Malik Davis squeezed the handoff and darted around the right side of the Robinson defense. He rocketed down the field, spraying black turf pellets at the trailing defenders with each stomp and huffing air through his vampire-toothed mouthpiece. He arrived in the end zone 30 yards later, and the game stopped.
Malik’s mom, Angela, and the rest of his family sprinted toward him. Television news crews zoomed in on them and the banner they held. “Congratulations Malik,” it read. “You did it.” His teammates presented him with a commemorative game ball. And his mother surprised him by printing T-Shirts: “Hillsborough County - leading rusher - Jesuit Tiger - Malik Davis - 20 - 5,765 yards and counting.”
She hugged him.
“Momma’s so proud of you,” she said through tears.
“Momma,” he answered, “stop before you make me cry.”
Davis’ team went on to win the game, 56-3. But that wasn’t the story when the contest was over that night. Davis was.
“I see no reason why Malik can’t have well over 6,000 career rushing yards by the end of this season,” Jesuit coach Matt Thompson said at the time.
Only 6,000? For Malik freakin’ Davis? The youth football legend who was now the best runner in county history? Pssh. No sir. Try 7,000. Try 7,025, to be exact.
Davis’ performances, like the record-breaking game, were an attraction back then. He was his team’s offense, and the Tigers didn’t hide it. He routinely surpassed 200 yards rushing. His success mimicked that of Florida running backs Matt Jones and Kelvin Taylor, who had trounced Georgia for nearly 400 rushing yards in 2014.
In that game, Georgia was No. 9 and Florida was unranked. The Gators were heavy underdogs, much like they are this Saturday when they’ll play undefeated No. 3 Georgia in Jacksonville. But UF’s rushing attack overwhelmed the Bulldogs despite the low odds in 2014. And if Florida wants to repeat history and stay alive in the SEC East race, it’ll need Davis to revert to his high school days and do the same this weekend. Thompson believes that’s possible, and he has good reason to. He coached Jones, who now plays for the Indianapolis Colts, as an assistant at Seffner Armwood.
“Malik was better,” he said. “He was just flat-out better. And Matt’s in the NFL now, but I’m telling you, Malik is better.”
Why? What makes him better? It starts with a popular narrative about the baby-faced, lanky Davis. Running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider said earlier this season that Davis runs like every step is a slap to the face of recruiters who doubted him. That’s part of what’s allowed him to rise from a freshman who wasn’t expected to play to Florida’s leading rusher. To a player who could eclipse 1,000 yards as a freshman. But is that the only reason?
Not at all.
Yes, Davis is bitter about being left off recruiting radars until late in the process, but that isn’t why he hits open holes and sleds through tackles. He’s always been recognized for his gridiron talent. Even though he felt undervalued by recruiters, he was always known locally. He was a legend of the Tampa Bay Youth Football League. No, his drive to succeed is as natural as his field vision and cutting ability, as obvious as his soft-spoken soul.
There’s really no explanation for it. There’s no origin. As his trainers, his coaches and his parents will tell you, his actions — in and out of football — often can’t be taught.
That natural ability has allowed him to blossom early at Florida despite the relatively low rankings, despite academic and health struggles and despite entering the preseason listed fifth on the depth chart. Some might call that exceeding expectations. Outsiders who don’t know his background would. But to those who know him best, this is just Malik being Malik, even if the success has come sooner than they expected. This is what he does, and what he’s supposed to do.
He sets goals and achieves them. When he does, he does so in silence. And afterward, it’s onto the next goal. The next game or session or event. The next expectation — often his own — to exceed.
“I really never saw him playing sports”
It was sunny that day. Sunny and pleasant. The average temperature was 76 degrees. But inside St. Joseph’s Hospital, less than a mile from where Malik eventually played high school ball, Angela Davis was struggling.
Even though he was due in January, Malik decided to arrive early that day, Thanksgiving, 1998. He weighed five pounds — and looked it — before he was ushered away to the Intensive Care Unit.
His mother couldn’t be with him as much as she wanted. There was nowhere to be with him in the ICU. She’d still go home, bathe and come back immediately. She also vented her fears to Malik’s father, who told her not to worry. That everything would be fine. But she couldn’t listen. Doctors assured her he’d be fine, but she was still afraid. He was just so tiny.
“At that point,” she said, “I really never saw him playing sports.”
When Malik went home a week after his birth, his situation got better. He gained weight. But then it worsened.
They took him back to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with bronchiolitis. It turned out to be asthma.
His asthma forced his parents to monitor his diet and activity. Malik loved eating Frosted Flakes for breakfast, for example. But the milk aggravated his breathing, his mom said, so his sugar cereal intake had to be restricted. He also couldn’t go outside as much in winter, when the dry air caused flare ups.
None of that stopped him from playing.
Malik was attending his older brother AJ’s football practices at 4 years old. Malik was the youngest and smallest of seven siblings, so he was always punching up. Especially with AJ, who nowadays is about 6-foot-3, 300 pounds.
Malik participated in team drills despite not being on the team, running onto the field to stretch his arms and pump his legs just like the real players. After practice, he’d take AJ’s way-too-big, sweaty helmet and wear it in the car. He’d also mock his brother, telling him he was too slow and, rather than saying he should go on a diet, that he should go “on a diarrhea.”
He was enrolled in football at 7 for the Tampa Bay Youth Football League Jaguars, where he was an instant star. His speed and production grew his reputation. He dared to dream of one day playing in the NFL.
But his parents didn’t take that ambition seriously. Not at first. When he reached middle school and was still the best player on the field most of the time, though, they began to believe. So they enrolled him in athletic training with performance trainer Mouhannad Atfeh. If anyone was going to discover Malik’s potential, it was “Mo.”
Malik arrived for his first day of training during the summer before seventh grade. He wore a white undershirt and gym shorts. Nothing flashy. Mo saw him as baby-faced and lanky. At 5-foot-7, he didn’t look like much of an athlete. But Mo still wanted to test him early. He decided to put Malik through an NFL workout, starting with agility drills.
He was stunned.
Malik made a standing box jump of 42 inches, which was on par with high-caliber high school athletes. Every test given seemed to go like that. He passed effortlessly. Then came the next part of the test: conditioning.
One of the main components was 300-yard shuttles, which are running, for example, 30 yards, then running back 30 yards, and so on, until the runner reaches a total of 300 yards. They’re sprints, and they were timed. Malik was supposed to run three of them, and he had to run them all under a certain time. His natural athleticism couldn’t help him here.
After two, he collapsed to his knees and wheezed. He lied on the floor for his three minutes of rest between each one and looked like death feels. But when those three minutes passed and Mo told him it was time for another, the wheezing stopped. The pain was blocked. Malik got up and ran.
Mo expected him to chug his way through that last shuttle, just doing it to finish. Instead, Malik willed his way to a passing time and earned a fourth shuttle. Then a fifth. Mo stopped him there.
First he was impressed by Malik’s explosiveness. Now it was his determination. Both let him know Malik was special. But that’s not what he remembers most about that first workout for the kid whose mom thought he’d never play sports.
“I was almost sure that if it was up to him, he wouldn’t come to the next workout,” Mo said. “So what I really remember is that the next day, he came back.”
“That’s the greatest thing he’s gonna do on the football field”
It was eighth grade, and Malik was locked in a flag football battle for Benito Middle School as Mo watched from the sidelines. The game was intense, although it was clear if Benito just gave the ball to Malik, it would probably win. That’s what Malik wanted. He’s a competitor, and he always wants to win. To be the best. Late in the game, however, Benito’s coach decided to make a personnel change. He brought in Benito’s blind long snapper, and the other team took advantage.
Benito’s quarterback was sacked play after the play, the snaps dancing through the air and allowing the defense to apply pressure. The game started to fall apart. But Malik’s competitiveness was suddenly absent.
Instead, he and his friend, Moses Wells, encouraged the blind snapper. They patted him on the back. They did everything they could to get him involved. And suddenly, the outcome didn’t matter. For Malik, for Moses or for the rest of the team, who followed their lead.
“He’s done nothing in his high school career,” Mo said, “and he will do nothing in college — or maybe even the pros — he will never do anything on a football field that will eclipse what he did with that teammate in eighth grade.”
Mo doesn’t tell that story often. Sometimes he uses it to remind Malik what’s really important, but he doesn’t tell many others. It just doesn’t fit with Malik’s persona for him to talk about how he visits all his grandparents every time he’s home, or makes sure his family always has Christmas presents. Calling attention to good deeds just isn’t who he is.
If Malik does end up going pro, Mo said you’ll never hear feel-good stories about him. You’ll never hear about what he’s doing to help people. Be you can be sure it’s happening.
“I don’t think he’s the type that you’re gonna hear a lot of PR, good samaritan stories about,” Mo said. “And that’s good. He’s not the type who does things because people are watching or because it’s expected of him or because it’s good for his reputation. He understands that the best charity is when you give with one hand and the other hand doesn’t know.”
It’s the same with football. When he broke the rushing record, all the credit went to his team. After other great games, which happened pretty much every week, it was always thanks to his offensive line. Or his coaches. Or his quarterback for his expert handoffs.
"I can say with all my heart that I would trade that record if I could help my team win a state title," Davis told the Tampa Bay Times after he broke the record. "I am here for this team because I know I couldn't have done any of this without them. I am very honored by this, but I have to say that this is a total team effort."
He often spoke with Mo after big games, but again, it was never about his yardage or his scores. It was about how great his best friend Travell Harris, who now plays for Washington State, looked. Or about the terrific blocking. Or his own mistakes. And Mo said that’s how he’s been since at least seventh grade.
“It’s not a feigned humility of a feigned drive for the cameras,” he said. “That’s how he was since he was a kid.”
A run to remember
All that training was supposed to culminate in an illustrious career at Seffner Armwood High, a football powerhouse Malik wanted to attend. Lucky for him, that’s where he was zoned. Unlucky for him, his parents didn’t want him to go there.
Malik’s mother cared more about her son’s education than football.
“My main concern was making sure he prepared for life,” she said. She heard about a school called Jesuit from Malik’s youth coach and enrolled him. Jesuit is an all-boys Catholic school where students wear ties, cover tattoos and cut their hair to a specified length.
“From the beginning,” Angela said, “he didn’t wanna be there.”
He complained throughout his freshman year. He wasn’t playing much football, being relegated to defense while his cousin, and current Florida A&M running back Kevin Newman, consumed most of the carries. And for the first time in his life, his grades tanked, culminating with a zero on a Spanish quiz.
“That’s what this place does,” Thompson, the coach at Jesuit, said. “It finds those inadequacies as a student.”
While Malik struggled in the classroom, his mom struggled with her decision. Was this too much for him? To transition from middle to high school and from public to private school at once? No, she thought. If he didn’t get it then, he wouldn’t be ready for college.
Football started to get better at the end of his freshman year, when he broke out with 131 yards against arch-rival and the No. 1 class 3A team in the state, Tampa Catholic. He started to like Jesuit a little more. He also started to fit in by playing pingpong. At Jesuit, pingpong tables are usually occupied by upperclassmen. “Because of Malik’s competitiveness,” his mom said, “he wasn’t gonna let that happen.”
So despite, in Angela’s words, “sucking” at first, he eventually got so good that a parent at the school bought him his own paddle. But his grades weren’t improving.
Thompson noticed Malik struggling and offered to have him checked for a learning disability. He arranged for Malik to be tested in Gainesville to possibly be diagnosed with a disability. Malik refused.
“Coach,” he told Thompson, “I can do this. I’m not dumb.”
He was getting recruited through his struggles, with multiple schools telling him he didn’t need all that work. “You don’t need to put yourself through that,” they’d tell him. “Just come play for us.” Even though Malik hated Jesuit at first, and even though he probably listened to pitches, it was never an option.
“I think he really believes if he would’ve switched schools,” Thompson said, “that would’ve been a failure to him.”
By the time he was a senior, Thompson said Malik carried a 3.4 GPA. He improved on the field, too. Through it all, his mom was on the sideline with blue and white Tiger facepaint for support. So was Mo, who continued to train Malik. Noticeably absent, though, were college recruiters.
Malik was a star locally, but he didn’t attend many skills camps. The scholarship offers just weren’t happening early.
“Stay strong,” Thompson told him sometimes. “Your time is coming.”
“Well it seemed like it wasn’t coming fast enough,” his mother said.
South Florida was his only offer until spring of his junior year. He started drowning in offers from there. When the flooding subsided, he held over 30. But only one -- Kentucky -- came from an SEC school. He was told he was too small to be an SEC running back. So in the midst of his record-setting senior season, he was set to commit to North Carolina. Then Florida got involved.
The Gators had just lost a commitment from another running back in the class, so area recruiter Chris Rumph and running backs coach Tim Skipper drove down to Jesuit to offer Malik in person. His mom wasn’t about it.
“They’re coming at the last minute?” she thought. “Uh-uh.”
But Malik had always wanted to play for Florida. He didn’t grow up a big Gators fan, but he did want to go to school there. So the offer was big. Still, his mom had to talk with God to accept it.
Since Malik was a child, she’s kept a prayer book she made him recite on the way to school. “Lord I thank you that he has a teachable spirit,” reads one entry. She turned to that faith to try and reconcile what she felt was her son being wronged. That helped. Then she met with Florida’s coaches.
They said they hadn’t offered Malik because they didn’t want to lie to him. They didn’t want to have to pull the offer if they didn’t have space. Now, they had space. “Nothing but respect,” his mom thought. She was sold.
So was Malik, who committed to Florida five days after being offered. He assured Thompson of one thing at the time.
“I’m not gonna get redshirted,” he told him.
Thompson didn’t believe it. Malik’s mother hardly believed it. Not with Florida’s running back depth, which she can list off the top of her head. But now that he’s proven himself right, they’re also not surprised.
“That’s just how he is,” Thompson said. “When he sets his mind to something, he gets it done. Whatever it takes.”
A legend then, a legend now
Somewhere in Miami, somewhere in the richest soil for football talent in the country, Malik’s high school film is sitting in a coach’s office to use as an example. Mo, Malik’s trainer, saw it himself. At Jesuit, meanwhile, Malik’s name peppers the record books. Most yards. Most touchdowns. Most carries. At Florida, he hasn’t reached that level. Not yet.
He’s not feared nationally, though he carries the sixth-most yards of all true freshman running backs. He hasn’t left any mark on any record books, though some day he might. He’s already emerged from three-star status — the second-rated running back in his own recruiting class — to be the most productive rusher on his team.
His mom is surprised. His high school coach is surprised. Is Malik surprised?
Probably not, but he won’t tell you that.
“He’s so humble,” his mom said. “Sometimes it’s aggravating.”
That’s noticeable now that he’s away at college. When she calls him, she has many questions. He has few answers. He never wants to talk about his football accomplishments or how he’s doing in practice or how his body aches.
He does like talking about Red Lobster, his favorite restaurant, where he often orders shrimp pasta. Him and his mom send each other pictures every time they go. He likes wearing Tommy Hilfiger and Polo Ralph Lauren. He likes buying gold chains and listening to Kodak Black. He loves his 1- and 4-year-old nieces. And he’ll talk about all of that, because he believes he’s a person before a football player.
Still, football is undeniably important. Florida teammate Tyrie Cleveland recently tweeted about how football changed his life and gave him an opportunity he never would’ve had otherwise. Malik responded, “If only they knew bro.”
So that’s a good place to go back to the narrative about Malik running hard because he feels undervalued. Underrated. Spurned. It should be clear by now that’s too simple. Malik, like every person, is complicated, his motivations complex.
“I think it’s unfair to his innate work ethic to just say he has one of those ‘I’m gonna prove them wrong’ mentalities,” Mo said. “To be honest with you, I don’t think Malik really cares all that much what other people think.”
Maybe. But he’ll still listen to some people who are close to him. Thompson, for example, said he’s already texting him about a sophomore slump. He said Malik is undoubtedly preparing for that and whatever comes after it. Or before it, like this weekend’s game against Georgia.
Given Malik’s history, the fact that Florida is a 14.5-point underdog might motivate him a little extra against the Bulldogs. Go ahead, he thinks, doubt the Gators. But that’s also not necessary. The fact that Georgia’s run defense allows the fourth-fewest yards per game in the country is enough. The fact that he’s even playing in a football game is enough. And the fact that he holds himself to a higher standard, disregarding what others think, is everything.
“If there’s something Malik is not able to do, he’s gonna try everything in his power to make sure he can get that done,” his mom said. “No matter what it is.”
You can follow Ethan Bauer on Twitter @ebaueri, and contact him at ebauer@alligator.org.
Running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider said earlier this season that freshman Malik Davis runs like every step is a slap to the face of recruiters who doubted him.
