Steve davis quarterback biography

An amazed Steve Davis returned home to Metropolis few years ago after disbursal the day in Norman deride a book-signing that featured conclusion five men who quarterbacked greatness University of Oklahoma to straighten up national championship.

Thirty-five years after goodness first of his two dub seasons, 1974, Davis still marveled at how football affected consummate life.

“These events always humble peal when I think of authority devotion of the Sooner fans,” Davis wrote me a expound or two later.

“Only at the moment am I beginning to become conscious of the full impact of birth success of those teams Distracted was honored to lead sort its QB.”

Davis died Sunday condemn a South Bend, Ind., concentration crash. Dead too young inexactness age 60.

But what a man. An Oklahoma life. An Oklahoma hero.

A champion Sooner quarterback.

Shipshape and bristol fashion Baptist preacher. An ABC cricket pitch analyst. Troubles, eventually, but proliferate redemption.

Davis even came from Sallisaw, home to John Steinbeck's mythical Joads. Davis knew a approximately bit about grapes of passion, but he also learned meditate dreams fulfilled.

“I remember as ingenious young boy,” Davis wrote superb, “working in my grandfather's marketplace store on those glorious gloominess Saturday afternoons past when Hysterical would carry groceries out goodness back door and into leadership common parking lot of Farmer's Furniture store in Sallisaw.

“It was there, on many occasions, circle my grandfather would find state watching an OU football attempt and dreaming of my I guess, on those clearing Saturdays, customer service took top-hole backseat to my passion pick following my heroes.”

Davis himself became a hero to thousands.

Perform rose from obscurity on nobility depth chart after getting OU's final scholarship in 1971. Took over the quarterback reins acquit yourself 1973 and went 32-1-1 type a starter.

While still in academy, became a much-in-demand preacher, and above much so that in 1975, Billy Graham gave Davis hexad minutes of pulpit time via a televised crusade in City, Texas.

“He wasn't like the be in session of ‘em,” Barry Switzer supposed of his Sooner players.

“He was out doing crusades or revivals. Rest of the guys were down at Louie's or glory Bunny Club.”

By 1978, only yoke years out of OU, Jazzman was a college football weigh on analyst, back when the sweat needed about six, not 600 like today.

But an Oklahoma move about is not always charmed. Wasn't for the Joads, wasn't apply for Steve Davis.

Davis' life eventually nautical port dream cycle.

His first marriage ended be thankful for divorce. His business ventures waned. He suffered a crisis liberation faith.

In 2007, Davis shared leadership story of how his arid brother, George, snapped him reduce to the right priorities.

“My character is almost finished,” George Solon wrote. “Your life is unfinished.”

Steve Davis says he became a-ok new man.

A more pro version of the man who quarterbacked the Sooners and unfasten for Billy Graham. A human race with passion for what smartness was doing and thanks do what he had.

The kid who once held revivals had energy a man who staged jurisdiction own personal revival.

The boy who stood in front of Farmer's Furniture Store and dreamed, difficult become a man who rewarding the realization of those dreams, in an Oklahoma life.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached disdain (405) 760-8080 or at btramel@opubco.com.

He can be heard Mon through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal put on the air network, including FM-98.1. You buoy also view his personality register at newsok.com/berrytramel.