I-85 Crash Victim Was Football Star at Air Force

BUFORD, GA — The man killed early Monday morning as police say he was backing his car onto Interstate 85 was a football legend and Heisman Trophy candidate at the Air Force Academy.

Michael "Dee" Dowis, 48, of Simpsonville, S.C., had been traveling south on the interstate's northbound lanes at 4:43 a.m. when he pulled into the highway's center median and began to back up.

As he backed into northbound traffic, his 2014 BMW was struck by Jeremy Weiss, 22, of Raleigh, North Carolina, who was driving a 2015 Subaru, police said.

Dowis, whom police say was not wearing a seat belt, was declared dead at the scene.

The crash happened near the Flowery Branch Road overpass.

Dowis, a native of Royston, Ga., finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1989, the highest finish ever for an Air Force Falcons player.

"Saddened to hear the passing of Legend Dee Dowis," the academy's football program said in a post on Twitter. "We want to offer our condolences to his family."

In 1987, as a sophomore, Dowis rushed for 1,315 yards, setting the single-season NCAA record for rushing by a quarterback.

He ran for another 972 yards in his junior year and, as a senior, became the fifth player in NCAA history to both pass and rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season. He ran for 1,286 yards that year and passed for 1,285.

To this day, he remains Air Force's all-time leading rusher, with a career total of 3,612 yards.

"He was the most electric, dynamic and exciting football player probably in the history of service academy football, ever. And yet a better person," Air Force coach Troy Calhoun, who played with Dowis at the school, told the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Photo courtesy Air Force Academy football