Wake Forest Athletics
Gold Rush: Just Get Him Started
10/6/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 6, 2002
By Sam Walker
Sometimes his teammates call him "electric." More often than not Fabian Davis is just that. Davis, a fifth-year senior from Greenville, S.C., finds ways to turn ordinary plays into extraordinary plays, or he goes down fighting. That's the kind of player he is: a fighter. The 2002 season is his last tour, his last 12 opportunities to live up to his sometimes-used nickname, and he's not the kind of person who likes to disappoint. Just get him started. Just plug him into a role and let him go.
"I've been impressed with Fabian's intensity," head coach Jim Grobe of Wake Forest said. "There's probably nobody that plays harder. Whether he's been asked to block, run or catch, he's done it full speed."
Grobe likes players who leave it all on the field, and Davis has done just that. He well understands his time is limited, although five years ago it didn't seem that way. After enjoying a standout career at Greensville's J.L. Mann High School, where he earned all-state honors and was selected to the prestigious Shrine Bowl game, Davis was told he would redshirt his first year at Wake Forest. Even though he was elevated to first team for preseason practices, largely because the receiving corps had been decimated by injuries, Davis waited a year under the redshirt philosophy of former head coach, Jim Caldwell.
"To me it was tough," Davis said. "You go from being the No. 1 player on your team in high school and go to college to prove you can play your first year. Sitting out, it's tough. But now I see some redshirts come in and have a tough time because it's hard to balance all that out. You have your classes and practice and homework, and sometimes you can't go out and go to that party because you have a test. Now, I'm glad I had a redshirt year, because you have to learn how to balance out your life."
Davis said he learned how to balance his life as a student-athlete that first year and ever since he's been helping to balance out the Wake Forest offense. He is generously listed at 5-11, 180 pounds, making him far from the biggest player on the team. But he's the guy the Deacons like to hand the ball to on an end-around. He's one of those players coaches like to tab as athlete, and his skills, combined with his fighting spirit, allow him to do many things with the football that are simply electric.
He is probably best known as a kick returner. It's something that comes naturally, and it's where he made an impact even in his first year of competition. Davis broke off a 25-yard kickoff return in Wake Forest's Aloha Bowl victory in 1999. That same year he averaged 16.8 yards per return. As a sophomore, he returned three punts for 57 yards and one kickoff for 25 yards against Duke, and he became a fixture at wide receiver, starting every game. A season ago, he was the team's second-leading receiver and had a 56-yard kickoff return against FSU. He returned a punt 62 yards for a touchdown to give Wake Forest the lead, and then hit Jason Anderson with a 45-yard pass to help seal a victory over Virginia.
Over the past three years, Davis has earned the reputation as the player involved in the big play. And as a senior he is the elder statesman of the wide receivers, the guy with the most experience. Receiver coach Keith Sherman says he wouldn't have it any other way. "He's the one that keeps me on my toes," Sherman said. "He's always talking, and he speaks his mind. He's not shy, which I like, and he keeps the guys loose. He's a good leader in that aspect. We try to find ways to get him the football. I ask him, as a position coach, how he feels about certain things, certain looks and if he feels comfortable doing this and that, and for the most part we work together within the system.
"Fabian's a kid who, when I got here, had a great relationship (with me). He had to get used to my style, and I had to get used to his abilities. Now that we know he's the playmaker, he is we're going to try to help him make our team successful each week. Thus far, he has produced from the first game on. We're still looking for consistency from him, but we want him to be a leader because we have some young guys at the receiver position, and they need a guy they can come to, trust and talk to. They look up to him. This is his fifth year, and he's had that game experience. He tells them what to expect in each stadium on the road, what to look for in coverage, how to release on a route. He's very knowledgeable. He's football savvy. He knows how to adjust and sometimes can do it without me telling him."
In that first game of the 2002 season, Davis produced an 82-yard punt return for a touchdown and rolled up 69 yards rushing on four carries. In Grobe's offensive system, Davis fits into so many roles and his statistics show how many ways he can affect a game. Entering the Purdue game, Davis was the team's leading receiver, averaging 46.3 yards per game. His was third in total offense with 53 yards of production per game. Teams try to kick around Davis on kickoffs, opting to kick to freshman Chris Davis, but on punt returns, he was averaging 18.4 yards per return, which led the ACC. He was second in the league in all-purpose yards to Georgia Tech's Tony Hollings.
"There's a lot of different guys who catch it well but can't return it, and there are guys who can run the ball well but can't catch it, but Fabian can go get it, catch it and do something with it," Grobe said. "You know everybody has somebody to return punts, and there are a lot of guys who do it, but there aren't a lot of good ones out there at any level."
There is a myriad of reasons that few can master the art of punt returns. Think of the scenario. One stands alone about 40 yards from the rest of the players and waits for the ball to come down as 11 players run as hard as they can right at you ready to make a high-impact hit in hopes of jarring the ball loose. The process is not for the faint of heart.
"It's really not as bad as it seems when you're on the field," Davis said of returning punts. "Once the ball is kicked, you really don't see the guys coming down the field at you if you're taught well. I've learned you have to have faith in the guys that are blocking for you. Those guys have kept those flyers out of my face, and every coach I've had has told them that all they have to do is get me started. Once you get me started, it's me playing football and picking a hole. Just get me started."
In the spring, Davis will compete as part of the track and field team in the high jump, the triple jump, the long jump and also on relays. But for the rest of the season, Grobe and Sherman will continue to call him a receiver but plug him into the lineup either running, catching or returning the football just hoping for another one of his electric moments to develop.
One might find Davis standing on the five-foot brick wall that lines the practice fields leading a group of players in what Grobe called "choir practice." Davis likes to cut-up with the best of them, but he didn't used to be that way.
"I was kind of shy in high school," Davis said. "I didn't do much socializing outside of football. Now if you ask somebody they would laugh at you if you told them I was shy. I'm probably one of the loudest people on the team. Football kind of takes away your shyness, at least in college. In high school, you don't really see the guys after practice because you go home to your parents. But in college the guys you go home to are your roommates and teammates so the guys got to know who I am."
Teams across the ACC know who he is, but few really know him. They don't know he is a trailblazer, the first in his family to attend college. They don't know his mother, Mary Davis, and his aunt, Waltina Crowe, are the people who instilled the fighting sprit within him as grew up in Greenville. They just know something can happen when he has the ball in his hands. Sherman would like to say what Davis does on the field is the product of good coaching, but he knows what Davis does can only be coached to an extent. The rest is athletic ability and improvisation.
"He's always been a receiver and I'll stand up on the table to keep him there because he makes plays," Sherman said. "That's what I tell him every week : just make something happen when you get the football. I think it's all his heart. The kid hates to lose, and he wants to work to win. He'll do what it takes to get the extra yard, do what it takes to make the tough grab. He wants the ball in clutch situations. It doesn't always work that way, but that's the beauty of the spread offense. You've got to spread it around."
