By Stampeders.com Staff
Eddie Davis will have a couple of familiar faces at his side on Aug. 20 when he is officially inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
“Dave Dickenson and Gene Makowsky were both teammates of mine so to be going in with them is a great honour,” says Davis, the all-star defensive back whose distinguished 15-year career included five seasons (1996-2000) with the Stampeders. “They were both great players and they were both so competitive.”
Davis said he quickly learned not to underestimate Dickenson.
“I remember when I was with the Stamps, we would play basketball at local schools,” Davis chuckles. “We would be walking through the halls and Dave looked more like a math teacher than a football player. But then when we got on the court, I quickly realized that Dave was a very good basketball player.”
Of course, Dickenson wasn’t too shabby on the football field, either.
“In my mind, Dave was the best quarterback I’ve seen in the CFL,” says Davis. “I’d put him ahead of (Doug) Flutie or anyone else that I saw play. He was so smart, so competitive and just an all-around great player.”
As for himself, Davis admits he never allowed himself to think about the possibility of earning a spot in the Hall of Fame.
“I was just looking to play football,” he comments. “All my life, I’d heard that I wasn’t good enough or I wasn’t big enough to play, so just getting a chance to be on the field was all that mattered to me.”
Davis was a five-time division all-star and was part of the Stamps’ 1998 Grey Cup-championship squad.
“That was my first championship at any level and it will always be very special to me,” he says. “I was able to win another Grey Cup with Saskatchewan in 2007 but that first one really meant a lot to me as a young player.”
Davis debuted in the CFL in 1995 as a member of the Birmingham Barracudas in the U.S. expansion era. After the Barracudas folded, former Birmingham general manager Roy Shivers joined the Stampeders’ front office and Davis was selected by Calgary in the dispersal draft.
“Roy and Wally Buono must have seen something in me and I’ll always be grateful to them for the opportunity they gave me,” says Davis. “The Stampeders had two very good halfbacks in Gerald Vaughn and Kenton Leonard but they gave me a shot and I was able to earn to make the team and they released Vaughn.”
Davis says he couldn’t help but get better as a member of the Stamps.
“Every day in practice, I was going up against Allen Pitts, Terry Vaughn, Travis Moore, Dave Sapunjis and Vinny Danielsen,” he notes. “You have to improve as a defensive back if you’re going up against great receivers like those guys on a regular basis.”
Davis signed with the Riders as a free agent in 2001 but he continued to live in Calgary during the off-season and he returned here after retiring in 2010.
“My wife is from Calgary,” he explains. “She was born in Montreal but moved here when she was five and has been here her entire life. Even when I signed with the Riders, she told me ‘I’m not moving to Regina,’ so I would spent six months in Saskatchewan during the season and then return to Calgary.”
He completed his degree in mechanical engineering during his playing career and joined oil and gas company Halliburton in 2010.
In a couple of weeks, he’ll take a break from his sales work and join his fellow inductees in Regina for the Hall-of-Fame ceremonies. Appropriately, this year’s Hall of Fame Game features the two teams with which he spent the vast majority of his career, the Stamps and the Riders.
“It’s just so humbling to know that I’m going to be in the Hall of Fame next to people like Ronnie Lancaster, George Reed, Milt Stegall and Alondra Johnson,” he says. “It’s such a great honour.”