Kentucky star Ray Davis hopes NFL draft will help inspire children facing similar hardship

When Ray Davis hears his name called in the NFL draft this week, it would be understandable for the former Kentucky running back to feel like he has arrived.

Being picked by an NFL team would be vindication for the perseverance that saw Davis go from Temple to Vanderbilt to Kentucky in college. It could be seen as the final piece of proof that the many adults who doubted Davis could rise from a childhood spent in foster care and included a stint living at a homeless shelter were wrong.

But Davis insists there is still more work to do.

“I don’t celebrate the small wins,” Davis said at the NFL combine in March. “Once you celebrate the small wins, you become complacent, and once you become complacent you won’t get to where you need to go. If I sit here and I try to say that I’ve made it then truthfully what is there to celebrate? I’m supposed to be here. I’m supposed to have been a college graduate.

“Statistically, I’m the 1% who made it out of a situation personally I was in, but at the end of the day I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for other kids who are in that situation, if not a worse situation. To know that I can provide a platform and be a speaker for those kids who don’t have it. That’s the reason I keep going every day. That’s the reason I keep fighting. I’m going to continue to showcase that.”

The draft will represent the latest opportunity for Davis to share his story.

The San Francisco native lived in a homeless shelter after his two younger siblings were adopted by a godmother who did not have room to also take in Davis. Eventually, the parents of a youth basketball teammate were appointed Davis’ guardians and helped his father, who had spent most of Davis’ childhood in prison, petition for custody in time to let Davis move across the country to attend a prep school in New York in hopes of landing a football scholarship.

Davis needed a postgraduate year at Blair Academy in New Jersey to even meet the academic requirements to be admitted to college, but now he holds a degree from Vanderbilt.

That story has been well chronicled by now with multiple feature stories written about Davis during his time at Vanderbilt and Kentucky and during the pre-draft process, but the audience for his message will grow even more if he turns a record-breaking final college season into a productive NFL career.

“I’m going to continue to showcase that,” Davis said. “Just because the system was against me and everybody told me I couldn’t make it. When they look back 10-20 years from now and they’ve got to look me in the face again someday I want them to say, ‘I’m sorry because we did you wrong and we didn’t think you’d make it. But now the next kid who is in your situation we’re going to show them and let them know they have a future and they belong to it.’”

In one season at Kentucky, Davis led the Southeastern Conference with a program-record 21 total touchdowns. He totaled 1,129 rushing yards and 323 receiving yards. Seven of his touchdowns came through the air and 14 on the ground.

ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. ranks Davis as the 133rd-best prospect in the draft and eighth-best running back. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler ranks him No. 115 overall and No. 9 at running back.

“They’re going to get a guy that can play every down,” UK coach Mark Stoops said of the team that picks Davis. “He’s a three-down back, a very tough, great teammate. Great person. They’re going to get a heck of a player with Ray.”

With more NFL teams declining to use early round picks on running backs in recent years, Davis should have a shot to earn a featured role even as a day two or three selection.

Do that, and his goals beyond football become even more realistic.

“I would love to go down and be a great running back, but at the end of the day I just want to be a name that you remember,” he said. “I want to be somebody that every day when you look up and look at that story and there’s a kid sitting there who wants to go play collegiate football or play basketball, any sport, and they may not have the resources, they may not have the help, they may not have the academic piece or part of it but they do have the fight and the courage because somebody else did it before them.

“So, I want to be known as somebody who continued to fight, who tried to defeat the system, who bet on himself. That against all odds he didn’t fold, he didn’t crack under pressure and he attacked it head on. That’s how I attack life. What is there to be sad about? What is there to be mad about? There’s people who are going through some really hard situations. I’m blessed to be here. A lot of people would be blessed to be here, so I’m going to continue to be that shining light for them to go out there and achieve my goals and dreams. Once I make it, when I make it, I’m going to go back so they have a platform too.”

Where Kentucky NFL draft prospects are ranked

CB Andru Phillips: ESPN, 72; The Athletic, 61.

LB Trevin Wallace: ESPN 134, The Athletic, 86.

RB Ray Davis: ESPN 133, The Athletic 115.

QB Devin Leary: The Athletic, 184.

2024 NFL Draft

At Detroit

TV: NFL Network, ABC, ESPN and ESPN Deportes

Round 1: Thursday, 8 p.m.

Rounds 2-3: Friday, 7 p.m.

Rounds 4-7: Saturday, Noon

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