Burgers and Bucs a summer combo for linebacker Davis

By DARRELL FRY

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 3, 2000

TAMPA -- Buccaneers linebacker Don Davis still remembers the first time they met, the day he and reality were formally introduced. Davis never forgets a face.

It was winter of 1995, and reality, better known as Chiefs running back Greg Hill, walked into the Foot Locker in Kansas City where Davis worked, browsed for several minutes, then bought $1,000 worth of sneakers as casually as if he were buying a loaf of bread.

[Times photo: Jill Sagers] Don Davis, right, Bucs reserve linebacker, works with Richard Turer, vice president of marketing for Checkers in Clearwater.

Hyped as a pro prospect coming out of Kansas, Davis had been so sure he was going to be a high-paid pro like Hill that he had stopped going to class during his final semester and didn't graduate.

But he went undrafted. And after signing with Kansas City as a free agent, he got cut a few weeks into training camp and wound up peddling sneakers at Foot Locker for $6 an hour, plus commission.

"Man, Greg and some other guys that I went to camp with would come in there and buy $500 and $600 worth of shoes. I mean, I'm barely making that in two weeks, and they're coming in there and blowing that in one sitting," Davis recalled. "I just felt like I had (a shot at being wealthy) too, but it was gone, you know? I felt real stupid and I was looking real stupid."

It was embarrassing, demeaning and all those other terrible things you can imagine, given everyone's NFL expectations of him. But it was also a shock to the system, an epiphany of sorts for an astute young man who could only see out of one eye -- the one focused solely on football.

"Nothing," Davis learned about playing in the NFL, "is guaranteed."

He began to see the big picture. The one that stretches beyond training camps and preseasons and game days. The one some players don't see until it's too late, their vision impaired by the obscene paychecks they foolishly think will keep arriving tomorrow after tomorrow.

After bouncing from Kansas City to New Orleans to Tampa Bay, where he has played almost exclusively on special teams the last two seasons, Davis could see the future -- the day when his tenuous football career is over and he's forced to get a job. Where the ability to crash headfirst into competing colleagues isn't something you highlight on your resume.

While several Bucs are living a life of leisure this off-season (aside from the well-attended voluntary workouts), Davis is working just like you and me, trying to build his resume that includes the Humanities degree he eventually received from Kansas. Through a career program the Bucs orchestrated with the Checkers restaurant chain, a team sponsor, Davis is working part time as an event marketing coordinator at the corporate office in Clearwater.

From Monday through Wednesday, Davis coordinates the company's community relations activities and sponsorship events. On Tuesdays, he takes a Spanish course at Eckerd College. In between he stays in shape, even participating in Tampa Bay's voluntary workouts despite not being under contract.

It's a lot to take on, especially considering he could be spending his off-season sleeping late and playing golf like some of his teammates are no doubt doing. It's not like he's getting old; he's 27 and has only four years in the league.

But Davis is not Warren Sapp or Keyshawn Johnson or even Donnie Abraham, guys who can be reasonably certain that some team would want their services if the Bucs decided they no longer did. Davis is part of the background, one of those guys who could be here today and gone tomorrow and we might not ever notice. Heck, he was even cut by the Bucs for two weeks last season.

He's kind of tip-toeing along the edge right now, in fact. He's an unrestricted free agent and the Bucs have yet to resign him, although they probably will.

"Once you get that fourth year behind you, the league says the minimum you can be paid is $400,000 a year. It becomes a matter of whether a team can justify to itself paying a guy that kind of money to be a backup," explained Kevin Winston, the Bucs director of player programs who forged the deal between Davis and Checkers. "It's definitely something nobody wants to think about. But I've seen so many guys who, when their football days were over, had no idea what the transition was going to be like."

Davis won't be one of them. He's not just scared straight, he's downright spoiled.

"I want a job that's going to pay me about 100 Gs. I don't want my lifestyle to change," he said with a laugh. "Some guys don't want to shoot that high, but I need me some loot. We came up struggling, not being able to pay this or pay that. I don't want to have to struggle. I've gotten a taste of this NFL money and I'm trying to hold on to it."

Davis is not sure exactly what his life-after-football career will be, but this much seems certain: It won't have anything to do with trying to fit someone into a pair of size-12 Air Jordans again.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

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