Glenn "Jeep" Davis (official thread)

[Buckskin86]

Glenn Ashby "Jeep" Davis (September 12, 1934 ? January 28, 2009)was an Olympic hurdler and sprinter who won a total of three gold medals in the 1956 and 1960 Olympic games. He later played professional football with the Detroit Lions and was a teacher and coach in his adopted hometown of Barberton, Ohio for 33 years.

Childhood and early life
Davis was born in Wellsburg, West Virginia, and when both his parents when he was 15, he moved to Barberton with his brother. He attended Barberton High School, where he led his team to a win in the state track and field championship in 1954.[1] He was offered more than 200 athletic scholarships for college, and chose to attend Ohio State University.

College and Olympics
Davis won Olympic titles in the 400 meter hurdles at both the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 and the Rome Olympics in 1960. In 1958 he was awarded the James E. Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.

Davis was also a sprinter, and won a third gold medal as a member of the United States 4 x 400 meter relay team in 1960. He set world records in both flat and hurdle races. He is a member of the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.

Later careers
Davis was featured on the June 27, 1960 cover of Sports Illustrated. After his track career, Davis played wide receiver for the Detroit Lions in 1960 and 1961. He had 10 catches for 132 yards in his two NFL seasons.[1] He was the track coach at Cornell University from 1963 to 1967, coaching the team to the Ivy League title in his final season.

Davis was a long time resident of Barberton, Ohio, teaching and coaching there for 33 years,[3] and was the owner of Jeep's Olympic Driving School. Prior to this, Davis was a popular teacher at Barberton High School and part owner of one of the students' favorite gathering spots, Jeep and Joe's Pizza. He also loved to play the harmonica.

Glenn Ashby Davis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OSU great, three-time Olympic gold medalist Glenn Davis dies
Friday, January 30, 2009

Former Ohio State track star Glenn "Jeep" Davis died Wednesday in Barberton, near Akron. He was 74.

Davis ran track for the Buckeyes from 1956 to 1959. He won Olympic gold at the Melbourne Games in the 400-meter hurdles in 1956, then was a two-time gold medalist four years later in Rome, in the 400 hurdles and the 1,600 relay.

He still has the Ohio State outdoor record in the 50-yard hurdles and in 2006 was recognized as the greatest athlete in Summit County history.

"This is a tremendous loss of a truly great Buckeye," OSU track coach Robert Gary said. "By all accounts, he was as good a man as he was an Olympian."

BuckeyeXtra - The Columbus Dispatch : OSU great, three-time Olympic gold medalist Glenn Davis dies

GLENN 'JEEP' DAVIS 1934 - 2009
Olympic idol races into eternity
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.''

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.''

Ohio.com - Olympic idol races into eternity

Former Ohio State and Olympics sprinter/hurdler Glenn "Jeep" Davis dies at age 74
Davis set bar high at hurdlesFriday, January 30, 2009
There was a time when no body cleared barriers in sports like Ohioans. Literally.

The great Baldwin-Wallace College and East Tech sprint hurdler Harrison Dillard won the 110-meter high hurdles in 1952 at Helsinki after winning the 100-meter dash in 1948 in London. Dillard won four Olympic gold medals, adding two victories in the 4x100 sprint relay.

In 1976 and 1984, Dayton's Edwin Moses won Olympic gold in the 400 intermediate hurdles, and it might have been three times except for the American boycott in 1980 of the Moscow Olympics.

In between was Glenn Davis of Barberton and Ohio State, the greatest intermediate hurdler in the world in the middle of the last century.

Davis died at 74 Wednesday in Barberton. At Barberton High School, he sometimes outscored opposing teams all by himself in the sprints and hurdles. He won eight Big Ten championships at Ohio State from 1956 to '59. He was the 400 hurdles Olympic gold medalist in Melbourne in 1956 and in Rome in 1960. He was the first man ever to win the event twice. He won the 1958 Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.

Ohio State track coach Robert Gary said the hurdles events at the Jesse Owens Classic this spring will be named for Davis.

It is a fitting tribute.

Former Ohio State and Olympics sprinter/hurdler Glenn "Jeep" Davis dies at age 74 - Cleveland.com

 

[LitlBuck]

He was one of the greatest hurdlers of all time and was a great person. RIP Glenn.:osu:

 

[BB73]

RIP to a Buckeye legend.

 

[Ttown]

RIP Buckeye.
"Oh come let's sing Ohio's praise"

 

[bkochmc]

RIP Glenn. A great representative of both Ohio State and the United States.

 

[Steve19]

People tell me frequently that there are no heroes anymore. I read about a guy like this and get the idea that he was a hero to a lot of people and an example to us all. A life well lived by a champion. RIP and God bless.:osu:

 

[Best Buckeye]

People tell me frequently that there are no heroes anymore. I read about a guy like this and get the idea that he was a hero to a lot of people and an example to us all. A life well lived by a champion. RIP and God bless.:osu:

Very well put Steve, very well put.

 

[Buckskin86]

Glenn Davis, 74; won 3 Olympic gold medals
By Richard Goldstein
New York Times / February 2, 2009

Glenn Davis set the world record in the 440-yard dash as he crossed the finish line in 45.7 seconds at an NCAA meet in Berkeley, Calif. (Associated Press/File 1958)

NEW YORK -Glenn Davis, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who won the 400-meter hurdles at the 1956 and 1960 games, died Wednesday in Barberton, Ohio. He was 74. His death was announced by Ohio State University, where he was an all-American in track and field.

Mr. Davis ran his first 400-meter hurdles race in 1956, winning the Amateur Athletic Union national championship. He won gold in the event at the 1956 Melbourne Games in an Olympic-record 50.1 seconds, leading a US sweep.

He had wanted to be an Olympian since he was a youngster. As he once told the Akron Beacon Journal, when he crossed the finish line, "I just looked up to the sky and said thanks."

Glenn Davis, 74; won 3 Olympic gold medals - The Boston Globe

 

[osugrad21]

CPD

Between the Lines: Barberton's legendary Davis is underappreciated by Livy no more

by Bill Livingston/Plain Dealer Columnist Wednesday February 11, 2009, 6:34 PM


Few of my track and field blogs have gotten as much response as the recent one on the death of Glenn "Jeep" Davis, the great Barberton High School and Ohio State hurdler.
Several fans contacted me to say that Davis won the 1954 state track meet single-handedly for Barberton, piling up points in the hurdles and sprints.
Ernie Holsendolph, the former business editor of The Plain Dealer, wrote me with a dejected memory of that meet. "As a loyal son of East Tech, I was there in 1954 for the Ohio track finals, expecting the Scarabs to win as usual. Not to be. Jeep won the thing for Barberton, taking two or three hurdle events. ... That memory loomed so large in my mind I had forgotten the other things he did. One of a kind."
Holsendolph gave me my first copy of "Track and Field News'" magazine the day before I left for the Seoul Olympics in 1988. "Where has this been all my life?" I wondered. I have subscribed on and off (mostly on) for 21 years. I will always be grateful to him for that gift.

Bill Kennedy/The Plain DealerGlenn 'Jeep' Davis, who passed away recently, was more than just a great track athlete from Northeast Ohio --- he was one of the region's best regardless of sport, according to Bill Livingston.
Another reader remembered a meet in which officials had to extend the long jump pit ("It was called the broad jump then," the reader noted) because Davis was blowing off the takeoff board and flying beyond the sand. And the message boards at trackandfieldnews.com went into a tizzy when I noted that WKNR AM/850 radio personality Greg Brinda and I ranked Davis 42nd among the top 100 athletes in the seven-county Cleveland metropolitan area in our co-authored volume, "The Great Book of Cleveland Sports Lists." Many wondered how anyone but Jesse Owens and Harrison Dillard could be rated higher than Davis in track and field.
Actually, so do I now. And I picked the list.
I rated John Hay's Madeline Manning (Mims) higher, although she won only one Olympic gold medal to Davis two individuals in the 400 hurdles and one 4 x 400 relay gold medal. She was a member of three Olympic teams and was boycotted out of another in 1980.

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