Chaz Davis, holding his University of Georgia mortarboard, stands with his parents, Kris and Beth, both of whom graduated from NAU.
Chaz Davis is poised to make football history this Saturday for the second time in his life, though many in San Marino will not consider it nearly as significant as his first achievement.
Davis, a member of San Marino High School’s record-setting 2015 football team, will be on the sidelines when Northern Arizona University kicks off its 2021 football season in Flagstaff when they host the Montana Grizzlies. Not surprisingly, it’s believed to be the first time the Lumberjacks have played a game in the month of February.
Davis, who graduated from San Marino High School in 2016, recently came to NAU as a recruiting and operations assistant, where he has a hand in operations, recruiting and player personnel.
Like many programs, NAU scrapped the 2020 season because of the coronavirus pandemic in hopes for more favorable conditions this spring. But while workouts are typically slated to begin during the ideal, late-summer, high-altitude atmosphere, a much different climate greeted participants when they began training in December.
“Cold, cold, cold,” Davis, a Southern California native, quipped. “We got something like 40-plus inches of snow in less than a month. In a span of a couple days, we got what is called the ‘Flagstaff Dump’ as the people here refer to it, around 30 inches. A fun fact is that Flagstaff is the second-snowiest city in the United States after Syracuse, New York.”
Anyone who knows the relentlessly positive Davis isn’t the least bit surprised that he would refer to such meteorological challenges as a “fun fact.”
An undersized linebacker on the Titans’ record-setting 2015 football team, Davis was known for his relentlessly positive attitude and work ethic.
“We’re 7,000 [feet] up in the mountains,” Davis said. “This is not the desert like Phoenix or Tucson. It’s been a new experience wiping snow off my car and cleaning the walkway out in front of the townhome. But with new experiences comes growth and more importantly, new stories. I truly am enjoying it here. I am just curious to see how long I’ll say that I enjoy living in the snow.”
His interests will soon be occupied by the abbreviated college football season. A Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) team, NAU is a member of the Big Sky Conference and will play a six-game schedule this spring, beginning with Montana in a matchup that is known as the Grand Canyon Rivalry.
“The football program is awesome,” Davis said. “We just brought in the No. 2 class in all of FCS and the No. 1 class in the Big Sky Conference. It is the highest-rated class in NAU football history. The players here are very talented, on and off the field. They are a fun group to be around and I have enjoyed getting to know them. There really is something special brewing in Flagstaff and I am honored to be a part of it.”
It wasn’t as if Davis just closed his eyes, pointed to a map and happened to select NAU as a destination. He and his family have a long history in Flagstaff. His parents, Beth and Kris Davis, attended NAU, as did his maternal grandmother, making him a proud “third generation Lumberjack.”
Right out of SMHS, Davis enrolled at the University of Georgia, where he got a quick taste of big-time college football. In March 2017, he joined the Georgia football video team as an operations assistant, where he worked until May 2020 when he graduated with a degree in journalism with minors in sport management and public policy.
In January 2020, Davis was looking at football programs where he had possible connections as he had decided to at least temporarily set aside journalism.
“I loved my time in video at Georgia, but I really wanted to pursue operations, recruiting and player personnel,” Davis said.
He delved into his remarkable network of contacts and learned that a graduate assistant position in recruiting and player personnel was opening in June 2020 and the rest, as they say is history.
“I immediately called my father and he could not believe it,” Davis said. “It’s special for us, considering our family history at NAU.”
Unforgettable Season
Davis played baseball, basketball, football and track during his days at San Marino High School, where he received several individual awards for his contributions, including the Coaches Awards from his freshman football and basketball squads. It all culminated in that magical autumn of 2015, when the Titans won the Rio Hondo League, CIF Southern Section and CIF Regional championships, advancing to the California Small Schools State championship game while compiling a record-setting 15-1 overall record.
An undersized outside linebacker at 5-foot-8 and 170 pounds, Davis was in perpetual motion throughout the season and even participated on all special teams, for which he received the Coaches and Leadership Awards.
“The 2015 season was one that I will never forget,” Davis said. “San Marino is a special community because it truly felt like we had been working towards that CIF championship since we were in elementary school, thanks to the San Marino Community Athletics Association. We had also won the 2011-12 state championship when we were at Huntington Middle School. Some of us played Pasadena Trojans tackle football and others played La Cañada Gladiators. The 2016 seniors had a meeting on the last day of school our junior year, in June 2015. We sat down and set our goals for the season. The main goal was to win the 2015 CIF-SS Central Division championship, which we did while also getting revenge on California, Monrovia and Charter Oak, who dealt us our three losses the prior season.”
Davis said the pieces “aligned perfectly,” propelling the Titans even further.
“Without Coach [Mike] Hobbie and his staff, it would not have happened,” Davis said. But everything came together between my class’ dedication and the coaches’ knowledge. It’s a special feeling to be back home and say that I was a part of the 2015 San Marino football team. Even some players here at NAU from the greater Los Angeles area know the name San Marino now.”
Davis has an older brother, Jay, who graduated from SMHS in 2013 and from Samford University in 2017. His sister, Grace, graduated from SMHS in 2020 and followed her eldest brother to Samford, which is located in Birmingham, Alabama. Chaz says that his dream is to “stay in football.”
“I would like to work my way up to a director role,” he said. “If that is here or somewhere else, I do not know. We’ll have to see where God takes me. I do love being here though and would have no issues with spending some more time in Flagstaff when my graduate assistantship is done in May 2022. In this industry and most others, it’s more about who you work with and who you work for than where you are working. The staff here is a great group. Everyone here wants to make a positive impact on our player’s lives and win games while we are doing it. Coach [Chris] Ball treats everyone very well and it trickles down amongst the staff. It’s an honor to work alongside these people. They truly make me proud to be a Lumberjack.”
