An Answered Prayer
Davion Taylor and Tom Hager
In partnership with Athletes For God
“Okay, take off your pads.”
It was halftime of my second game of my senior year in high school, and I knew there was a chance I had just played my last down of football. I wasn’t hurt, and I was still eligible to play, but as I changed into my street clothes, I knew that it might have been the end of my career.
I was a 17-year-old at South Pike High School in Magnolia, Mississippi, and in many ways I was no different than most kids my age. I loved playing football, and I was hoping to eventually land a scholarship to play at the collegiate level. What made me a little different, however, was that it was against my religion to play that night.
The issue wasn’t as much what I was doing on the field, but when I was doing it.
I grew up in the Christian denomination of Commandment Keepers, which meant we had a strict adherence to the Sabbath. Most people know Seventh Day Adventists go to church on Saturday, but in our denomination we observe the Sabbath from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. And in my case, that meant no high school football. And I knew that no high school football likely meant no college football.
I had the choice of being angry as I took off my pads, but I was honestly happy to even play those two quarters. My older brother was just as good of an athlete as me, and he never even played a single down of varsity football. I’m confident he could have played football at the collegiate level, but with no football scholarship, he decided to join the Marines.
I was lucky enough to not only play those two quarters, but the entire game before that. This was early September, so the sun was still setting relatively late. I was able to finish the first game of my senior year before dusk, and as the sun dropped behind the horizon of my second game, I felt blessed to get the little playing time I did. Regardless of what the future held, at least I got to know what high school football was like.
But as I watched the rest of that game from the sidelines, I had no idea that four years later I would be on the verge of making the NFL.
It didn’t take long for me to realize my family was different.
Even in elementary school I wasn’t allowed to do things that other kids could. I was excited to play pee wee football in 4th or 5th grade, until my mom explained that I wasn’t allowed to play. The games were on Saturday afternoons, so that violated the Sabbath.
For most families, observing the Sabbath Day means attending church for an hour. For our family, it also meant no work and no sports. We even refused to cook during the Sabbath, so we would have our meals prepared before the sun set. And once it was dark, we would entertain ourselves with Christian movies. While other kids were going out on Friday nights, I was staying in.
A lot of kids might have resented their mom for not letting them play sports, but my love for my mom is way greater than my love of football. She was a single parent, and she often worked two jobs to take care of me and my brother. She was a house sitter by day, and after seeing us at home, she would head back out to house sit at night. She was working all the time so that my brother and I could have clothes on our back and food on our plates.
But as poor as we were, we weren’t going to violate the Sabbath just to make our lives easier. My mom wasn’t going to work, and I wasn’t going to play football…even if high school coaches were offering to pay me to play for their school.
And if I ever did have a temptation to violate the Sabbath, my brother was there to help out. He is two years older than me, so he was my father figure when my mom was working, and he helped shape me into the man I am today. He was obedient in not playing on Friday nights, so I wanted to do the same.
Football actually wasn’t a problem when I played on the junior varsity team, because our games were on Thursday nights. It was only an issue when I made the varsity roster. The ironic part was that playing on Saturday nights as a college football player would have been totally fine, but without the high school tape, there was basically no chance of playing at that level.
I technically could have played in a few series before sundown as the season continued, but I really didn’t want to push it. My mother was not required to let me play at all, and I wanted to respect her faith. Six quarters was enough for me.
Just not enough for college coaches.
I tried to send my tape to community colleges, but nobody was interested. Coaches didn’t want to take a chance on a guy with such limited time. They only had so many spots on the roster and so many scholarships to give out, so they had no desire to risk it on a kid who had barely played the game.
I finally found a taker in Steven Miller, the coach at Coahoma Community College, but there was still no guarantee of making the team. I would have to try out, and with a few days before roster cuts, I was on the outside looking in. Coach sat down and talked with me and two other players, just to mentally prepare us for what might happen that week.
I had made up my mind that I would become a personal trainer if football didn’t work out, but I really didn’t want to do that. I hadn’t dreamed of becoming a trainer when I was a little kid. I had dreamed of becoming a football player.
That’s when I decided to pray.
God, if it’s not meant to be, don’t let me make this team. But if it’s meant to be, let me make this team.
The next day, or maybe the day after, somebody on our team ended up getting hurt to open up a roster spot, and somehow all three of us made the team. It’s not necessarily how I wanted to make the team, but I had done it. I had made the team. People ask me if I still struggle with playing on the Sabbath, and the answer is no. I truly feel like God wouldn’t have opened that path if He didn’t want me to take it.
There was just the matter of what I would do once I got on the field, because at that point the NFL was just about the last thing on my mind.
I had a good season my freshman year at Coahoma, but I had no idea what was about to be in store.
I was hoping to land an FCS (1-AA) scholarship, or maybe settle for D2, but I knew an offer from a Power-5 Conference school was extremely unlikely to happen. But as long as I could get my education paid for and I could play the game I love, I was going to be happy.
One day one of the assistant coaches called me up and said there was somebody he wanted me to meet. Ross Els, who was an inside linebackers coach at Colorado, saw something in me that nobody else at that level did. Maybe it was my desire, or my 10.6 time in the 100-meter dash, but one day after meeting me Els called me and said they were extending a scholarship offer to me.
I googled the Colorado Buffaloes, and as soon as I saw they played in the Pac-12, I said yes. I didn’t know anything about the program, but I was committed. It was just my luck that Colorado has a rich history of football, and that Boulder is one of the nicest places to live in the country.
To paint a picture of what a culture shock it was for me, I couldn’t believe it when I heard that the main crime in the area was bike theft. In Mississippi, people were getting shot. In fact, one of the kids I had mentored back in my hometown was just shot a few months ago. I am so blessed that Boulder was a safe place for me to attend college.
The other big shock was when I met all the other players from the CU football team. I was in the best shape of my life at that point, and when I arrived on campus I was 215 pounds. When I looked around the weight room, I couldn’t believe how big everyone was. The outside linebackers were like 250 pounds, and yet they were somehow faster than me. That’s when it hit me.
These guys are for real. These are really elite athletes.
That entire spring I didn’t feel like I belonged at that level, and I could tell I didn’t have the same gifts as everybody else. Not only did they have better skills than me, they also walked around with the confidence that every athlete needs. And even though I was a junior on the team, I didn’t know a single play in the playbook.
I knew that if I was going to earn any playing time, I had my work cut out for me. The other nice thing was having the support from my teammates. I became best friends with Delrick Abrams, who was not only Juco transfer like myself, but was also from the deep south. We tried to bring out the best in each other, and by the time of the season opener, I had played well enough to earn playing time.
Reality didn’t hit me that I was on the team until I ran out of the tunnel for our opener against Colorado State. It was a rivalry game, at the Broncos Stadium, in front of 70,000 fans. When I ran out of the tunnel, I remember having to hold back tears. It was like wow, I really achieved my dream. I’m really here.
We won that game, and the next, and the next, and by the time we had beat Arizona State, we were looking at a 5-0 record. Our team was suddenly No. 19 in the country, and it looked like we had a chance to do something really special. Then we lost our next two games against USC and Washington State before imploding against Oregon State. We led 31-3 before eventually losing 41-34 in overtime. We really let that loss bother us...we knew that OSU was one of the worst teams in the conference, and we had no business giving up a 28-point lead.
We ended up letting that loss affect our next game, and by the end of the season we had lost our last seven games to finish 5-7. As a result we also lost our head coach, Mike MacIntyre.
But whenever we begin to lose belief in ourselves, all we have to do is remember those talents were given to us by God. My favorite Bible verse is Hebrew 11:1 which says “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” The verse is about God, but the theme of belief can extend to the football field as well. Maybe the results weren’t showing yet, but we believed that we could come back in 2019 and turn this thing around.
It didn’t long for us to find out how much we had grown as a team.
We beat Colorado State easily in the first game before facing a big test the next week. We were playing #25 Nebraska, and even though it was a rivalry game for us, I tried to keep my routine the same. I listened to some Gospel music before the game, and then I said the same prayer I always do. I asked for strength like Samson, faith like Daniel, and the ability to defeat my giants like David.
Those thoughts put me in the right frame of mind, and I really feel like I’ll have a bad game if I don’t keep my routine. Of course, even when I listen to the right music and say the right prayer, there’s still no guarantee of success. Unfortunately for us, we struggled early on and by the time the first half was over we found ourselves down 17-0. We had a sellout crowd on hand to watch us, and we had given them nothing to cheer for.
When we got to the locker room, our coach Mel Tucker told us the score was still 0-0, and that we were still a better team. I remember when we got back out on the field, it was like a spark that happened. You could feel the energy in the stadium as we scored 24 points in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime.
Our offense kicked a field goal in their first possession to give us a 34-31 lead, and now it was on our defense to finish this game off. We stopped Nebraska on first down for no gain, and gave up just one yard on second down. We knew they would have to throw it on 3rd and 9, and my teammate Mustafa Johnson came up with the sack to force them into a 48-yard field goal attempt. The stadium was pulsing at this point, and as soon as the ball was kicked you could tell it was wide right. The fans came rushing down onto the field, and it was one of the best moments I had at CU.
We finished the season with the same record as the year before, but the way we did it was way more satisfying. We ended 2018 on a 7-game losing streak, but in 2019 we stopped a five-game losing streak to win two of our last three games. We faced our adversity head on and overcame it.
Now that I’ve played my last game in a Colorado uniform, my focus has turned toward the NFL Draft. I was fortunate enough to be invited to both the Senior Bowl and the NFL Combine, and now it’s just a matter of working out and waiting until draft day on April 23. I don’t necessarily care about the money the NFL brings, but what I do care about is making sure my mom is happy. I don’t want to see my mom ever have to work a second job the rest of her life. I know she’s going to want to work, but I want to at least give her the option.
I understand my childhood with her was different than most, but I have no regrets about the way I grew up, because look at where it’s led. I have a chance to live out my dream. And a chance to let her retire. And a chance to glorify God in everything I do.
Images courtesy of Colorado Athletics