Joseph Scott Davis died April 2 in Garland, Texas at age 75 after suffering declining health the past several years. He was born the second of five children on July 25, 1941 in Wichita, Kansas, to Kathrine Laurie Davis and Earle Rosco Davis. He gained local notoriety at age three by shimmying up a gym rope all the way to the rafters, where firefighters were called in for a rescue. Joe was still quite young when the family moved from Wichita– much to the relief of neighbors, who had tired of him sneaking into houses to burglarize their cookie jars. The family resettled in Manhattan, Kansas, where his father became a well-known English professor at Kansas State University. Like his parents and his brothers and sisters, Joe enjoyed reading and was also a great animal lover. Yet his real passion was sports. He was a very talented athlete and he played high school football, basketball, baseball. He received all-district honors and often boasted of the time he tackled future NFL quarterback John Hadl – by getting his own facemask stuck in Hadl’s cleat as the quarterback leapt over him. In Joe’s senior year he joined the tennis team and won a state championship despite being the sixth-ranked player on his squad. Joe dreamed of playing big-time college sports at Kansas State but he was not large enough to compete in football. Later, he tried out for a minor league baseball team but was unsuccessful. He had more luck marrying another struggling student, Mary Lou Sweeney, in 1960 at the tender age of nineteen. They both quickly dropped out. He spent the bulk of his working life as a traveling field auditor for Phillips Petroleum. He and Mary had three sons before their divorce in 1975. He then married Sharon R. Burba, who remained his wife until her death in September 2016. To his family and friends, Joe was well known for his devotion to sports. His life revolved around the cycle of the three seasons: Football, Basketball, and Baseball. He became a successful Pee Wee football coach in Mesquite, where his teams routinely won championships while also demonstrating the highest levels of sportsmanship. As Joe grew older, golf and tennis became his primary activities since they were all season sports. Joe loved games of all types. When video arcades became popular in the 1970s, the thirty-something Joe could be found playing them alongside like-minded ten year olds. He and his second wife, Sharon hosted regular dinner parties where board and card games were the highlights of the evening. He and Sharon were dedicated members of racquet clubs and he continued to play tennis, winning several amateur tournaments. He remained fascinated by all major sporting contests — and woe to anyone who planned a family event during March Madness or the NFL playoffs! In one of his last acts before his death, the ailing Joe willed himself to visit his two sisters and their families in the Washington, D.C. area, where one of his nieces was getting married. Joe could be heard grumbling during the ceremony that they were missing some of the games that would decide the “Sweet Sixteen” in college basketball. No one who knew Joe was surprised by these complaints. Joe wasn’t necessarily the most devoted father or husband. Instead, he was an inveterate socializer, a man of great charm. He loved few things more than sitting on a barstool and watching a game (or three) on TV with drinking buddies. As a father, Joe was capable of displaying great affection, but more often his family saw him as a somewhat abstracted figure, a man devoted to carousing and with one eye, always, fixed on the next game. We hope that wherever he is now, his favorite team is winning. He is survived by his three sons: Jeff, Steve, and Joe, Jr., along with his four siblings: Nina, Earle, Jr., Sallie, and Charles; his daughters-in-law Hong, Georgia, Kristin; his grandchildren Emma, Kyle, Natalie, Lucia, Catcher, Juliette. He is also survived by his stepson Randall Burba and his family and the Wayne Burba family. A celebration of Joe’s life is scheduled for April 22, 2017 at 5pm at 7616 New Heart, Plano, TX. Please call 469-774-7665 to RSVP. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Earle R. Davis Memorial Scholarship fund at Kansas State University: www.found.ksu.edu