Milt Davis

Milton Eugene "Pops" Davis (May 31, 1929 – September 29, 2008) was a defensive back who played four seasons in the National Football League (NFL) for the Baltimore Colts.

An NFL rookie in 1957 at the comparatively advanced age of 28, Davis made an immediate impact in the league, intercepting 10 passes in 14 games and making the Pro Bowl. He finished with 27 career interceptions with the Colts in just 46 games, retiring at age 31.

Davis returned to school, where he obtained a doctorate degree and subsequently worked as a community college professor for 25 years.

Early life

Milt Davis was born May 31, 1929, on the Fort Gibson Indian reservation in Muskogee, Oklahoma to a father of African American and Native American ancestry. His father was Black and Muscogee while his mother was Black and Kiowa.

The family moved to California during the Great Depression, when Milt was a toddler, packing all their belongings in a Ford Model T to escape the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. That same year he was drafted into the United States Army, serving the standard two years in uniform.

Davis returned to the Lions for the 1956 NFL season, playing in just two games before being cut on October 11 as the team made personnel moves to get down to the 33-man roster limit. The cut was handled utterly gracelessly, with head coach Buddy Parker having it announced that Davis and teammate Pete Retzlaff had been cut via the public address system of Willow Run Airport. Davis intercepted 10 passes that season, returning 2 of them for touchdowns, and racked up 219 interception return yards to lead the league — a watched defensive statistic in that era.

Fresh off his All-Pro season, Davis signed with the Colts for 1958 — a contract which paid him $7,000 — the equivalent of approximately $75,000 in 2024.

"I would always scream to get the manager, because I’m in the land of the free and the home of the brave, and I wanted to put them on the spot," Davis recalled. "It was important. I’m a college graduate, veteran, taxpayer." He was 79 years old at the time of his death.

Hall of Fame running back Lenny Moore said of his teammate and friend Davis, "Aside from being a great football player, he was a man that knew about life issues and knew how to deal with it. He was a beacon.... He was incredibly respected, both with the white players and the black players."