If the Rams prioritize character and love of the game again then Ray Davis should be at the top of their list of RBs. Since the age of 8 he was in the foster care program. At 12 he spent a few weeks in a shelter.
Homeless at age 12, Kentucky running back Ray Davis hopes to inspire other children who are lost in the system.
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Nine months ago, everybody wanted
Ray Davis. Eleven years earlier, nobody did.
“I would sit there for days upon days texting family members, texting friends asking someone to just take me in temporarily, just for maybe a two-or three-week stint. So I could be back in the real world, so I can go to school,” Davis said. “But as the days go on, you start to realize that nobody wants you.”
He was 12.
Davis, one of the nation’s most coveted transfers as a 1,000-yard Southeastern Conference running back, has an incredible life story to share. From two stints in a homeless shelter to Vanderbilt graduate with many more chapters still to be penned.
“You never hear the success stories, you always hear the failure stories,” Davis said. “My goal is to be a successful story. I want to be an advocate for kids in the system, foster kids, because I once was like them. I experienced all the hardship that you go through being in that system, waiting for someone to adopt you or for someone not to want you because of how old you are or the background that you come from.”
Re’Mahn “Ray” Davis grew up in the Hayes Valley area of San Francisco, bouncing between extended family members and acquaintances while both parents, Jessica Blazer and Raymond Davis, were in and out of trouble with the law. By the time he was 8 he was in the foster care system and even spent time in a homeless shelter. But the most challenging point was a two-month stint in the shelter when he was 12.
“I was waiting to be adopted or for someone to take temporary care of me,” Davis said. “It was rough because I felt that nobody wanted me. Nobody wanted a 12-year-old. Everybody wanted someone younger they could raise, they wanted them to be theirs.
“I learned to be a grown man at age 12,” he said. “I learned how to control my emotions and to know that at the end of the day all I got is myself.”
When he entered the shelter, Davis was joined by his younger siblings, one was 6, the other was a baby. It was then he made a swift choice no adult should be forced to face. He allowed his younger siblings to live with a godmother.
“I had to make the decision to split us up,” Davis said. “My sister’s godmother wanted them. She didn't have room for me. So I had to make a very important decision. I was 12 and I made that decision because I didn't want them to go through the hardship that I went through. They were younger and I didn't want them to have to sit there and wonder who was going to come and get them? There was also a chance of us getting split up.
“I knew the hardships I was going to have to face,” he said, “but I wanted them to to be together.”
Now alone, the only child in the facility, Davis spent roughly 60 days in a basement beneath a San Francisco hospital.
“I can never forget those days and I can never forget that shelter. I could paint a picture of it right now,” Davis said, his striking green eyes staring into the distance.
“It was under General Hospital with a driveway taking you down there. Once you go in, they got a big glass window with all the workers in the offices. The front lobby, you have a chair and a longer sofa. They have an old school VCR and a TV. In the hallway to the right, they got the food pantry in the kitchen. Then they had a little game room with a PlayStation 2 and board games. Stuff that children could distract themselves. Then if you go behind the glass to the left, that's where they had all the rooms with the beds. They had clothes and accessories that kids needed. So I was always taken care of in that situation.”
As a homeless minor and a ward of the state, Davis was prohibited from leaving the facility.
“You can't leave unless you get adopted because I had no home,” Davis said. “So I would wake up, keep the PJs on and brush my teeth and then go watch some movies on the VCR, go play MLB on the PlayStation. The most I got out was in the little driveway where they had a basketball hoop. I would shoot with one of the workers. But that was probably only an hour throughout the day, maybe two. It felt like I never saw the daylight for a while.”
The staff, however, made sure to keep tabs on the kid.
“Every worker made it the best two months a kid could ask for in a sense of just not thinking about the next day or what's coming next,” Davis said. “I was there for so long that every time they did a night shift for day shift change, they kept seeing the same kid there. So we got close.”
It is logical for an impressionable youngster, given the hand he had been dealt, to harden into a bitter person. The same is true of Davis if not for one saving grace, one avenue of hope for the kid nobody loved.
“The one thing that got me out of it was football,” Davis said. “It sounds cliche, but it's real. Anybody that knew me from age 12, they could tell you football was always something I looked forward to. I could never think about all the negatives in life, I could always think about getting back on the football field because that's when everybody loved me.”
From age 9 through 14, Davis played for the Seahawks, but being in the system interrupted his seasons.
“When football was taken away, I had some really rough times,” Davis said. “Because when football was taken away, the people were gone.”
Other people, however, were beginning to move, guardian angels one and all.
Davis completed eighth grade when his former teachers, Ben and Alexa Klaus, asked him to move into their apartment for a brief period. Ben was his third-grade teacher, Alexa taught kindergarten.
As a young teenager, Davis was back living with his grandmother, though it was a struggle for both. “Unfortunately, I didn't have the best meals and I didn't have the clothes. I didn't have the will to want to go to school.”
It was during that time that fate intervened. Davis, a stellar athlete, was a member of a youth basketball team that traveled to Santa Barbara for a tournament.
“A coach took me, but couldn't take me back. Why? I don't know,” Davis said. “So I asked every teammate, all eight, for a ride home. One of my best friends to this day, William Brown and his family, was going to take me but they only could fit me in the trunk because it was packed.”
His last gasp was Bradley, whose family agreed, but with a caveat.
“His mom, Lora Banks, said, ‘If you get in the car, I'm going to ask you a hundred questions,’” Davis said. “I thought it was a joke. I swear, I thought it was a joke. She ended up asking me about 300 questions. She learned my life over the course of six hours.”
“It was probably more like a thousand questions,” Banks said. “He was 15 so he wasn’t exactly forthcoming, just another mysterious teenager who prior to that day had no real relationship with my son.
“I didn't know where he lived. I didn't know who his parents were, if he had parents. I didn't know him from elementary school,” Banks added. “He was on the team and then he wasn’t and then he was again. There were rumors flying around. But I only knew that he wasn't getting an access to education like my kids and I just wanted to know why and what I could do.”
Unbeknownst to the teenager, Davis’ life course had just spun on its axis.
“She never gave up on me,” Davis said. “The next day, she invited me to the family dinners because she knew I wasn't eating. Lora was able to help me and show me a purpose in life. She never wanted anything back, to this day she will downplay it all.”
Davis still lists Lora Banks and her husband, Greg Ley, as his guardians.
"That's like my mom. She raised me from age 15 on,” he said. “I'm a part of the family group chats, family vacations.”
In 2016, Davis’ basketball team was invited to play a tournament in Reno, Nevada, but he wasn’t allowed to leave the state. So Banks completed the exhaustive paperwork to become a temporary guardian for one month.
Later, the state suggested a new foster home for Davis, but they were leery of the circumstances. Banks, who was studying law at the time, found a loophole that allowed her to become the educational rights holder for Davis.
It was also during this time that Davis blossomed into one of the city’s premier high school running backs, which led to an unlikely intersection of athletics and academics.
A family friend suggested Davis consider attending Trinity-Pawling, an all boys boarding school in Pawling, New York. It’s the same school from which former Stanford star and NFL linebacker Shayne Skov, also a San Francisco native, graduated.
Davis survived a telephone interview and the next day, Banks accompanied him to New York for an on-site meeting with the dean of students. He was accepted on the spot and awarded a full scholarship.
Theo Johnson is another with a rough childhood
See how the Penn State football senior tight end, and his five brothers, owe their success to their mother's survival.
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