How we remember Ernie Davis

JEFF RICHARDS/Star-Gazette This life-size bronze statue stands in front of Ernie Davis Middle School, which Davis attended when it was Elmira Free Academy.

Some of the ways in which Ernie Davis name lives on:

- The award honoring the outstanding football player in the metro Elmira area is named the Ernie Davis Award.

- The Section 4 all-star game is called the Ernie Davis High School Football Classic.

- The trophy and display room at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse is named the Ernie Davis Room.

- Davis 1961 Heisman Trophy is on display in the football wing of Manley Field House at Syracuse University.

- The Cleveland Browns, the NFL team that signed Davis, retired his uniform number, 45, although he never wore it in a game. (Jim Brown wore No. 44, the number he and Davis wore at Syracuse. Davis wore No. 45 on the junior varsity team his freshman year at SU.)

- The old Neighborhood House in Elmira, where Davis played grade-school basketball and pickup games, was renamed the Ernie Davis Community Center.

Star-Gazette file photo The Heisman Trophy won by Ernie Davis, at the base of his statue in front of Ernie Davis Middle School. The inscription obscured by the trophy says the statue was given "as an inspiration to the youth of tomorrow. ... In memory of a life full of determination and honor." The statue was erected in 1988.

- When the new Elmira Free Academy was built, the old EFA on Lake Street was renamed Ernie Davis Junior High School, and later Ernie Davis Middle School.

- A life-size bronze statue of Davis, holding a football in one hand and books in the other, stands on a granite base in front of the middle school. The $90,000 statue, the work of Italian sculptor Bruno Lucchesi, was unveiled on June 19, 1988.

- The $12,000 Ernie Davis Memorial Scholarship, the areas largest, is presented annually to a high school senior through the Community Foundation of the Elmira-Corning Area Inc.

- The Leukemia Foundation named an award for Davis, who died of the disease on May 18, 1963. Its Ernie Davis Award is presented annually to a football player, past or present, who exemplifies his qualities excellence of character and integrity, and service to mankind.

Provided The Ernie Davis Family Center will be the focal point of an expanded and renovated community center on Elmira's Eastside.

- The Ernie Davis Family Center is being built at East Fifth and Baldwin streets in Elmira. It will be home for the Economic Opportunity Program Inc., which operates eight human service programs in Chemung and Schuyler counties. The center will be part of a $7 million Ernie Davis Campus that will include an Ernie Davis Memorial Room, the Ernie Davis Community Center, Second Place East, Ernie Davis Middle School and the Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Clinic.