Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Kermit Davis Sr., a Magnolia State basketball icon, was surrounded by family when died Monday in Tupelo. He was 91.
Davis, who played basketball at Mississippi State and later coached the Bulldogs, was the father of former Ole Miss coach Kermit Davis Jr.
Father and son share an amazing distinction: Kermit Sr. was Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year in 1971, his first year as State’s head coach. Forty-eight years later, in 2019, Kermit Jr. was SEC Coach of the Year in his first year at Ole Miss.
“Dad had 91 great years,” Kermit Davis Jr. said Monday. “I think the highest compliment a man can have is when his children all say he was their best friend. I can say that for sure, and my younger brother, Bill, says it and my sister, Jennifer, says it, too. Dad was special.”
Kermit Davis Sr. was preceded in death by his seven siblings. He was born and raised in Walnut, a small community in Tippah County in northeast Mississippi.
Basketball is king in that part of the state known as Hill Country. There, small-town high school teams are historically a huge source of community pride. Walnut was no exception. In 1954, Davis led Walnut to the state championship in the smallest classification of schools. Then, he sparked Walnut to the overall state championship, defeating much, much larger Forest Hill of Jackson in what was then known as the Tournament of Championship.
Like father, like son: This photo of two SEC Basketball Coaches of the Year was taken in 2017 before the wedding of Kermit Davis Jr.’s daughter, Claire. That’s Kermit Davis Sr. on the left. Credit: Courtesy of the Davis familyThat Walnut team was similar to the Hickory, Indiana, team made famous by the 1986 movie “Hoosiers,” which starred Gene Hackman. The movie’s Hickory team was loosely based on a real-life team from Milan, Indiana, which won the 1954 Indiana state high school championship, the same year Walnut won in Mississippi.
“Dad and I watched ‘Hoosiers’ together,” Kermit, Jr. said. “He loved that movie. He loved all the similarities. In many ways, Dad was Jimmy Chitwood,” the player who scored the winning basket for Hickory, Indiana.
Kermit Davis Sr., was much more than that. He was the first player legendary coach Babe McCarthy successfully recruited to Mississippi State. McCarthy was actually officiating one of Walnut’s games in 1954, and afterward asked Davis where he was going to play college basketball. Davis answered that he was probably going to play at Ole Miss.
McCarthy told Davis he should reconsider because he knew who the new Mississippi State coach was going to be and also knew that the coach was interested in Davis.
“Oh yeah, who’s that?” Davis asked.
Answered McCarthy: “Me.”
When Davis agreed to play at State, McCarthy asked him if he knew of any taller players State should recruit. Davis told McCarthy he should recruit a tall fellow in Tennessee Davis had once played with in junior high, a young man named Bailey Howell.
McCarthy did just that and over the next few years, Howell became a superstar and State became one of the nation’s best teams, challenging Kentucky and Adolph Rupp for SEC basketball supremacy. Howell averaged 27 points and 17 rebounds a game for his State career and many of his baskets came on passes from Davis.
After his playing days Davis became an outstanding high school coach, leading Tupelo to back-to-back state championships.
Kermit Jr. grew up going to Kermit Sr.’s games at Tupelo and then State.
“I knew exactly what I wanted to do,” Kermit Jr. has said.
Asked what he learned most from watching his father, Kermit Jr. answered that it wasn’t so much the X’s and O’s of basketball or the strategy.
“What I got from Dad – at least what I hope I got – was his ability to handle and treat people,” Kermit Jr. said. “He was the ultimate people person. He treated people right. He cared about people and people knew it. That’s what made him who he was.”
•••
Rick Cleveland column on Kermit Davis Sr., from 2022.
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