PARKE H. DAVIS, one of the foremost football authorities is advanced as Jamestown’s greatest athlete. The names of numerous other local athletic celebrities have also been submitted, and will be presented. For the moment Dr. Davis' candidacy is foremost. He was captain of the old Keltons, perhaps the first football team ever organized in Jamestown. Later, Mr. Davis went to Princeton, where he won immortal fame as one of the Orange and Black's gridiron greats. For many years Parke H. Davis was Princeton's representative to the Intercollegiate Football council. The veteran sports enthusiast who has suggested that Davis is entitled to the honor of being this city's greatest, athlete does not stake his claim solely on the fact that Parke was the captain of our first gridiron aggregation. Oldtimers recall that he was a sensational performer in those early days. His record at Princeton is well known even to the present generation of football devotees. Parke H. Davis must have been a phenomenal athlete, since his spark of greatness has shone down thru the years with undiminishing glitter. Names of more recent heroes have been forgotten, but the feats of Davis still lives in the minds and hearts of Princetonians. That fact is well worth remembering in this consideration of Jamestown's greatest athletes.
In late years Mr. Davis has kept in close touch with football. He is rated among the leading authorities on the sport, as it is played today and as it was played in past generations. Each year a New York newspaper engages Mr. Davis to cover the important collegiate classics, and at the close of the season he writes an article or resume on the season's play to which more than an entire page of the metropolitan daily is given.