Dennis Arthur Davis

Dennis Arthur Davis, age 66 passed away at home on Friday, July 27th, 2018 after a two year battle with Glioblastoma brain cancer. He was born on April 10, 1952 in Newark, Ohio to Arthur John Davis and Kathryn Maxine Geiger Davis.

Dennis’ passion in life was coaching swimming which included coaching his three children, he was able to do this in a career that spanned over 37 years and included swim clubs in Delaware, Indiana, and North Carolina. He will be remembered by so many of his former swimmers as just “Coach” and on the pool deck for his distinct whistle that was loud and motivational to all his swimmers.

There are a few things his three children have enjoyed laughing at over the years. He was known as “Art” when placing a coffee or take-out order, never Dennis. His children to this day have no idea why he chose to do this but just went with it. He never found a pair of long pants that he liked to wear. No, really it could be negative temperatures outside with inches of snow on the ground and our dad would still be in shorts, a polo, tennis shoes, and one of his many baseball hats. We also don’t know why he never wore pants but again just went with it. Patagonia owes our dad royalties for the 35 plus years of wearing their Stand Up Shorts. If it wasn’t Patagonia Stand Up Shorts then he wasn’t wearing them. To the dismay of our mom, his favorite restaurant to take us kids to when we were younger was Bob Evans for breakfast because who doesn’t like all-day breakfast?! We never sat at the booth because he wasn’t a booth kinda of guy. It was always the counter. He also loved a good diner, especially 5 points Diner in South Jersey after a swim meet at GCIT. There wasn’t a day that went by where our dad didn’t ask us to help him set up his iPod or iPhone to play music or create a playlist. We thought about just typing up instructions for him but knew darn well he wasn’t going to read them. He had a hidden talent for tying his candy wrappers into knots and leaving them around the house. We were pretty sure he did this to annoy our clean freak mother but it was all out of love! We will probably be finding these around the house for the next couple of months. He enjoyed eating peaches mainly for the pits and we always found them around the house because he was going to use them to carve monkey faces. He always asked us if we can see the monkey faces in the pits but never saw them and again just went with it. He also enjoyed collecting change, socks, and swim team t-shirts. No, seriously we have never encountered someone like our father that had Folger coffee cans sitting around filled with change, two drawers full of socks, and two rubbermaid containers filled with swim team t-shirts in the garage. Lastly, our dad had another hidden talent for always finding a bakery in every state, town, or city we traveled to and always stopping in to grab a bear claw, oatmeal raisin cookie, and a black coffee with a side of cream.

He is survived by his wife Paula Marie Davis (Danko), his daughters Morgan and Taylor and his son Rawley as well as his sister Cathy Chapman of Cardington, Ohio and his brother Robert Davis of Granville, Ohio. His is also survived by his three sister-in-laws, Sharon Coppage (Danko) of Hammond, Indiana, Susan Danko of Dallas, Texas, and Margaret Hajduch (Danko) of Overland Park, Kansas. He is preceded in death by his parents, his in-laws Paul and Emily Danko of Schererville, Indiana, and his beloved 9-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Beau who we most definitely know was waiting for him at the pearly gates with his orange ball ready to go fishing or to the pool.

Tremendous and heartfelt thanks to his care team at The Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke Cancer Institute, especially Dr. Desjardins and his Nurse Rosemary and Physician Assistant Cindy. Thank you for taking amazing care of Dennis over the last 24 months! Many thanks to his Hospice Nurse Diane Holmes with Transitions LifeCare of Cary for providing Paula and the kids with some laugher during her visits.

Just as he lived his life very privately and didn’t understand social media, he has chosen to be cremated with some of his ashes spread in the ocean and not have a viewing or funeral. Instead, he wants his family to go to the beach, a place he felt at peace where he would enjoy a few beers while surf fishing with his son and unofficial son-in-law, John Matson.

His family will miss him tremendously but they know he has gone fishing with Beau off the coast of somewhere beautiful and we will see him on the other side.

“Cheers, Chief”