RB using fire, scars to inspire his team
Copper Canyon’s Davis nearly died in accident
When Demarae Davis takes his shirt off, there are scars across his abdomen, on his sides, on his back.
The Glendale Copper Canyon senior running back doesn’t try to hide them.
And if somebody asks, he tells them how he got them.
They are memories from when he was 9 years old, a time in which he refers to himself as a “knucklehead.”
He said and he and friends were playing with fire. His nylon shorts ignited. He frantically called for help, trying to extinguish the flames.
A friend’s older brother saved him, he said, by putting out the fire, calling Davis’ dad, calling an ambulance to take him to the hospital.
Davis suffered third-degree burns to more than half of his body, spent 35 days in an intensive-care unit, had more than 10 surgeries for skin grafts, and battled infections that nearly killed him.
“What shocks me today is he never has on a shirt,” said Nicole Taylor, Demarae’s mom. “He has his scars, and they’re like victories to him. He’s like, ‘I did what I did, I went through what I went through, but this is me.”’
‘This is my team’
Now 16, Davis (6-foot-1, 165 pounds) is the leader on a campus that sits within view of where the Cardinals play their NFL games at State Farm Stadium.
After coach Sean Freeman finished a team meeting in a classroom this week and players were taking their time to leave, Davis held open the door and yelled: “Let’s go, hustle up!”
Davis held the door open last player exited.
“This is my team,” Davis said. “These are my boys. I’ll do anything for these guys. I’ll lay out my life for them. We laugh. We have our moments. We’re like a family.”
Just this summer, Freeman noticed Davis’ leadership blossom. He holds himself and everybody accountable, making sure this team doesn’t go through another 2-8 season. Even the freshmen look up to him.
Earlier this summer, Davis called Freeman and told him he would do whatever he can to make this team not only win but make the playoffs. Everybody looks past the scars. “You don’t really notice because his personality is so big,” Freeman said. “But when you look at those scars, it’s like, ‘wow, this kid has been through some stuff’. To persevere through that, being burned over the majority of your body, that would take a toll on you. But you would never know it.” until the
‘I questioned even being a mom’
Taylor said that her son was badly burned over 52% of his body.
But after all of the skin grafts, it grew to 92% of his body, taking skin to transplant it to other parts.
Those were the most difficult days as a mom.
She left Demarae’s side only one time during that hospital stay to catch up on things at home.
The whole time, Nicole, who was not around when her son caught on fire, blamed herself.
“I questioned even being a mom,” she said. “It was tough for me. God gives them to us on a loan. They are temporarily ours. I felt like I failed. I questioned ‘Why would you give me someone only to hurt that much?’ Those were 33 long, long days in the hospital. I went home one time. The one day I went home, it was the worst in my life. I was thinking, ‘What would happen if I’m not there?’ His dad was there.”
It was a little before football season when Demarae Davis said he was playing around with a bonfire with friends. He had on a tank top and nylon basketball shorts. Nicole said her son was pouring an accelerant on sticks and “it got on him.”
“He got some on him, rinsed it, went back,” she said. “He’s a kid. When he went back, (the fire) hit those nylon shots and it lit him up. It’s kids playing around doing silly stuff, not knowing what to do.”
Davis said he’ll never forget the tears running down his mom’s face as he repeatedly said, “I’m sorry,” in the hospital.
“All I could say was, ‘Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Say, thank you, God. That is what saved you,’” Nicole said.
Two weeks before Davis was released from the hospital, Nicole found out she was pregnant.
“It was God’s way of telling me, ‘You’re a good mom,”’ she said. “The testimony. It speaks volumes, the person he became.”
‘A story I have to tell’
Davis didn’t return to sports until the seventh grade when he played football and basketball. He had to relearn to walk and eat again and do things for himself again.
Nicole said that Davis’ stepfather took him out and challenged him every day in football. It made him stronger, better, and excited to play again.
“It made me grow up a little bit faster,” Davis said. “When the doctor came in to visit me, he said, ‘Son, you’re not going to play football this year and you may not return to finish your fifth-grade year.’ I think that’s what hurt me the most, to be able to finish my fifth-grade year. School has always been a big impact in my life with my dad in and out of my life.”
When he got to high school, Davis’ confidence grew every year.
“I was so motivate to get back,” he said. “With the help of God and my mom and the support of my family, it helped me. I get asked questions all the time, ‘What’s on your hands, what’s on your legs?’ It’s not something I hide. It’s a mistake, being a knucklehead. But it’s something I can live with, something I love about me.”
There were times during the first night he was in ICU, Davis said, “I didn’t think I was going to make it.”
“I got an infections and they didn’t think I’d come back from the infection,” he said. “God blessed me.”
He credits football mentors, such as former Copper Canyon head coach Shawn Kemmer, former assistant Larry Thomas (who died this summer from cancer) and Freeman, helping him in his journey.
“Demarae was one of the most inspirational young men I’ve ever met,” said Kemmer, now an assistant football coach at Arizona Christian University, who had Davis in his program his first two years in high school. “When I first met him, I noticed his ability to communicate with other students two and three grade levels above him without the fear or intimidation as you would see that other freshmen had. This made you think at first glance, he must be a senior.
“It drew me in. I had to know his story. Davis has a survivor spirit, always believing he will overcome.”
The burns, the skin grafts, it’s as if he had to remove a layer of his former self to become the leader he is now. Now, he thinks things through before trying something that could potentially harm him or those around him.
“It’s just been a journey,” Davis said.
“Just getting back into life, kind of. As my burns kind of affected me, it affects every relationship, friendship, everything I get into now, because it’s just a story that I have, a story I have to tell.”