Jamestown Evening Journal

Princeton's Choice

Philadelphia Public Ledger Pays High Tribute To Parke H. Davis

 

Former Resident of Jamestown Recently Selected to Represent Princeton In Intercollegiate Rules Committee - No Better Princeton Man Could Have Been Chosen for Position - He Has Been Actively Identified With College Athletics

In commenting on the selection of Parke H. Davis of Easton, Pa„ formerly of this city, as the representative of Princeton University on the intercollegiate rules committee, the Philadelphia Public Ledger says:

"In selecting her football representative on the rules committee, Princeton has been exceedingly discreet and exacting in her choice. No better man in the wide range of former football players at Old Nassau is better qualified to take up the responsible duties of this position than Parke H. Davis, who represented the Tigers in the general conference held in New York Friday and Saturday. Mr. Davis is a football general. To him the game is a deep science, worthy of careful thought in preparing the system of plays. Perhaps no football authority in America has given the game more close thought than Mr. Davis. He is an evolutionist of the boldest type, and has advocated many changes in Princeton's system. For several years he has been at the head of Princeton’s football board of strategy, being recognized by the Tiger football powers as the most original member of the staff.

"Parke H. Davis is a lawyer residing at Easton. Pa. He entered Princeton in the fall of '89 and played end rush on the varsity eleven in '90, tackle in '91 and '91. He was chairman of the executive committee, the undergraduate body governing all athletic sports, in '92 and '93, and led the reorganization of athletics resulting in the building of the present field stands and buildings at Princeton, and the systematization of the business management of all sports under one general head. He was also active as a member of the intercollegiate executive committee in reorganizing the Mott Haven games in 1893.

“After graduation he introduced and established football and track sports at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, giving that institution a western championship the first year. Mr. Davis later coached Amherst College's football team. His best known work was at Lafayette, in 1896, where he lifted football at the Easton institution from obscurity to the first rank, giving Lafayette one of the greatest teams ever developed in America, and establishing a system that has kept Lafayette in the front rank ever since.

"In 1897 he was admitted to the Northampton county bar, and has since been actively engaged in practicing law at Easton, having been district attorney of that county and was also his party nominee for judge.”


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