Football | November 21, 2017

Feature special to wmubroncos.com by Paul Morgan

KALAMAZOO, Mich.-  Keep grinding … keep grinding … keep grinding. It's the mantra of every walk-on player in every sport in college and Western Michigan's football team is no different.

''You don't know when your opportunity will come,'' redshirt freshman Ra'Sean Davie. ''You just have to keep grinding and giving 100 percent every day.''

Davie's background isn't typical of a walk-on. The 5-foot, 6-inch 175-pounder only played four games in his junior season (2014) and six games his senior season (2015) at Indianapolis North Central High School because of an injured Achilles heel. Needless to say, there were no Division I scholarship offers for an injured player on a team which went 0-20 his last two seasons.

''I had a few Division II offers and some Division III teams were looking at me, but I felt I could play on a bigger stage,'' he said. ''I trusted my heart and God would lead me something where I should be.''

He looked at Ball State, which was only 45 minutes from home. Davie also gave Eastern Michigan and Akron a look.

''My god brother played for Northern Illinois and coached me in high school and told me to look at Western Michigan," he said. ''It has a great business school and my major is now business entrepreneurship.''

When Davie visited Western Michigan, he went to see his cousin, running back Levante Bellamy, who was with then-running backs coach Mike Hart.

''Because of my injury, I didn't have much film of me in high school, but what coach Hart saw he felt I could play at this level,'' Davie said. ''He felt he could get me a preferred walk-on.''

Preferred walk-on is a player who can come to camp when practices start at the beginning of August.

''NCAA rules say you can only have a maximum of 105 players at fall camp,'' Western Michigan coach Tim Lester said. ''The rest of the walk-ons can't join the team until school starts.''

Davie came to Western Michigan in the fall of 2016. He was switched from running back to wide receiver on the scout team. Which means he went from a 0-20 record high school team to a nationally ranked 13-1 team.
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'That was a major turnaround,'' he said with a smile. ''I was going against the No. 1 defense in practice and was pretty much a test dummy for them.

''It doesn't mean don't go your hardest because everything was being recorded. All I did was try and give the starting defense my best look.''

At the end of the 2016 season, he was told by the coaching staff to just keep grinding away and that he stood out on film. Another player who stood out was redshirt sophomore DeShawn Foster who was named the Scout Team Player of the Year. Foster is now on full scholarship as a backup defensive lineman.

At the start of this season, Davie was still at wide receiver on the scout team until the week before the Kent State game when Western Michigan started to run low on running backs.

''I got a call from coach Evans (Eric Evans, running backs coach) and he said are you ready to play running back because you will have to step in,'' Davie said. ''I accepted the challenge, and besides, I missed
playing in the backfield.''

With just a week of practice under his belt, Davie suited up as the No. 3 running back against Kent State. In the fourth quarter, he finally got his chance to run the ball for a Division I university … and on his first carry, he missed the hole.

''On my first carry, I felt I could have scored, but I missed my cutback lane,'' Davie said. ''We called the same play, but reversed it so the cutback lane would be on the other side.
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'I was patient, and when I saw the hole open, I just ran.''

He didn't stop until he hit the end zone, 46 yards away. He only had a couple of carries against Northern Illinois so he is at seven carries for 58 yards and one TD for his Western Michigan career.
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'When I was on the scout team, I just had to keep my head down and keep grinding away,'' Davie said. ''At the end of the day, it's a marathon, not a sprint.''

Another walk-on, redshirt freshman Jaret Curtis, has seen playing time on special teams. Redshirt sophomore Alex Keys has played at center. Also, the backup for current quarterback Reece Goddard is redshirt sophomore walk-on Alex Mussat.

 ''We have 21 walk-ons, and every program needs them,'' Lester said.

Like Davie was needed at running back.

''The running backs welcomed him to that position and he's fit in immediately,'' the head coach said. ''Ra'Sean has always been a hard worker.''

Davie just kept grinding … kept grinding … kept grinding. And found that good things do happen when a person works hard.