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Do IT this week: Layering
Barberton legend, greatest athlete in local history, remembered as humble, gracious and inspirational
By Bill Lilley
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Thursday, Jan 29, 2009
His legs took Glenn ''Jeep'' Davis all over the world.
His heart kept him in Barberton.
Davis, who was known to a generation as the greatest hurdler in the world after winning gold medals at the 1956 and 1960 Summer Olympics, died Wednesday morning after a lengthy illness. He was 74.
Davis was recognized as an outstanding multisport athlete before Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson made that term hip, and he graced the cover of the June 27, 1960, edition of Sports Illustrated.
He was acknowledged as the greatest athlete in Summit County history, won three Olympic gold medals and the Sullivan Award, held five world records and enjoyed a brief career in the NFL with the Detroit Lions.
But what pleased Davis most of all, he
said, was being known simply as a friend by everyone in his adopted hometown.
''All of the people in Barberton idolized him,'' longtime friend Bill Hodgkinson said. ''But he was actually embarrassed by that.
''The reason he loved Barberton so much was he was a friend of everybody in Barberton. Sure, he was a national hero — an international hero — but he was just a great guy who really liked people.
''And everybody loved Jeep Davis, especially in Barberton.''
The citizens of Barberton rewarded Davis for his loyalty a decade ago by staging Jeep Davis Day in conjunction with him being named one of the 100 greatest Olympians.
They ensured his legend would live forever by erecting a bronze statue of a stern-faced Davis crossing a hurdle. More than $30,000 of the $45,000 needed was generated from individual donations, coming a quarter or a dollar at a time.
The Barberton Community Foundation began the annual Jeep Davis 5K road race in 1998 to further promote his legacy. Proceeds go to the Jeep Davis Olympic Hopeful Fund.
Everyone's friend
''I have met a lot of athletes,'' said Rudy Sharkey, former Barberton football coach and longtime friend of Davis, ''and none were as humble and gracious as Jeep, who in his day was as famous as anybody could imagine. He wasn't the kind of guy who wore his medals.''
Davis was born Sept. 12, 1934, in Wellsburg, W.Va., and grew up in the Ohio Valley. He lived a rough-and-tumble existence and had the displeasure of having a youth basketball coach tell him, ''You'll never be a good athlete.''
Those words ate at Davis.
Then they drove him.
He became the first freshman to play varsity basketball at Follensbee (W.Va.) High School.
His family moved to Marietta, and he became a bona fide four-sport standout, starring in football, basketball and track during the high school year and baseball in the summer.
Then cruel fate intervened.
Davis' father, an ironworker who loved baseball, and his mother both died within a 12-hour span. They left behind 10 kids, including Jeep, then 15.
The 6-foot tall Davis was sent to Barberton to live with his older brother. His athletic career blossomed.
Davis, who got his nickname as a toddler after a character in the Popeye cartoons, became an All-Ohio honoree in football as a running back/defensive back in 1954 for the Magics. He single-handedly won the state track and field championship for Barberton High in 1954. He accomplished that feat despite competing with a brace to protect a shoulder that had been dislocated in the fall when he leaped to intercept a pass thrown by Alliance's Lenny Dawson, a future Pro Football hall of famer.
Davis received more than 200 athletic scholarship offers — ''Every school in the country wanted me,'' he recalled — and went to Ohio State possessing the dream of becoming an Olympic champion.
Immediate success
Davis was a standout immediately at Ohio State, then won his first Olympic gold medal in Australia in the middle of his sophomore season.
He returned to Ohio State and set the world record in the 440-yard dash at the 1958 Big Ten Championships. He also won the 440 at the NCAA Track and Field Championships.
Davis was a key figure of a U.S. track team that toured Europe in the summer of 1958. He set the world record in the 400 hurdles and won nine of the 10 races he entered over a 14-day span.
He was honored as the top amateur athlete in the United States, winning the 1958 James E. Sullivan Award.
He won 26 Big Ten titles, along with four NCAA championships, while running for Ohio State.
Davis returned to the Olympics in Rome in 1960 and won gold medals in the 400 hurdles and on the 1,600 relay team. He was the first two-time Olympic champion in the 400 hurdles.
Shortly after the Olympics closed, Davis signed to play with the Detroit Lions.
''I wanted to give pro football a try because it was a challenge to me to see if I could make it,'' Davis recalled.
He caught 10 passes for 132 yards in two seasons as a wide receiver before retiring after an injury-plagued 1961 season.
''The interesting thing about Jeep's career with the Lions was that they put in what they called the 'Zephyr Offense' just for Jeep,'' Sharkey said. ''He could fly and it was kind of the forerunner of the shotgun offense with five receivers and no backs.''
Davis coached the track team at Cornell University from 1963 through 1967, leading the Big Red to the Ivy League title in his final season.
But Davis yearned to return home.
Back to Barberton
Davis came back to Barberton High to teach mechanical drawing but eventually became renowned as a driver's education instructor.
He also was an assistant coach on the football team and was highly regarded as Barberton's track and field coach.
''He was a helluva track coach,'' Sharkey said. ''We won every title during the time Barberton was in the NEO [Northeastern Ohio] Conference.
''And it was amazing how many exceptional hurdlers throughout the country would come to Barberton to be coached by Jeep. There was a constant stream coming in, and he did a great job with them.
''Jeep's real genius was that he could take a really talented kid and make him better. That's the true sign of a great coach.''
Davis didn't charge aspiring hurdlers for relating his technical expertise and his experiences.
''Not only would he not charge kids,'' Sharkey said, ''Jeep would feed and cloth kids who were down on their luck.
''And he took kids on trips to colleges and helped them get scholarships. All for nothing. All because he loved the people.''
Not hard to believe, considering Davis turned down $125,000 in the mid-1960s because he believed posing for an ad promoting cigarettes would send the wrong message to kids.
''I'd hate to think that a kid took up smoking because he saw me smoking,'' Davis said.
He worked with the kids, including his own, at Barberton for 26 years before retiring from public education — but not from teaching.
He saw a void, and an opportunity to keep working with kids, and opened Jeep's Olympic Driving School in Barberton. He also co-owned a pizza shop, Jeep and Joe's, with longtime friend Joe Carlucci for about five years.
''I always had 2-3 jobs,'' Davis said in a 1999 interview with the Beacon Journal. ''I couldn't sit still.''
Davis had a mild heart attack in the late 1990s and eventually turned over the driving school to his younger son, Tim. The school closed a couple of years ago.
As Davis got older, he often said he had a greater appreciation for his family and that his best times were spent with his wife, Dee — his high school sweetheart at Barberton — along with sons Tim and Glenn and daughter, Jennifer.
''One of the best things is when we have the kids over and I make the dinner,'' Davis said in 1999. ''I'm a pretty good cook.''
Davis is a member of the prestigious Olympic Hall of Fame and the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, along with the Summit County and the Barberton sports hall of fames.
At the 50th anniversary dinner for the Summit hall in 2006, Davis was proclaimed the greatest athlete in county history.
''What I'll always remember about Jeep was that during a slow-pitch softball game we didn't have enough guys to fill out the team, so Jeep positioned himself in center field and played all three outfield positions,'' Sharkey said.
''A guy hit a line shot, about an inch inside the right-field line. Jeep raced over and made an incredible play, short-hopping the ball and holding the guy to a single instead of a home run.
''At the end of the inning, Jeep came up to me and apologized for not catching the ball on the fly for an out.
''Jeep was an amazing athlete. But he was even more amazing as a person.''
Bill Lilley can be reached at 330-996-3811 or blilley@thebeaconjournal.com.
His legs took Glenn ''Jeep'' Davis all over the world.
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