Card: ProSet 1991, ProSet WLAF 1991, ProSet WLAF 1991 Helmet card
Acquired: TTM 1992, C/o The New York-New Jersey Knights, TTM 2011, C/o The University of Hawaii Warriors
Sent: 2/14/11 Received: 3/10/11 (24 days)
Mouse Davis is nothing short of an innovator and a career coach with an extensive offensive coaching tree full of acolytes at every stop. Considered of great importance to the evolution of the Run and Shoot offense(- a passing offense that employs four wide receiver sets, no tight ends and a single running back,) the offense itself is also treated as the forerunner to the modern day spread offense. At every stop from the high school level to the professional level, Davis’ offenses have lit up the scoreboard and set team and league records. In college Mouse coached tiny Portland State to explosive levels (guided by future NFL quarterback Neil Lomax and June Jones). Portland State would set 20 NCAA records, and Mouse would briefly make a stop at Berkley before going on to be offensive coordinator of the Toronto Argonauts in the CFL in 1982. In 1984 he’d move to the USFL and be offensive coordinator under coach Jack Pardee and the Houston Gamblers with Jim Kelly, Richard Johnson and Ricky Sanders. His ‘Mouseketeers’ would dominate the offensive scoreboard and Johnson and Sanders would be the first 100 reception tandem in football history on the same team. 1985 would see his first pro head coaching gig, guiding the Denver Gold to the playoffs before the league folded. Soon thereafter Davis was named head coach of the St. Louis Lightning of the WIFL, but the league disbanded before it even took the field. After the failure of the USFL and WIFL, Davis was head coach of the New York-New Jersey Knights of the WLAF where the team in its first season had the league’s leading rusher in Eric Wilkerson and made the playoffs. In one notable game in 1991 the team set a football record for most faked punts in a game, but also set the record for futility in special teams as well. In the 1992 season under Davis’ guidance, quarterback Reggie Slack was the number 2 rated passer in the league with a 6-4 record before it folded.
Mouse has made numerous pitstops in the NFL as well, most notably when he was an assistant with the Detroit Lions during the late 80s – early 90’s building the “Silver Stretch Offense” and also spent time with the Atlanta Falcons. He was influential with Jack Pardee who adopted the Run and Shoot from him utilizing it with both the Houston Cougars to epic proportions in the NCAA level, the Houston Oilers in the NFL, and the Birmingham Barracudas in the CFL.
Davis returned to the college ranks after his stints in the NFL and WLAF. He currently serves with the Hawaii Warriors as their wide recievers coach and was inducted into the Portland State HoF. I sent off for his autograph while he was coaching the Knights in 1992 and then just this year while he was with the Warriors and he responded in under 30 days. His WLAF statistics are below.
W 11 L 9 T 0 Pct .555
Cards: SkyBox 1992, SkyBox 1992 Major Impact
Well another former Oiler that I was trying to get is off the list. Haywood Jeffires is known in autograph circles, at least TTM as a very difficult autograph to acquire. On many websites that post autograph percentages through the mail, he rates at a fat 0%. Unfortunately I sent off 5 cards to him in 2010- and never saw them again. So when I got word that Ernest Givins and Haywood Jeffires were going to be at the same table for Fan Fest this year, I immediately penciled them near the top of my list to get. I had many more that I intended to get autographed, but with a limit of one per person, I was fortunate to get two from him. To get the additional card signed, I cited his zero percent signing rate, to which he coyly admitted that he does not sign anything through the mail. Haywood looks almost the same as he did when he retired, and he still wears those turtlenecks, even if it is 90 degrees outside. I told him he was always my favorite player when he joined the team when I was a kid because we shared the same birthday. He tested me and asked the date which surprised him. In order not to scare him any further, I quickly thanked him for his time, shook his hand and was on my way, pleased with my acquisition on these two very fine cards.
