North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Davis Has Nerve to Play Hoops
1/18/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
RALEIGH – Darrell Davis had one thought running through his mind as he sat in his apartment on Nov. 27, watching NC State’s basketball team play Michigan in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
“I could help these guys,” the redshirt freshman wide receiver from Dade City, Fla., told one of his roommates.
Not long after that, Davis was getting his lunch at the Case Athletic Center, when he saw assistant basketball coach Pete Strickland. Davis had just read in Technician, the NC State student newspaper, the basketball team would be holding open try-outs to add to its thin roster.
“I heard you guys need some basketball players,” Davis told the coach, less than a week after the Wolfpack finished its football season. “I want to come work out for you.”
So Strickland invited Davis, the Pasco (Fla.) County high school basketball player of the year and an honorable mention all-state selection, to sit and have lunch with him and Wolfpack head coach Sidney Lowe.
The only trouble was that Davis, who was a member of the football scout squad while sitting out as a red-shirt, was in a little bit of limbo. Football coach Chuck Amato had been released from his contract, and Tom O’Brien had not yet been hired. He got permission from senior associate athletics director David Horning, the chief administrator for football, to try out for the team.
After working out for several weeks to get a limited knowledge of Lowe’s offense and to get into basketball shape, Davis played a key six minutes in the Wolfpack’s victory last Saturday at Wake Forest. Lowe has promised that Davis will see more action as he becomes more familiar with his responsibilities and assignments, perhaps this weekend when the Wolfpack hosts Duke, a 3:30 p.m. game that will be televised nationally on ABC.
By playing against Wake Forest, Davis became the first Wolfpack athlete in nearly three decades to see action in both football and basketball for the Wolfpack. (Football defensive back Dovonte Edwards was on the basketball roster in 2000-01, but never saw action in a game.) In the earliest days of intercollegiate athletics, there was a long history of multi-sport athletes who competed for football and basketball, including guys like Norm Sloan and Connie Mack Berry, but during the ACC era it’s been rare that an athlete has competed for both at NC State.
The last person to play for both teams was Fred Sherrill, who was a walk-on member of the basketball team in 1977, seeing action in seven games and scoring three points. He left the team the following year after a falling out with then-Wolfpack basketball coach Norm Sloan.
But he had a similar experience as Davis in joining another team. Sherrill was with All-America basketball player Hawkeye Whitney one day when they bumped into then-Wolfpack assistant coach Chuck Amato, who asked what Sherrill was up to. Sherrill, a Durham native and graduate of Jordan High School, went out for spring practice and after only three weeks, because of some injuries, he was listed as the Wolfpack’s starting tight end.
Sherrill played in all 11 games in 1978, making five catches for 74 yards with one touchdown on the season, as the primary backup to future All-America tight end Lin Dawson. However, it was his only season with the Wolfpack football team. He now lives in Texas.
For Davis, joining the basketball program returns him to his first love. He’s been playing basketball since he was 5 and wanted to continue his career in college. After averaging 25 points and nine rebounds per game as a senior, he had offers from several smaller schools, as well as Division I programs Gardner-Webb and Florida International.
“I just recently started playing football, in the 10th grade,” said the 6-foot-5 receiver/forward. “I broke my wrist playing in the ninth grade, so I really didn’t play that year. The 10th grade was really my first year of organized football. I went to a couple of camps and got recognized. Obviously, I got more scholarship offers for football.”
But here’s the funny part: one of the few schools that recruited Davis to play football and basketball was the ACC’s newest member, Boston College. He was scheduled to take a recruiting visit for football the week after he visited NC State to meet with the coaching staff. But he ended up committing to the Wolfpack while he was in Raleigh and cancelled his visit to Chestnut Hill.
So when O’Brien was hired to lead the Wolfpack football team in early December, Davis wasn’t sure how he might be received by his new coach.
“I was really nervous because everything was really kind of hanging in the balance,” Davis said. “Coach Lowe told me I could play because I had been showing him what I could do on the basketball court, but he said I would have to wait and see what Coach O’Brien said.
“I think it was the first day he was in his office in the Murphy Center. I probably was the football player he talked to, and I had the nerve to go in there and ask him if I could keep playing basketball. I told him that I knew I could help the basketball team.”
Davis knew he was asking a lot, especially of someone he had previously rejected in recruiting.
“He said he wouldn’t have a problem with it,” Davis said. “Coach Lowe had told him I could help the team. He said it was OK.”
And even though Davis didn’t contribute in the 2006 football season, he is looking forward to the contributions he can make in the future.
“My goals for football is to be a Calvin Johnson type guy, someone who can stretch the field, who can catch short passes and break tackles and turn them into long receptions,” Davis said. “I want to be the big-name wide receiver here at NC State. I know we haven’t had one here in a while, so that is my goal. I want to break 1,000 yards on the year. I want to break 12 touchdowns on the year. Those are my goals that I have posted on my door at College Inn.
“In basketball, I didn’t really have any goals. I just wanted to come in and show some intensity and get some rebounds. Now, I want to keep doing it and get more minutes, help keep Ben (McCauley) and Brandon (Costner) fresh.”
The fact that he has this opportunity has blown Davis away.
“This is actually the best opportunity that could happen for me at any school I could have gone to,” Davis said.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
