Hillsboro honors Mouse Davis, 1973 state title team
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Hillsboro High School honored the 40th anniversary of its 1973 football state championship team at halftime of the Spartans’ 23-22 victory over Century on Friday. Approximately 20-25 members of the team were in attendance, including a legendary coach from Oregon who became famous for his wild, high-octane offense.
“People used to tell me, ‘Don’t go so fast, because you’re killing our defense,’ ” the coach said. “Now people say, ‘Go faster.’ ”
He then went on to explain that the key to his offensive changes was to make multiple options in any given formation.
No, it wasn’t Chip Kelly.
Mouse Davis, coach of the ’73 Spartan team, popularized the run-and-shoot offense, an early version of the spread. At Portland State University, he coached star quarterbacks June Jones (former NFL quarterback and CCN/Sports Illustrated National Coach of the Year in 1999 with the University of Hawaii) and Neil Lomax (NFL Pro Bowl quarterback in 1984 and ’87). Davis received a great deal of criticism for his style of play in the 1970’s, but many of his schemes were later used across the country at the college and professional level.
“It used to be that if you split any more than two guys out, you were almost a communist. That’s what they used to call us for a while – we were the communists,” Davis said. “June (Jones) still uses that term. He says, ‘Yeah, we’re the communists. We’re just running that communist offense.’ You spread them out, spread them out, spread them out. Now, everyone is spreading them out.”
In other words, he was Chip before Chip.
“At the time, it was similar, but a little different,” Davis said. “The offensive changes were just as big – and all the NFL is using them now. But Chip has taken all his stuff with him and doing it at the next level and showing them exactly what he can do. He’s got more power to do what he does, but very similar. Chip, I think, is going to have a big influence on the game too – no question.”
Davis said he hadn’t been back for a high school game at Hillsboro in quite some time, but did come to a pep assembly in 2009 – the last year a Hillsboro football team won a state title.
“It’s always good to come back, especially tonight when all the kids from the ’73 team are here – all the kids that are now gray-haired old men,” Davis said. “A lot of them haven’t been here in a number of years.”
Davis recently retired after a stint as the wide receiver coach at the University Hawaii in 2010-2011. He said it was easy to know when his career had come to an end.
“Well, I finally said, ‘How come no one is calling?’ It’s because I’m 102 years old,” the 81-year-old coach joked.
So, if Hillsboro called?
“No, I didn’t say that,” Davis laughed. “I had a lot of great players during my career that made it fun. We made our own fun with the impact on football -- and it was a change. We made a lot of changes that you don’t very often see…. I think we had an influence, not only on formation, but how you attack and move around in the game of football.”
While Davis went on to higher levels of football, including a job as the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator from 1988-1990 when the roster consisted of young running back Barry Sanders, he said the Spartans’ 1973 championship team still has a special place in his heart.
“Anytime you win all of everything at any level it’s a good thing,” he said. “Whether it’s high school, college or pro, the media is bigger at every level, but the intensity of the feelings of the game is the same, regardless of the level.”
