Jordan’s mom was sick of him sitting around the house and eating her out of house and home. Getting out of shape, being lazy, so she drove him down to a local football field and dropped him off.

He hated it. But the team offered free meals. He was 15, hooked on video games and junk food, mythology, and DJing and a music career. He loved playing basketball because he was bigger and the little guys would just bounce off him in the paint. He’d foul out often. He was out of shape. He was overweight.

Because of his size and the mythology that surrounded him, he enrolled at Mallard Creek High as a sophomore, and enrolling counselor was the football coach’s wife. She insisted he meet her husband, and was asked he played football. He responded in the negative, because he was a basketball player. His mom was working two jobs and couldn’t keep up with money because of his appetite.

“I was working two jobs,” Allen said, “and he was eating me out of house and home.”

That night, Allen informed her son he was going to football practice the next day. He didn’t have to play, she said. He could fetch water, serve as the equipment manager, “put Band-Aids on knees, if he had to.” Allen just wanted him off the couch.

The next morning, Allen roused her boy from bed bright and early, shuffled him into the car and drove him to practice. She opened the passenger door and shoved Allen out, telling him she’d return after teaching her summer school classes.

Davis stood there, befuddled. Eventually, Palmieri and a few other coaches found him and directed him onto the field, where he watched and baked in the sun.

“Oh, he hated it,” Allen said. “And he hated me for making him do it.”

But the next day, Davis returned. Eventually, he relented and started running through drills with the rest of the team. He stuck with it through camp and into the school year, but still, he was miserable.

Each day after classes, the team lifted weights. Davis was 6-foot-6, more than 300 pounds, and he struggled to bench press a fraction of his body weight. He begged teachers to let him sit in on tutoring sessions and, when that failed, hid in bathroom stalls, sometimes for up to an hour before coaches eventually found him.

“He was literally in tears, crying, saying, ‘I can’t do it,'” former Mallard Creek defensive line coach Shon Galloway said. “But he’s come a long way.”

Weeks passed. Davis got reps on the JV team. He asked questions, learned techniques. He improved. Before long, the kid who sobbed on the weight bench was squatting 400 pounds with ease. He had become a wrecking ball seemingly overnight. His first game on the defensive line came for the JV team, and Palmieri remembers the opposing center was so rattled by Davis’ size, he snapped the ball over the QB’s head nearly a dozen times. Mallard Creek had a genuine prospect.

Only one problem remained: Davis still believed he was a basketball player.

From three star prospect to a guy who could literally have a statue made of him at Sanford to an honorary Redcoat, what a long, strange trip it’s been. And he’s deservedly getting rewarded for it. Jordan Davis, ladies and gents, can take a bow.

Damn Good Dawg. And when it’s all over with in the NFL, maybe he needs a spot on the strength and conditioning staff in Athens working with the bigger guys.

Go Dawgs!