Drake Davis, a highly touted 2016 wide receiver recruit, recently made headlines by opting to play soccer this fall instead of football. It’s a move that has been hailed by some U.S. soccer supporters as a watershed moment for the sport in its decades-long battle of unsuccessfully trying to attract the nation’s best athletes. After all, the 6-2, 212-pound Davis, who transferred to Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy for this season, reportedly has football scholarship offers from Alabama and Florida State among others.
His decision has also been cited as evidence that younger athletes are having second thoughts about playing football because of the sport’s risks. One writer even mentioned Davis in the same breath as Jozy Altidore, a U.S. born soccer player who plays for Sunderland in the English Premier League. Those type of comparisons are baffling to Willie Davis, who coached Davis in soccer for two weeks last season at The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, La. before dismissing him after he skipped a tournament.
“Some of the story is absolutely blown up,” Willie Davis told The Inside Read. “His technical ability was probably as good as my 15th player.” (Multiple efforts to reach Drake Davis were unsuccessful.)
Dunham is a 723-student private Christian school for grades K-12 that's not known as an athletic powerhouse. In the lone soccer game Drake Davis played at Dunham he did score a goal. But Willie Davis emphasized that high school soccer in southern Louisiana is far from the pinnacle of the sport.
“I would be absolutely astounded for Drake Davis to step out of a sport that he’s excelling at and go into what is not a hand-eye coordinated sport,” Willie Davis said. “Obviously, he’s got the athleticism, but not the skill set, the tactical understanding or the years of training to be the next big anything. It could happen, but the chances aren’t very high.”
Willie Davis isn’t some geometry teacher who also moonlights as a soccer coach. He holds a national license from the U.S. Soccer Federation, was an assistant at Franklin Pierce University when the school won a Division II national title in 2007 and is director of coaching for senior players for a Baton Rouge soccer club.
Willie Davis said Drake Davis decided to play soccer after quitting Dunham’s basketball team. He also had “issues” with the football team according to Willie Davis.
Drake Davis’ dismissal from the soccer team also came after he was dishonest about missed practices, according to Willie Davis.
“He’s an interesting kid,” Willie Davis said. “He’s a good kid, but there’s something I just couldn’t put my finger on with him.”
Drake Davis, the son of former LSU and Kansas basketball standout Lester Earl, visited The Dunham School last month and talked with first-year football coach Neil Weiner. Davis is concentrating on his academics at Fork Union and is interested in returning to Louisiana to play football next year according to Weiner.
Weiner said Davis is better at football than soccer and seemed somewhat “unsure” about the football coaches at Fork Union, a football factory. A majority of his friends at his new school are also soccer players according to Weiner.
“Soccer is not a game you just pick up when you’re 16 years old and decide, ‘Hey, I’m going to be one of the best in the world,’” Weiner said. “Drake Davis is a phenomenal athlete, but it takes more than just being able to run fast and jump high to be a great soccer player.”
A college football assistant at a school where Davis allegedly has a scholarship offer according to recruiting services said the program hasn’t extended one. Another assistant whose program is recruiting Davis described his decision to play soccer as “World Cup fever.”
“He’s a very talented football player,” the assistant said. “Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but a Division I player.”
Both assistants foresee that Davis’ future is on the football field, not in soccer. Just like Willie Davis does.
Said Willie Davis, “It just seemed like it was a big, gimmick hype thing to me.”
