“It was the worst day of my life.”
The death of Joe Davis shattered 14-year-old Terrell Davis.
Davis is a Hall of Famer, one of the greatest Broncos in franchise history, but thinking about losing his father tightens his throat 37 years later. Davis is talking about loss at the Strength in the Face of Adversity annual luncheon for Judi’s House last Wednesday, revealing things he has rarely, if ever, shared in public.
Brian Griese and his wife, Dr. Brook Griese, founded Judi’s House in 2002 in memory of the former Broncos quarterback’s mother who passed away in 1988 after a six-year battle with breast cancer. Last year alone, the community-based non-profit bereavement center helped 14,500 individuals find hope and healing after losing a loved one.
Everyone who walks through the door at the Aurora facility sees Judi’s picture. This is a place where grief is honored and pain nurtured. Before Davis spoke, Brian told me when he turned 44, the age his mother died, it flooded him with memories.
“It hit me hard,” said Griese, now a quarterbacks coach for the San Francisco 49ers. “To realize that was the only time she had with her family, I had a grief moment.”
Griese admitted that he felt isolated for years after his mom passed, internalizing emotions. It prevented him from establishing relationships with teammates when he played in Denver. Judi’s House provided a vehicle for Griese to navigate his grief, while helping others make meaning of their loss.
“We are investing in outcomes, helping prevent the negative and promote the positive,” Griese said. “We don’t want anyone, especially children, to feel alone.”
Moments earlier, Brook fought back tears as she described wearing one of Judi’s bracelets and how everything happening on this day is her legacy.
Grief is difficult to talk about. We have all experienced it. Getting that phone call that stops our life as we fall to the ground with blood leaving our face. There is no way to prepare for it.
There is, however, help available to process it. Resources require money and on this day more than $321,000 is raised, including a $10,000 donation from coach Mike Shanahan and his wife Peggy.
Davis caught passes from Griese and handed the autographed footballs to the donors, navigating the ballroom tables like he did defenders during his 2,000-yard season. Soon after, Davis sat on stage with Brian. They are forever linked as Broncos teammates, and bound together by grief. Griese explained how Davis never blamed him for the tackle on his interception that wrecked his knee. Davis smiled, saying how everyone remembers his Tokyo tackle on special teams as a rookie and his tackle against the Jets.
“My career started with a tackle and ended with a tackle. And I wasn’t even a defensive player,” Davis said to laughter.
Davis begins to tell his story, what brought him onto this stage in front of hundreds of people. His father passed away from lupus when he was 41. Davis shared his memories with me earlier that morning, so I knew what was coming. He questioned everything, including God, after Joe died. His life went off the rails. He quit football, hung out with the wrong crowd, began drinking. It wasn’t until he had the barrel of a shotgun pointed at his head at 3 a.m. in north San Diego that he rediscovered his purpose.
“I almost died. I went home that night and as I laid in bed, I thought of the ‘Lion King’ and what Mufasa said to Simba,” Davis recalled. “’You are more than what you have become.’”
Davis returned to school, returned to football. He played at Long Beach State, then Georgia, and found stardom with the Broncos, leaving him immortalized in Canton. Joe’s memory provided motivation. They had a complicated relationship, with his “gangster” father seeing him as a “mama’s boy.”
“I knew he loved me, but I didn’t know if he liked me,” Davis admitted.
Even as he prepared his Hall of Fame speech, he wasn’t sure his father would think he was tough enough, which speaks to the depths of pain Terrell has carried since his freshman year of high school. For years, he did not want to love anything again, even a pet. It wasn’t until recently that pictures of his dad popped up in the family home shared by his wife and kids.
The walls he built up made him a great football player — “It hardened me,” he said — but it left invisible hardship. As Davis talked to the audience, there were times his voice cracked.
“I don’t feel like the process of grieving is complete with me,” Davis acknowledged.
Griese knows this moment, having had his own grief burst five years ago. His pride and connection with Davis are obvious.
Former Denver Broncos running back Terrell Davis catches passes from former Broncos quarterback Brian Griese, not pictured, before handing the autographed footballs to donors in the audience during the Strength in the Face of Adversity annual luncheon for Judi’s House on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Photo provided by Judi’s House/Kari Geha)
“Bro, you have an amazing story,” Griese says. “It’s like you are letting emotions go. As much as people love who you were on the field, they will love you more for what you are doing off the field and sharing your experience.”
Davis remains one of the most admired Broncos of all time. He ran the football like it was personal. In many ways, it was. Davis was celebrated as a player, but I am not sure he has ever been more inspirational as a person than on this day.
He received a standing ovation, thanking the crowd with a Mile High Salute.
“There are a lot of hidden things with grief that are difficult to talk about,” Davis says. “I am going through this. Having something like Judi’s House provides an amazing safe place to help. And that’s what it’s all about.”
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