This story appeared in the 88th Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic Official Game Program

As a youth growing up in South Dallas, the venerable Cotton Bowl Stadium was never far away from Danny Davis' childhood home.
 
"When I was in elementary school, I could see Fair Park from my front porch," Davis said. "From the playground at the school, you could see the Cotton Bowl. As I got older, I would go over there and park cars or sell popcorn and Cokes."
 
At the time, Cotton Bowl Stadium was the venue for SMU's home games as well as the annual New Year's Day Classic. When Davis worked at one of those contests, he and his fellow teenaged concessionaires would descend onto the field after the final gun to play pick-up football games until security guards cleared the stadium. But he dreamed of more and shared his vision with friends.
 
After ringing in one of those New Years with a post-game session on the hallowed turf, a friend reminded Davis that he had just checked off a career goal.
 
 "At least you can say you played in the Cotton Bowl," the friend observed as the teens walked up the tunnel and began the walk across the fairground and back to their homes. Davis would have none of it.
 
"No, man," he responded.  "I'm going to play on a team that plays in the Cotton Bowl."
 
Once he enrolled at the University of Houston after a stellar high school career at Dallas Carter, Davis wasted no time in making good on that vow. In three seasons as the Cougars' starting quarterback, he led teams to two Southwest Conference championships and the corresponding Cotton Bowl Classic berths reserved in those years for the league champion.
 
Included was the Cougars' historic appearance in the 1977 Cotton Bowl Classic to underscore Davis' first season as Houston's starting quarterback and the school's memorable first football season as an SWC member.
 
Running the team's signature Veer offense with precision, Davis led the Coogs to a 30-21 victory over a then-undefeated Maryland team. The triumph over the fourth-ranked Terrapins marked the first victory over a Top-5 team in school history. It also made Davis the first Black quarterback to lead an SWC champion to a Cotton Bowl Classic berth as well as a Cotton Bowl Classic victory.
 
Overnight, the Hometown Hero who grew up dreaming of participating in the Cotton Bowl Classic had become a Cotton Bowl legend. The legend only grew two years later when Davis brought the Cougars back to Dallas during his senior season to meet Notre Dame. Although that game is best remembered for Notre Dame's touchdown on the final play to seal a 35-34 comeback in icy conditions, Davis played well while putting the finishing touches on a college career that included a 20-5 record as a starting quarterback.
 
How impactful was Davis, a 2022 inductee into the SWC Hall of Fame, on the Houston community during his college days? Jerome Solomon, a Houston native who currently works as a columnist for the Houston Chronicle, recalled that he and his youth league football teammates during the 1970s regularly tussled over who got to wear jersey No. 4: Davis' digit as a Cougar.
 
"He was so smooth in Bill Yeoman's Veer. His play helped legitimize the UH program when the school moved into the SWC," Solomon wrote in a 2022 story chronicling Davis' induction into the SWC Hall of Fame. "He is one of the 10 best quarterbacks in Houston history. Not Houston, the university. Houston, the city."
 
In a city that has produced its share of top-notch NFL and college quarterbacks, that says a mouthful. But to Davis, his football accomplishments pale in comparison to the work he has done reaching out to citizens in Houston's Third Ward, the area surrounding the UH campus.
 
Since 1993, Davis has been the senior pastor at Jordan Grove Missionary Baptist Church, a 145-year old facility that is a longtime community treasure. He also serves as president of the Third Ward Fellowship of Churches, a coalition of neighborhood churches organized to promote unity in the community and to enrich the lives of congregants through revivals, musicals, holiday workshops, and more.
 
"We took in two more churches this past Thanksgiving, and we'll probably take in some more," Davis said of the fellowship. As the son of Sammy Davis, the longtime pastor at Fellowship Baptist Church in Dallas, the Cougars' team chaplain is thankful that he followed in his father's ministerial footsteps in 1981 after a few years in private business.
 
"My dad had such an impression on me, I think I always wanted to be a preacher to where I could help people," said Davis, who oversaw a $2 million capital campaign that resulted in the church becoming debt-free in 2019. "It has been worthwhile. Over 30 years, I've watched the transformation of the community.  I watched a lot of people move out to the suburbs, but amazingly enough, they still come to Jordan Grove. There are a lot of people who still like the traditional churches."
 
When it comes to college football, there are a lot of Cougars' fans who continue to revel in the tradition of high-level success that Davis, coach Bill Yeoman, running back Alois Blackwell, defensive tackle Wilson Whitley (1976 Lombardi Award winner) and others established by winning the 1976 SWC championship in the school's first year of league membership. The 10-2 season, which culminated with the Cotton Bowl Classic triumph over Maryland and a school-best No. 4 finish in both post-season college football polls, surprised longtime SWC fans because Houston posted a 2-8 mark as an independent the previous year.
 
Along the way, the Cougars hammered in-state rivals Texas (30-0) and Texas A&M (21-3) while outlasting Texas Tech, 27-19, in the game that settled the SWC title and Cotton Bowl berth. The Cougars had been picked to finish sixth in their inaugural SWC season during a pre-season coaches poll.
 
"It doesn't get any better than that," Davis said. "I don't think anything tops winning the conference the first year that you were in there, when nobody was expecting you to win. But that's why all of us came to the University of Houston. We wanted the opportunity to compete for a championship and go play in the Cotton Bowl."
 
For Davis, the Dallas native, the trip home – and the result that stunned the most successful team in Maryland history – proved to be the culmination of a childhood dream. Davis, who grew up admiring SMU receiver/running back Jerry LeVias (the SWC's first Black player, in 1966), also takes pride in being the first Black quarterback to lead an SWC team title and a Cotton Bowl Classic victory.
 
"It was good, being the first Black quarterback to win the Cotton Bowl," Davis said. "I would see Jerry LeVias (at SMU) when I was a kid and I wanted to play in the Cotton Bowl. I remember him well. He was one of the first Blacks that played at a white university. That's why, when I got an opportunity to play for Bill Yeoman and he told me that I was going to be his quarterback, man, I jumped at that opportunity."
 
He also made the most of it.