the formaldehyde-soaked frogs we were to dissect. But then, he stopped and introduced us to a short young man with thick calves and a thicker baby-faced smile who had just walked in the door, seemingly out of nowhere.
He said he was Steve Davis and he was there to invite us all to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting that was to be held that night in the auditorium. He was going to give a speech at the meeting.
Davis told us he had played high school football down the road at Sallisaw, but he was now a freshman in college. At OU, he said.
It was the spring of 1973. A few months before, the Sooners had won the Big 8 conference, whipped Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions in the Sugar Bowl and finished the season No. 2 in the AP Poll. The Selmon brothers had anchored the defense and become the best known brothers in college football. Greg Pruitt had been on the cover of Sports Illustrated – twice.
But, no one had ever heard of Steve Davis.
“I’m a walk on freshman now, but I’m going to be the starting quarterback at the University of Oklahoma,” Davis said.
I will never forget the muffled teetering among my classmates when we heard this. They didn’t want to be rude. But, come on now. We might have been a bunch of 14-year-olds, but we knew enough to know this guy – who wasn’t any bigger than our junior high quarterback – was never going to take a snap in an Oklahoma uniform in any real game. Or so we thought.
But Steve Davis had faith. And, in that science classroom that morning there was this look, not of boastfulness, but of confidence, that came when he flashed an infectious smile that told us he really believed it.
That fall the Sooners opened their 1973 season on the road at Baylor and the starting quarterback was indeed Steve Davis from Salllisaw, Oklahoma. Oklahoma won 42-14. Two weeks later Davis led the Sooners into the Los Angeles Coliseum and, against all odds, dueled the No. 1 rated USC Trojans to a 7-7 tie.
Over the next three years he was 32-1-1 as a starter. He quarterbacked two of Oklahoma’s seven national champions.
He had gone from the 8th QB on the Sooners’ depth chart to become Barry Switzer’s first starting quarterback. If Switzer became the King, then Davis was his loyal Sir Lancelot who helped him get the crown.
In an interview just three months ago Davis told a reporter that he had wanted to play for the Sooners ever since he sat in the north end zone for the Oklahoma-Kansas game in 1967 and watched Bobby Warmack quarterback the Sooners to a 14-10 win over the Jayhawks.
“Bobby Warmack hit Steve Zabel for a touchdown deep in the fourth quarter. I was sitting in the north end zone, and literally sat down and tears came to my face because I thought, ‘I’m gonna be here someday,’” Davis said.
I remember the game well. I was 9 years old. It was my first Oklahoma football game to attend. I sat there in Section 17 – in the north end zone that cold November afternoon, not realizing some short stocky kid sitting around me would one day become my hero.
After Davis graduated he worked as color commentator for ABC Sports, hosted the Barry Switzer TV show, became a successful Tulsa businessman; and, yes, continued his work speaking to young people at FCA meetings – encouraging them to have faith.
He would also become a mentor to successive OU quarterbacks, who on occasion faced the ire of rabid fans who might utter a boo or two at Owen Field, much like Davis received when the Kansas Jayhawks ended the Sooners’ 31-game win streak and Davis shouldered all the blame for it.
He was the best leader any Oklahoma football team has ever had to take the field.
On Sunday night Davis died in a plane crash in South Bend, Indiana.
I have no doubt that he died with his faith intact. With his belief that people who want something badly, who are prepared and willing to work for it, can achieve just about anything they want.
Most importantly, Steve Davis told us all in that science class that day to dream.
Not just dream. Dream big.
That is the legacy of Steve Davis. That is how I will forever remember him. It isn’t so much that he became a legend in Sooner history for winning so many games.
It is that he achieved so much from seemingly so little, energized by a faith in God and faith in himself.
That he chose to aim high and go for it.
Davis became my favorite Oklahoma quarterback of all time not because he was the starting quarterback for the national champions. But, because he believed he could be.
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PHOTO CREDIT: HANK MOONEY, THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN
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Beautiful tribute, Mike.