A. W. Davis
American basketball player and coach
Arvis W. Davis (June 13, 1943 – September 23, 2014) was an American basketball player and coach. Davis is best known for his All-American college career at the University of Tennessee (UT). He was known by several nicknames, including the "Rutledge Rifle" and "The Man With the Golden Arm."
Davis, a 6"7' center, came to Tennessee from Rutledge, Tennessee, where he once scored 71 points in a game. In his three-year college career (freshmen were ineligible at this time), Davis scored 1,255 points (17.3 per game) and 574 rebounds (8.1 per game). As a senior, Davis averaged 19.6 points and 8.2 points per game and was named a first team All-American by the United States Basketball Writers Association, the first player in program history so honored. He was also named first-team All-Southeastern Conference and a third team All-American by the Associated Press and United Press International.
Following the close of his college career, Davis was drafted in the fifth round of the 1965 NBA draft (43rd pick overall), but never played in the league. He began his coaching career in 1966 at McMinn Central High School in Englewood, Tennessee. In 1969 he was named an assistant at his alma mater, and in 1975 was named head coach at Walters State Community College in Morristown, Tennessee. He left in 1977 to pursue a business career.
“A. W. Davis” enters the record as american basketball player and coach. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Davis, American and basketball can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17579945. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 2014, 1965 and 1966.
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This entry incorporates text from “A. W. Davis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.