Dave Davis

Dave Davis is an American Shot Putter. He was on the 1960 United States Olympic Team. The circumstances of his failure to throw in those games are one of the quirky stories of the Olympics. Davis almost did not get to the Olympic Trials. As Cordner Nelson wrote at the time, he found himself 45 miles north of the Stanford University stadium at the time his event was about to begin. This was not the first time he had gotten lost on the way to a big meet. Davis spent $18 to rent a seaplane to fly him to the Palo Alto harbor, where he convinced a city employee to drive him to the stadium while he changed his clothes. Arriving after the first two rounds had been completed, he took his qualifying throw with no warm up and made it to the final. In the final, he surpassed Bill Nieder's earlier throw to move into third place. Injured with his leg heavily taped, Nieder was unable to improve and was pushed to the "alternate" position, while the team was made up of three University of Southern California alumni.