The game was almost 61 years ago in Buffalo, though what John Brown remembers of Ernie Davis on the field has little to do with the play-by-play.
On June 29, 1962, Brown was an offensive lineman for the East in the annual Coaches All-America Football Game, a long-vanished college showcase whose first home was in the old War Memorial Stadium.
The East won that night, 13-8, behind touchdowns from quarterback Roman Gabriel and the late Bob Ferguson, a running back from Ohio State named the game’s MVP.
Yet winning or losing is not what Brown, an 83-year-old retired banking executive, recalls from his home near Pittsburgh. He had just graduated from Syracuse University, where his best friend was Davis, the first African American recipient of the Heisman Trophy as standout player in the college game – an honor that led to Davis shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy.
Brown and Davis were together on the only Orange team to ever win a national championship, in 1959. Davis always called his buddy “John Brown,” making affectionate use of both names, a bond reinforced by being part of a tiny group of Black students at Syracuse.
Their close friends included the late John Mackey, who both redefined what it meant to play tight end and became a pioneering union leader in the National Football League.
On Thursday, the phone rang at Brown’s home. It was Sylvia Mackey, John’s widow and another Syracuse graduate, who never forgets the meaning of May 18. It was exactly 60 years since Ernie Davis died, and she felt the same urgency as Brown:
They see it as imperative that Davis is remembered, for much more than football.
“Like I say: Man, this was an exceptional person,” Brown said.
The game in Buffalo has painful resonance. In 1962, professional football was conquering the American imagination. Vince Lombardi was building his NFL dynasty in Green Bay. The fledgling American Football League, including the Bills, was a few years away from a merger…
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