A priceless bronze is lost
Olympian, mother lament a burglary
At Dorchester High School, Calvin Davis ran 400 meters in 55 seconds, and he didn't break a sweat. In 1993, he became the 400-meter NCAA champion after he dashed home in 45.05 seconds.
And in 1996, at the age of 24, Davis became the toast of Boston, after he won the bronze medal in the 400-meter hurdles at the 26th holding of the Olympic Games, in Atlanta.
A motorcade ushered Davis home from Logan Airport upon his return from Atlanta. The mayor declared it Calvin Davis Day, and Davis gave the bronze medal to his mother, who has kept it wrapped in a gold scarf in a dresser drawer of her Blue Hill Avenue apartment.
Now the medal is gone. Sometime around Thanksgiving Day, police said, someone broke into his mother's apartment, stole sports jerseys, video games, and the pine box containing the medal that Davis flashed just after the national anthem was played for the US gold-medal winner.
''It makes me so sad," Davis's mother, Helen Davis, said yesterday.
''I didn't sleep at all last night," she said. ''Every time I think about it, I get butterflies in my stomach. I really want that medal back."
She suspects that neighborhood teenagers broke in and that they have no idea of the value of what they took. Her son, who now lives in Arkansas, learned of the theft Sunday night, when his mother called him.
''It was a hard thing to hear," said Calvin Davis, 33, who is studying psychology at the University of Arkansas and who still competes in track. ''I was very heartbroken . . . Hopefully somebody will do the right thing and return it."
Police are investigating the burglary.
Helen Davis has not been living in her apartment since Nov. 19, when a fire broke out in the apartment above her, and the building had to be evacuated. Davis and her two younger children moved into another daughter's house on Magnolia Street.
She returned Sunday to retrieve some belongings, and found the rear door of the apartment open. She rushed into her bedroom and saw her dresser drawers open. When she checked the top drawer, where she kept the medal, she found only the gold scarf.
There were break-ins at four other apartments in the building, but it is unclear if those responsible had taken anything, according to a police report that the building owner filed on Thanksgiving Day. The owner told police that on Nov. 23, the day before the holiday, he saw about 10 teenagers hanging out in the empty building.
''Anyone with information is asked to come forward and provide us with any information they might have," Sergeant Thomas Sexton, a police spokesman, said, urging those with information to call the department's anonymous tip line at 1-800-494-TIPS.
Calvin Davis left Boston soon after graduating from Dorchester High in 1990, to attend community college in Alabama. In 1992, he started school at the University of Arkansas, but left to start training for the Olympics. Davis, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall, switched from the 400-meter race to hurdles in 1996 to improve his Olympic chances. That year, he qualified for the Games, and on Aug. 1 he stepped up to the starting line for his first Olympic appearance.
He slammed into the first hurdle, destroying his chances for the gold, but he recovered by the last hurdle, trailing only the first-place winner, Derrick Adkins of the United States, and runner-up Samuel Matete of Zambia.
His mother -- who stood in the stands with her youngest son, Derek, then about 9 -- was too nervous to watch the race and covered her face until it was over.
''I didn't take my hands off until they announced he had a medal," Helen Davis said. ''That's when I got to jumping and hollering and acting crazy."
Her son reluctantly allowed her to keep the medal after she jokingly told him it was hers. ''He won it for me," she said yesterday.
Calvin Davis never had the medal appraised. ''I don't know where you'd go to do it anyway," he said. ''I don't know how someone puts a value on something they work so hard for all their lives."
The cost of Olympic medals, 60 millimeters in diameter and 3 millimeters thick, isn't really quantifiable, said Bob Condron, a spokesman for the US Olympic Committee.
''But to earn it you become one of the most special people on earth," he said in an e-mail message. ''There is a good chance that we could work with Calvin and his mother to get this one replaced if it's not returned."
But Helen Davis, 51, said a new medal will not satisfy her. ''I want the original," she said, adding that the replacement ''wouldn't have the sentimental value."
Her son trained at the outdoor track at the University of Massachusetts in Boston when it was warm and at the indoor facility at Boston University when it was cold.
Winning the medal, he said last night, felt like a victory for his hometown. The burglars did not just steal a prize, he said.
''They took something from the city of Boston, from a little section of Dorchester," Calvin Davis said.
Davis also said he had a message for the perpetrator.
''Don't worry about the police or getting into any trouble," he said. ''Return it. The family would just love to have it back."
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. 