🏈On December 6, 1961 Syracuse halfback Ernie Davis won The Heisman Trophy, becoming the first African-American to win the award. He received 25.18% of the points possible. Davis played for coach Ben S... View More🏈On December 6, 1961 Syracuse halfback Ernie Davis won The Heisman Trophy, becoming the first African-American to win the award. He received 25.18% of the points possible. Davis played for coach Ben Schwartzwalder at Syracuse from 1959 to 1961, and went on to national fame in each of those 3 seasons, twice winning first-team All-American honors. As a sophomore, Davis led the 1959 Syracuse team to a national championship, capping an 11–0 season with a 23–14 win over Texas in the 1960 Cotton Bowl Classic, where Davis was named the MVP. That same season, Elmira Star-Gazette sports writer Al Mallette coined the nickname for Davis, “The Elmira Express". In his junior year at Syracuse, 1960, he set a record of 7.8 yards per carry and was the 3rd leading rusher in the country with 877 yards, having rushed for 100 yards in 6 of 9 games. In Ernie's senior year, the 1961 Orangemen finished with a record of 8–3, closing the season with a 15–14 victory over the Hurricanes in the Liberty Bowl, played at Philadelphia's Franklin Field. President John F. Kennedy had followed Davis' career and requested to meet him while he was in New York to receive the Heisman Trophy. During his time at Syracuse, Davis wore the same number, 44, as had the legendary Jim Brown, helping to establish a tradition at the school that was acknowledged on November 12, 2005, when Syracuse retired the number in an on-field ceremony. Davis was the number-one pick in the 1962 NFL Draft on December 4, 1961. Selected by the Washington Redskins, he was traded to the Cleveland Browns. Davis was diagnosed with leukemia in the summer of 1962, and died less than a year later at age 23, without ever playing in a professional game. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979, and was the subject of the 2008 Universal Pictures film “The Express: The Ernie Davis Story”, based on the non-fiction book Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express, by Robert C. Gallagher
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