It was about 10 years ago, or four decades since Ben Davis had finished playing with the Browns, that he was at team headquarters in Berea visiting with some club executives concerning a business deal.

After they had conducted their business, small talk ensued, and one thing led to another. Eventually, Davis made mention that his sister was Angela Davis. the G.O.A.T. of social activistism from way back in the 1960s. When you looked up social activism in the dictionary back then, and when you do so even now, you see her face and bio.

It didn’t seem possible, though, that she was Davis‘s sister. She was, after all, very outspoken, always pushing the envelope and challenging authority by saying things that nobody else at the time was saying. Ben Davis, on the other hand, is quiet and unassuming. His trademark is a wonderful, bright smile. They are so incredibly different!

“Oh, come on, Ben, you don’t mean that,” one team exec said with a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, really, she is my sister,” he said with more conviction.

They all went back-and-forth on this a time or two more before the Browns people finally realized that he was indeed telling the truth, that he and Angela Davis were brother and sister.

But Ben Davis is well-known in his own right, even if it is only in Notthrast Ohio and Browns Nation. He beat all the odds to have a pretty decent NFL career.

And this is why he is the subject of Part 5 of this Roy Hobbs series of Browns players who came out of nowhere to do big things.

Davis was chosen in the 17th and final round of the 1967 NFL Draft out of the tiny Ohio college of Defiance. Draft position and that he played at such a small school were two strikes against him making the team. The third was the fact the Browns were a pretty good team throughout the 1960s, and so it was tough to earn a spot on the final roster, especially with the fact that rosters had about 20 less players than they do today.

Davis not only made the team, but he had an immediate impact on it by leading the league in punt return average (12.7 yards) as a rookie in 1967.  In 1968, he topped the team with eight interceptions.

He ended up playing seven years with the Browns, through 1973, racking up 17 picks overall, before going on to spend several more seasons with the Detroit Lions.

So, while his sister’s calling card was defiance, Ben Davis’s was that he came from Defiance.

Steve King