FORT COLLINS — Asked how Colorado State would do in the upcoming season, and to say it in a language of his youth, Rams linebacker Kevin Davis smiled and said …
Well, whatever he said, he rattled it off in fluent German.
Davis was born in Columbia, S.C., but moved to Germany when he was 2 months old and lived there for eight years.
“I grew up on a military base,” Davis said Tuesday. “Half my family’s still there — my mom’s side — so I get to go there all the time.”
His mother, Marion Davis, is German; his father, Keith Davis, was an Army man stationed in Germany until he, with his family, was brought back to the United States. The family stops included the Colorado Springs area, where Kevin attended Fountain-Fort Carson High School and was a near straight-A student.
Davis, a versatile backup for the Rams as a sophomore last season, is expected to step into a starting linebacker role in CSU’s 4-3 defense this fall.
While growing up in Germany he first played soccer, then also took up hockey.
“I loved it,” he said. “I grew up playing it, starting when I was 6 or 7.”
He stayed with hockey on both sides of the Atlantic as a star winger, and began playing football in the seventh grade in Texas.
Eventually, because Fountain-Fort Carson didn’t have a hockey team, he played for nearby Cheyenne Mountain High as a sophomore and a junior and was the team’s leading goal scorer while starring in football at his “own” school. Davis didn’t get involved in year-round hockey programs and walked away from the sport after his junior season.
“There was a coaching change, and they understood that with the football scholarship, I didn’t want to take a risk,” Davis said. “It’s a little bit harder to get a college scholarship for hockey than for football.”
As a senior he was a Denver Post All-Colorado selection and landed a scholarship to CSU, where he is majoring in communications.
CSU lost senior standout linebackers Aaron Davis (no relation) and Max Morgan from last season’s 10-3 team, and Kevin Davis and junior Deonte Clyburn are expected to take their place.
“We have to live up to what they did,” Kevin Davis said of the linebacker group as a whole.
Clyburn, from Louisville, Ky., was officially listed as Morgan’s backup last season and played 13 games.
Asked about trying to maintain continuity at linebacker, he said: “I don’t feel like there’s going to be a lack of athleticism at those spots or lack of intelligence. Aaron Davis and Max Morgan were like our big brothers. Kevin is a handful sometimes because we play off each other and have the same instincts.”
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or
