Jamestown Evening Journal

Parke H. Davis

Noted Football Statistician And Former Jamestown Boy Receives Place In Roll Of Honor

 

Parke H. Davis, famous player and coach and member of the present Football Rules committee who began his football career as a member of a Jamestown eleven, last month received a place in the Football Roll of Honor being conducted by the Outing Magazine. Aside from a very good picture of Mr. Davis the magazine contained the following article:

"Do you want to know who made the long run in the Yale-Princeton game in 1897 and the exact length of the run? Ask Parke Davis. Do you desire the names of the men who made the touchdowns in the game between Beloit and Lawrence in 1898? Ask Parke Davis. Are you curious about any other small fact in the history of American football, or college sport generally? Parke Davis is the man for you. He is the historian of the gridiron game. His memory, supplemented by his files, have let no smallest fact escape.

"Parke Davis' football began in Jamestown, N.Y. and continued at Princeton in the early nineties. He was left end in 1890 under the captaincy of Edgar Allen Poe and for the next two years was left and right tackle respectively. But that was just the beginning. His real football career began after graduation.

"For a year he was director of athletics at the University of Wisconsin, beating Michigan in football and assisting in the formation of the Western Intercollegiate Athletic association, his team taking second place in the first games. In '94 he was coach at Amherst and from '95 to '98 was director of athletics at Lafayette, putting that college very firmly on the football and baseball map. In 1896 Lafayette, under his coaching, tied his own alma mater on the gridiron and beat Pennsylvania. The next spring his baseball team won against Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Pennsylvania.

"For the past six years he has been a member of the Football Rules committee. It was at his suggestion that interlocked interference was abolished in 1910 and

he was one of the authors of the rule establishing the forward pass zone. For the past twenty years he has been a power in Princeton coaching councils.

“But it is as a historian that he is best known. His statistical contributions are features of the Guide and his book Football, the American Intercollegiate Game, is standard. Incidentally he is a practicing lawyer at Easton, Pa., from 1901 to 1904 was district attorney, secretary of the State Democratic committee from 1901 to 1903, and Democratic candidate date for judge in 1907."


The additional financial assistance of the community is critical to the success of the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame.
We gratefully acknowledge these individuals and organizations for their generous support.