Last year, senior tight end Kellen Davis traded in his football gear for a suit. His place of business was no longer the football field — it was East Lansing’s 54-B District Court. His teammates continued to practice and worry about the next game while he sat at home on the weekends and worried about his life. Where had his life gone?
At 1:30 a.m. Oct. 6, 2006, Davis put his future in jeopardy. Davis, along with three other MSU football players, engaged in a fight with another student at Capstone Commons apartments, now named Abbott Place apartments.
Davis was suspended by then-head coach John L. Smith. He plead not guilty to the alleged crime. In the end, he was found guilty of aggravated assault and sentenced to 18 months of probation.
His life wasn’t at a crossroads — it was at a dead end.
“I just lost track of my goals and everything I was doing, what I was doing it for,” Davis said. “I got lost in the shuffle. I was getting frustrated because I wasn’t playing the way I wanted to and all the stuff like that. It all culminated in that fight we got into.”
Davis took the incident as a sign. He realized the path his life was headed down involved anything but a storybook ending.
“That was a turning point for me,” he said.
Although Davis wasn’t playing much in Smith’s spread offense, he knew he was capable of great things. But if jail visits, legal issues and fights were to decorate his r
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