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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports

Quiet leader coaches in his own way

Interim coach becomes comfortable in new position

Mike Davis stood with his hands folded across his chest and watched silently as players went through their individual drills. He turned and smiled at a few reporters who were in the stands waiting to talk to him.\nWhen practice was over, Davis went through his own routine, answering questions from the media. As usual, his voice was soft-spoken and the microphones had to be held close to his mouth.\nBut he spoke, and he did it with a smile.\nDavis, IU's interim head coach, stuttered for the majority of his life. As an adolescent, he seldom spoke. He said he never really needed to. He did his oral assignments privately in high school because that was the only way he could do them. When he was taken on recruiting trips, Davis would say maybe five words in two days. The most he could muster was a smile. And he still walks around his house talking to himself because the problem has not gone away.\nNow Davis is the voice of Indiana basketball, and when he speaks, people listen.\n"I've been through a lot," Davis said, watching his players from a seat in Assembly Hall. "I was really shy as a kid. I couldn't get a word out when I was young. It was something I battled with every time I talked. I wouldn't really talk much because of it. That was real traumatic for me growing up, even when I played ball at (the University of) Alabama."\nSince his days as an assistant coach at the University of Alabama, Davis' career has escalated. But with every step up, it seemed as if there was always a painful step back.\nIn 1990, Davis' daughter from his first marriage was killed in an auto accident. His son from that marriage, Mike Jr., was seriously injured. The family recently moved to Indianapolis, where Davis lives with his wife, Tamilya, Mike Jr., 15, and their 2-year-old son Antoine. Davis also has a daughter, Lateesha, from a relationship he had in high school. Lateesha is 19 and lives in Atlanta.\nAlthough Davis has ample experience being a father, he said he never really knew his own. The two might have spoken five or six times, he said, and his father had open-heart surgery when Davis was in the sixth grade. He passed away in 1972.\nDavis was raised with his brother Van by his mother Vandella in Fayette, Ala., (population 4,909). It's a town where everyone knows everyone else and they all recognize Mike when he comes home, which is as often as he can. He is close to his mother, who was forced to send Davis' sister Janice to live with their aunt and his brother Bill to live with their grandparents because of financial reasons. \nDavis' grandfather, Rev. J.H. Thompson, was a preacher, and his close-knit family could be found in the First Baptist Church every Sunday. Davis said his faith is one of the reasons he is able to smile every day, and the main reason he decided not to have Sunday practices this year.\nJosephine Kennedy, a retired schoolteacher, taught Davis in her Sunday school class and worked with him each week on his speech impediment. She's known the Davis family for about 60 years.\n"I can remember him as a little boy growing up," Kennedy said. "Yes, yes, that pleasant smile. I gave him some points on what to do, how to speak and get an audience of his family together and that seemed to have helped quite a bit. I saw improvements in him, even after he got into college and it was a joy working with him because he's a very likeable person, humble and quiet."\nThe gym has always been one of the few places where Davis' speech impediment is indiscernible. That's one of the reasons, Davis said, he loves the game.\n"Basketball is all I've ever known," Davis, 41, said. "It's a way for me to express myself as a person. Movements speak for you as you play."\nDavis' former high school basketball coach, Ray Nelson, said he noticed Davis' talent as early as the eighth grade and said at that time, he knew Davis could be a major contributor at the collegiate level.\n"When he was in the ninth grade, we were in an area tournament and had him playing defense," said Nelson, who is now the mayor of Fayette. "Mike was about 6-3 ... we had him assigned to a 6-9 star player that had already committed to Alabama that year. And the top recruiter from Alabama was there that night.\n"Everybody came to watch the star from the other team and after the game, the recruiter came up and was more impressed with Mike's defense. He shut him down."\nDavis' skills spoke volumes about him. He earned the title of Mr. Basketball for the state of Alabama when he was in high school. He lettered four times at the University of Alabama and finished his collegiate career with 1,211 points.\nFollowing his playing career at Alabama, Davis was a second-round selection of the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1983 NBA Draft. He went on to play in the Continental Basketball Association and became an assistant coach under current IU interim assistant head coach John Treloar, in the CBA.\nNow Davis has an entire team of his own, one he inherited when Bob Knight was fired, and he is working to develop a young, but talented team. Davis said he's hoping to accomplish success through the kind of player he used to be -- a silent leader.\n"I really don't want guys to be vocal to the standpoint where they think that because they say something, guys will respond to it," Davis said. "I want guys to bust their butt and play hard and have that be contagious. I think I have to be the guy who's leading them and talking to them"

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