Skodnick: Davis, NFL players speak up for their communities
Published 8:54 pm, Saturday, March 24, 2018
It's March, the depth of the NFL's offseason, the time between the combine and the draft when speculation on who will trade up or down rules the day and veteran players are mostly left to their own devices.
So if you weren't walking the halls of the Capitol this past Tuesday, you might not have noticed the hulking figure of linebacker Demario Davis advocating for bail reform.
Davis, who spent five of his six NFL seasons with the Jets before signing with the New Orleans Saints this offseason, was one of several members of the Players Coalition to fan out to events in several cities advocating for criminal justice reform and issues of equality. An Arkansas State alum with five sacks in 16 games for the Jets last season, Davis came to Albany to advocate for bail reform.
"We just want to do our part up here dealing with some of the criminal reform issues that are going on here," Davis said by phone. "Bail, I think, is getting a lot of the attention, but it's all intertwined -- we're working on discovery, we're working on speedy trial as well."
Earlier this year, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed ending cash bail for non-violent crimes, as well as speeding up evidentiary disclosure to make the criminal justice system fairer to poor communities. Currently, criminal defendants can be held on bail without the court evaluating their ability to pay, and jails are filled with inmates who are awaiting trial rather than serving sentences.
While a large part of the attention given to NFL players standing up for social justice has been paid to those who kneel during the National Anthem, several players have been taking their efforts off the field and into the halls of government.
Davis wasn't the only player speaking out this week. Philadelphia Eagles captain Malcolm Jenkins, along with Rockland County natives Devin and Jason McCourty, visited the Massachusetts State House to advocate for "raise the age" legislation, which would change the age at which criminal defendants could be charged as adults from 16 to 18. Players were in Baltimore to stump for police accountability, and on Friday, Jenkins, Davis, the McCourty brothers and Anquan Boldin were at Harvard Law School to discuss their efforts to effect change.
"Anywhere from 70 to 90 percent of players in the (NFL) and the NBA, a lot of the guys are coming from these type of environments where these injustices are happening," Davis said.
Davis, who was born in Collins, Miss., a small community on U.S. Highway 49 between Hattiesburg and Jackson best known for its' ramshackle pink-fenced zoo that was shuttered in 2014, said that players are speaking up again because they see these issues in their communities.
Growing up in Brandon, Miss., which is to the state capital of Jackson as Watervliet is to Albany, Davis' mother worked "two and a half jobs," two full-time jobs at local hospitals and a part-time gig as a hairdresser. Mississippi, Davis points out, is 50th in all the categories you don't want your home state to be 50th in.
"We're 50th in health, 50th in economy, 50th in education," Davis said. "You look at the disparity ... in the rest of the country and you magnify that, and that's where I come from."
It wasn't until Davis made it to the NFL that his mom could work only one job. She became a full-time stylist after her son bought her her own hair salon after sticking with the Jets back in 2012.
And while Davis went to a comparatively good high school in Mississippi, it didn't diminish the challenges. He admits he made some mistakes and was lucky to have talent that allowed him to rise out of Brandon to the NFL and have the opportunity to play on the biggest stage and advocate for his community.
"You look at the statics and the odds that I was stacked up against, and I'm grateful to God that I made it out -- because of the grace of God, not because of my talent and my ability," Davis said. "I made plenty of bad decisions like my friends made, but I think God kinda lifted me out so I could tell the rest of the world."
And you can bet he and his fellow players aren't going to stop telling the world, because, as Davis said, "It would be a huge tragedy if I were to make it out and forget where I came from and not tell the story of my people and the situation that they're in."