Nothing Fancy, Just Charlie

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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- By the time Wake Forest guard Charlie Davis started his senior season, the game had slowed down for him. The game had gotten a bit easier. His teammates were able to find him open more often and shots were falling at an even greater clip than as a junior where he averaged 25.5 points a game. Davis knew his opponents well and played the game out mentally before ever taking the court, and more often than not it played out according to his own script.

As the season entered its final stretches, it was clear Davis was the best player in the Atlantic Coast Conference and had a shot to win the Player of the Year award dethroning two-time winner John Roche from South Carolina.

"If Charlie Davis doesn't win the award there should be a congressional investigation," Davis recalls Duke guard Dickie DeVenzio saying.

Davis became the first Black player to win ACC Player of the Year in 1971, finishing his career with a program record that still stands today by averaging 24.94 points a game.

"Pride and thankfulness, for the timing that the Lord put me in that spot at that particular time," Davis said about breaking through by earning that award. "You don't start out a season saying that you're going to win Player of the Year. You don't think about that.

"Something special had happened. It wasn't like there were a whole lot of black dudes voting. In that four-year period of time, something had occurred. I say I'm blessed because of the timing. That's where the good Lord put me. But it broke something that made it easier for the next person who deserved it, and the next person and the next person. That's the way things do occur."

Just two years later, David Thompson took the ACC by storm at NC State, winning the honor three-straight seasons. The conference, which began in 1953, didn't have its first Black player until Bill Jones was recruited to Maryland in 1965.

"And we're off and running," Davis said. "And it becomes not that big of a deal if the player is Black. It's how did you perform? Back then, it was a thing whether you were Black or white."

After his high school years at Brooklyn Tech (New York City, New York) and Laurinburg Institute (Laurinburg, North Carolina), Davis found selecting Wake Forest as his collegiate home to be an easy choice.

"In reality, that one is really simple," Davis said. "The first Black basketball player at Wake Forest University was Norwood Todmann. Norwood Todmann and (Wake Forest assistant coach) Billy Packer had a great relationship. Norwood Todmann was my best friend. He lived right across the street. We played basketball and competed against each other. As it became time to choose a school, it wasn't much of a choice. I accepted going to Wake Forest sight unseen."

"Charles, you'll be fine," Todmann told Davis as he made the decision.

Additionally, the city of Winston-Salem featured a strong and vibrant Black community.

"They were the ones who wrapped their arms around us Black athletes at Wake Forest and let us know that we do have a place to call home," he said. "(Clarence) Big House Gaines at Winston-Salem State wrapped his big arms around me and told me I could always come there if I needed anything. You can make the transformation, so it wasn't that large in that respect."

Gil McGregor, who averaged a career double-double in three seasons as a 6-foot-8 center for the Deacs, was a roommate with Davis when they were both freshmen.

"He comes to Wake Forest with very little working knowledge of the south," McGregor said. "I grew up in North Carolina. He wasn't braggadocious. Charlie was introspective, skinny and didn't push people around — his demeanor didn't befit his talent, because he had a lot of it. He was a great shooter.

"One, he could shoot, but then he never took bad shots. He never went between the legs to dribble the basketball to show what he could do. He just did what he needed to do."

There wasn't much in the way of on-court celebrations or gesticulations from Davis. He just went out and performed at a high level night-after-night-after-night.

"His mid-range shot would have been a 3-pointer," McGregor said. "And despite being of slight build, he could still drive to the bucket. Every time we stepped on the court, we had a chance because of him. We were often smaller than people we played against.

"We were smaller than some people, but every time we stepped on the court with him, we had a chance to win."

Though the NCAA didn't allow freshmen to compete during his era, it didn't take Davis long to show that he was a player to watch.

Coming off losses in five of their last six, including four against ranked teams, the Deacs hosted American on Feb. 15, 1969. Davis was a sophomore. After getting undercut on a breakaway layup, Davis emerged a little more focused and motivated for the final 10:20.

"After that we had 10 minutes of near perfection," Davis reflected. "You start flowing and your teammates recognize something is going on. They start passing up some shots to find you, and you keep flowing. My jumper was just right on. I just put it all together on that particular night.

Davis scored 51 points in a 105-81 victory, with 35 coming in the second half. Both of those are Wake Forest program records that still stand today.

"There's joy in the game," Davis said. "I started flowing. If you can't figure out how to stop me, I'm not going to stop myself. Once that started flowing, that was it."

After the game, McGregor picked up Davis and carried him off the court on his shoulders.

"It was one of my poorest games, he said. "What he did, he did all the time. He just did more of it. He made the jumpers, the drives and his free throws. He didn't do anything he didn't always do. It was the most unassuming 51 points that anyone could get."

By the time Davis was a senior, he'd clearly established himself as one of the best players in the ACC.

"Simply put, I was playing at an extremely high level," he said. "I was always able to sense in my basketball career when I was growing or when I had grown. I found that different things became easier to do. When I entered my senior year, I was playing at an extremely high level and I knew it. I was looking forward to the campaign.

"We weren't going to have a great team, and were going to be small as usual. But we were going to be scrappy and a pretty good team. The other part of it was I knew it was my last run and the last time I was going to be playing there."

Although Davis' name is strewn all across the Wake Forest record books and he won the 1971 ACC Player of the Year award, McGregor believes his game was underappreciated.

"As much as Charlie's game was appreciated, I'm not sure it was appreciated enough," he said. "He probably was much more ethereal and heady than people realized, including his coach and teammates. Charlie was a New York City player in location only. When you think of a New York City player, you think of a certain level of cockiness and bravado that they bring with their game. They bring swag to a whole different level, especially during his time.

"Charlie, although he was really good, didn't carry himself in that manner."

The 1971 Wake Forest season finished with a first-round ACC Tournament 85-84 loss to Virginia.

"Unbelievably disappointing," Davis said. "We were playing a good Virginia team with Barry Parkhill. We knew he was going to get the ball. In hindsight, we should have doubled him and made him give up the ball. We had Bobby Rhoads guarding him and he made a heckuva jump shoot. When the ball went through the net, there were only three seconds left.

"That was the ballgame. That's it. You hope for an NIT berth to keep playing, and there were rumors that if we won that game we would have received one. It didn't come. It was disappointing, there's no other way to put it."

Days after the season was complete, Davis was tracked down entering Reynolds Gymnasium by the basketball sports information director telling him he'd won the ACC Player of the Year Award.

"It spread around and later in the afternoon I was being interviewed," Davis said. "We celebrated in the basketball office, happy that it occurred."

Roche had won the award two straight years, and Davis said the South Carolina guard would have earned even his vote as a sophomore in 1969. In 1970, however, it was a close call between Roche, who was a junior, and Charlie Scott, a North Carolina senior guard. Roche averaged 22.3 points and 2.3 rebounds a game for a Gamecock team that went 14-0 in the ACC regular season. Scott averaged 27.1 points, 8.6 rebounds and 3.1 assists for the 9-5 Heels.

"It was extremely tight, but I would have voted for Scotty," Davis said. "So there was this discussion as to if a Black player could win. That was out there. Charlie Scott was considered one of the best all-around players out there. But Roche won.

"So this player has won it two-straight years. Odds are he's going to win it year three. But I played extremely well."

By the end of the season, Davis was convinced he'd done enough to win the award, and perhaps win it handily.

"There was no doubt in my mind who was the best player in the conference," he said. "The way I was performing, I thought I should win the award and that it should not be close. So when it finally did occur and the numbers came up, it wasn't a landslide, but it wasn't close either.

"There's no doubt I have a sense of pride, and I'm happy people are taking a look at it again."

McGregor marvels at the significance now 50 years later.

"If you think of the time of transformation in the conference, and what Charlie brought to that time and place, it's significant," he said. "With the social ramifications, pressures, issues and limitations that he was confronted with to perform at the level he did night-in and night-out is something worth commemorating.

"He richly deserved it. There was a little bit of politics about it when Charlie Scott didn't get it the year before."

After some time in the NBA, Davis returned to Wake Forest University in 1990 to complete his degree and begin a career in athletics administration.

"The gift is that it gives you the opportunity to get an education, and if you don't get the education then you've fallen short of the gift that's been given you," he said. "I needed to get that part finished.

"At that point, I was the only person in my family to have graduated high school. But mom wanted that college degree. I was lucky enough to get back to Wake Forest so that I could work toward getting my degree. When that did happen, it was a very special day."

He spent five years as an assistant athletic director at Wake Forest, where he focused on helping to prepare student-athletes for life after sports as well as an initiative called "Charlie's Kids," which brought inner-city kids on campus for games.

"Those are things I'm really proud of for the time I spent at Wake Forest," he said. "In many cases, young Black kids could see Black college kids get an education, see it's possible and know who they are. I was passionate about it and was out in the community. I wanted to make an impact in the lives of kids. I was happy Ron Wellman gave me the freedom to do that."

Although Wake Forest was the first major conference team in the south to integrate, it was not always an easy transition for Black athletes.

"I learned from Bob Grant, Butch Henry and Howard Stanback as part of the group who went before me — they had already weathered the big storm, but there were still storms to come simply because of the time, where we were and what was taking place," Davis said. "I had no teammate who I had any problem with or thought I had any problem with.

"My teammates are my teammates, even to this day. Dicky (Walker), Neil (Pastushok), Gilbert (McGregor) — you get a bond there, and that bond is close to everlasting. We take care of one another and have continued to do so to this point."

McGregor still revels in his time together with Davis at Wake Forest.

"Being on the court with Charlie Davis is something I've honored," he said. "I've been to a lot of places. I've played a little bit in the pros with Cincinnati and went to Europe and played for seven years and still haven't seen the likes of a skinny little New York kid who didn't try to be fancy, but was awfully damn good. That's Charlie Davis."

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