USMA IN THE NEWS
The world was at war when Felix "Doc" Blanchard and Glenn Davis were creating legends in the Army backfield. While World War II raged in Europe and the Pacific, Blanchard and Davis were part of a magical time in college football. If the word "superstar" had been in usage back then, it would have been the best way to describe the two Army football heroes. Blanchard won the 1945 Heisman Trophy, and Davis was runner-up. The next year, Davis won the Heisman. During their three seasons together, Army was 27-0-1 and won two national titles. In a time of conflict, these two giants of the game, whose names are linked for eternity, never minded sharing the football or spotlight. "To my knowledge, we've never even had an argument," said Davis, 79. "We certainly weren't envious of each other. It never even entered our mind." Blanchard and Davis will be honored Thursday with the PricewaterhouseCoopers Doak Walker Legends Award during a banquet at the Fairmont Hotel. The award recognizes not only their football accomplishments, but also a lifetime of selflessness. After his playing days, Blanchard spent 25 years in the Air Force, flying bombing missions in Vietnam, and retired as a colonel. Davis, after serving in Korea, played a couple years with the Los Angeles Rams. He then spent 37 years with the Los Angeles Times as a director of special events. Today, Blanchard lives in Bulverde, Texas, just north of San Antonio. Davis splits time living in homes near Palm Springs, Calif., and Philadelphia. The war may have brought them together, but Blanchard and Davis - like the rest of the country caught up in patriotic fervor at the time - were thinking only of the common goal. "We tried to complement each other and really weren't competing," said Blanchard, 80. "You've just got to be the right kind of people with the right kind of interests. If you're interested in the welfare of the team, you don't have that problem." When the United States entered the war, the military academies essentially had their choice of the nation's top football stars. "Everybody who was 18 got drafted," said Blanchard, who was born in South Carolina and went to high school in Mississippi. "All they had to do was get the sports page out and see who did what last year. Navy did the same thing." Blanchard initially turned down an offer from Army to spend his first year at North Carolina. "I was drafted and in the service for a year and they asked if I 'd like to go to West Point now," Blanchard said. "I said, 'That might be good.' " Some of Blanchard's and Davis' teammates had returned from military action and were well into their 20s. "It really was like an All-Star team," said Davis, who grew up in California. "I played with 14 All-Americans in four years at West Point." Former Dallas mayor Bob Folsom was a reserve end on the Blanchard and Davis Army teams. "Of course, we beat everybody," Folsom said. "I was a kid on that ballclub with them. I was really lucky to get to play on that Army team." Ready-made heroes After the war Folsom returned to SMU, where he started his college career. He was a team captain with Doak Walker, making Folsom a rare man to play alongside three Heisman Trophy winners. "Glenn was lightning-fast," Folsom said. "He was track-fast. He'd run in those 60-yard dashes at Madison Square Garden and win them. "Doc was about 210. He'd just knock the daylights out of you. He'd run over you. Glenn would run around you." They both did their share of running out of the "T" formation for legendary coach Earl "Red" Blaik. They combined for 97 touchdowns in their careers. Blanchard and Davis led Army to national titles in 1944 and 1946. The only blemish on their record was the historic 0-0 tie with Notre Dame in 1946. At a time when the country was searching for heroes, Blanchard and Davis fit their roles perfectly as West Point football stars. Their exploits were shown to moviehouses on newsreels and their faces graced the covers of both Time and Life. "We didn't have TV," Blanchard said. "What you got was Movietone news and what you got on the radio and newspapers. It really wasn't like today." Blanchard and Davis even starred in their own movie, The Spirit of West Point. "You always feel kind of silly," Davis said of the publicity machine. "You feel like they're making more out of things than is really there." Sports writers of the day weren't above myth-making. The powerful Blanchard was dubbed Mr. Inside and the fleet Davis was Mr. Outside. Blanchard was described as running through a defender like a paper bag, while Time wrote that Davis "simply leans forward and sprouts wings." "Your imagination is a wonderful thing," Blanchard said. "If you listened to that kind of stuff and imagined it, you could be what you wanted to be." No myths here Their records are no myth. Davis still holds the best NCAA career rushing average of 8.26 yards per carry. Davis rushed for 2,957 yards while Blanchard, who also was an expert blocker and punter, rushed for 1,908. Blanchard was the first junior to win the Heisman when he rushed for 19 touchdowns and 718 yards, a modest number by today's standards. He might have won back-to-back Heismans but suffered a knee injury early in the 1946 season. Davis more than took up the slack and went on to win the Heisman that year. Davis was runner-up for the Heisman two years in a row. He finished second behind Ohio State's Les Horvath in 1944. Blanchard was third. It's Davis' wife, Yvonne, who can lay claim to two Heismans. Yvonne is the widow of 1954 winner Alan Ameche. Davis, who was also widowed, married Yvonne after getting to know her from attending Heisman ceremonies together. "I think I'm a woman who's been twice blessed," Yvonne said. "My little grandson said, 'Does Nana only like football guys?'" Blanchard and Davis last saw each other a few months ago at an autograph signing in New Jersey. The mutual admiration and respect for each other is still there, long after they stopped sharing a football. "We both came from small towns and weren't really carried away with ourselves," Blanchard said. "The only trouble with all these awards like Doc and I are getting," Davis said, "is they don't say anything about the guys you played with. If someone doesn't block, believe me, you don't make any yardage."