When Bend’s Jack Bremer learned that University of Oregon track and field legend Otis Davis had died at the age of 92 this past weekend, the memories from two years ago came flooding back.

At the 2022 World Athletics Championships at Eugene’s Hayward Field, Bremer had the privilege of having lunch with Davis and touring him around the new stadium. Davis, the first ever Olympic gold medalist from UO (400 meters and 4×400 relay in 1960) was introduced on the video board at the world meet later that day when the 400 was contested.

“It was just great,” said Bremer, 74. “He was so accommodating and so thrilled with just being able to be there and be honored. But he was very humble, just a very humble man. At that point in time, there was no loss in his step. We took some pictures in the tower.”

Davis is among five athletes depicted on the Hayward Field tower, which also includes Ashton Eaton, Bill Bowerman, Steve Prefontaine and Raevyn Rogers.

After Davis won his two gold medals at the Rome Olympics, it was nearly 60 years before another Ducks athlete became a two-time Olympic champion: Eaton, who was raised in La Pine and Bend and now lives in Sherwood, won gold in the decathlon at the London Games in 2012 and at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.

Bremer had the chance to meet Davis through his connection with Phil Knight, Nike co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike. Bremer, a retired auditor who has lived in Bend for 12 years and is an avid track and field fan, sold shoes for Knight in the early 1970s when the company was known as Blue Ribbon Sports.

“I sold them out of my trunk under my bed at Villanova for a couple of years, 1970 to 1972,” Bremer said.

At the world championships in Eugene, Knight provided finish-line tickets for Bremer and Davis’s hosts.

“We went up into the tower,” Bremer recalled. “I mean, holy cow. We looked over the field before the events started, and eventually brought him back to Phil’s box.”

According to the Oregonian, Davis grew up in segregated Alabama in the 1930s and 1940s, unable to attend nearby University of Alabama because it did not allow Black students until 1963. He served four years in the U.S. Air Force before heading to Oregon as a 26-year-old freshman, arriving in Eugene on a basketball scholarship.

Davis made the decision to try out for the track team after seeing them in workouts through his dorm room window, according to the Oregonian. Two years later Davis became a two-time Olympic gold medalist and the first man to ever run the 400 in under 45 seconds.

After retiring from competitive track and field, Davis was a high school teacher in Springfield for several years, before traveling overseas to work as an athletic director at U.S. military bases.

Bremer took lots of pictures during his time with Davis at Hayward Field two years ago, and he stayed in contact with Davis over the past two years.

“Just about a month ago I had a conversation with him,” Bremer said. “He won two medals, and he only still has one. His daughter Liza has it. The other one, Otis told me, a few years after he won he was having a party and he had them up on the wall and he wanted to share them with everybody. He looked a day later and there was only one. Someone came in and stole it. That was like 60 years ago.”

Bremer said he was in the process of working with the U.S. Olympic Committee to get Davis a replacement medal. He called the USOC again after he found out about Davis’s death.

“They said they could not pursue it any longer once he had passed,” Bremer said.

But shortly before Davis’s death, Bremer was able to get some pictures of Davis at Hayward Field to his family.

“I sent three batches of pictures to his family,” Bremer said. “I wanted to get them to him because his health was declining in hospice. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but the family could see them. His daughter said she loved them.”