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• Aiming to WOW Downtown Lodi this summer with science

• Lures and loyalty in Lodi

• Lodi residents get primed on redevelopment district

• Lodi man shot in head during apparent robbery drives home; police seek more information

• Police: Driver in fatal Lodi car crash had consumed alcohol

February 9th, 2010

• Middle College High School rated one of the best — and a bargain, to boot

• Lodi decathlon boasts top team in county

• Man who sparked counterfeit case pleads guilty

• Local businessman will visit Haiti to look for family

• Man who claimed to be Yosemite Sam pleads guilty to meth charge

• David Harmer seeks Republican congressional nod

• Lack of evidence in case against suspect in 'drug deal' stabbing

• Regional Roundup

February 8th, 2010

• Public Meetings

• Locals pick best, most memorable Super Bowl commercials

• Regional Roundup

February 6th, 2010

• The Home Depot hopes to join Costco at Reynolds Ranch

• Meet Larry, Curly and Moe

• Baboon business

• Regional Roundup

• Several Lodi venues let you watch the Super Bowl in style

• Lodi Library celebrates 100 years of serving the community

• Culinary craft

February 5th, 2010

• Kids, teachers help Haiti by collecting pennies for Learning Link

• Lodi, Galt students reach out to help Haiti earthquake survivors

• Tasered suspect claims he is Yosemite Sam

• Hours of sweat and work go into putting on crab feeds

• Things looking up for state's real estate

• Correction

• Regional Roundup

• Stray bullet strikes Lodi home; police suspect gang activity may be factor

February 4th, 2010

• Managers at Geweke Toyota answer questions about recall

• Lodi City Council votes to replace play structure at Century Park

• Lodi extends ban on pot shops for another year

• Mokelumne River triathlon set for June

• Family, friends to run half-marathon in memory of Galt family

February 3rd, 2010

• Correction

• Delta College trustees again collide over stipend committee

• Bad bugs, weeds are hot topics at Grape Day

• Lodi-area senators Dave Cox, Lois Wolk admit to gifts; Tom Berryhill case pending

• Lodi Unified School District president issues warning to speakers over cuts

• Galt City Council avoids budget cuts — for now

• New Lodi Memorial Hospital emergency room opens to the public without a hitch

• Regional Roundup

February 2nd, 2010

• Local business leaders say tourism, Costco, Home Depot may play roles in city's future

• Correction

• Former Lodian Erica Davis is first paraplegic woman to summit Kilimanjaro

• Regional Roundup

• No snow leopards, otters for Micke Grove

• McNerney leads in campaign cash

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• Big rig plows 7 cars

• Jumpers across California

The following stories have received the most reader comments during the last 7 days.

• Will terrorists be given Miranda warnings? (75)
• Lodi Unified School District president issues warning to speakers over cuts (64)
• President Obama's first year (45)
• Many reject the politics of 'no' (45)
• Islamic symbol in mosaic — what is all the fuss? (44)
• Writer comments on Neely column (42)
• The Home Depot hopes to join Costco at Reynolds Ranch (41)
• Time to shed the convenient sham of 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy (34)
• We need to conduct respectful conversations (30)
• Tasered suspect claims he is Yosemite Sam (25)

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The Natural

Lodi's Jon Davis didn't play football in high school, but his career at Azusa Pacific is an All-American story

When asked if he's ever seen a story play out like the one of Jon Davis, his All-American wide receiver, Azusa Pacific football coach Victor Santa Cruz said he had.

"I've seen a lot of those stories," the coach said. "Except they're on movie screens."

Just call Davis The Natural, a modern-day Roy Hobbs who, instead of baseball, was born to play football — even if he didn't know it at first.

The Lodi native excelled in Pop Warner football as a running back and free safety, but that's where, for many years, his gridiron career ended. Though he was raised with a strong Christian upbringing, his family assumed he would attend Tokay High School, where his father was a football coach.

Instead, Davis chose to continue his Christian schooling at Elliot High, where the athletic program did not yet have a football team.

"Jon said, 'Hey Dad, would you be upset if I wanted to go to Jim Elliot?' " recalled Dean Davis, who, ironically, now coaches Elliot's football team. "I said, 'Of course not.' But that meant he wasn't going to be able to play high school football."

Not that his son didn't play other sports. Davis played four years of varsity basketball at Elliot, three more of soccer and baseball and a season of golf, so he wasn't exactly lacking in physical activity.

"Looking back, high school football would have been a lot of fun," Davis said. "Even my first years at (Azusa), I joked around with friends, 'Hey, I should go play football.' But I never really thought it would happen."

After a successful basketball career at Elliot, Davis decided to try out for the Azusa program. He didn't make the team.

Jon Davis and the NAIA

Jon Davis

WHAT A SEASON
The 6-foot-4, 200-pound wide receiver had a memorable junior year. Here's a by-the-numbers look at Jon Davis' record-breaking 2007 season at Azusa Pacific.
Receptions: 73
Yards: 1,258
Touchdowns: 21*
Points: 128*
*School records.

FROM NAIA TO PROS
Multiple NFL scouts have inquired about Jon Davis, who hails from the NAIA, which is considered to be somewhere between Division II and Division III when it comes to college football.
Here's a rundown of just a few of the current and former NFL players who came from NAIA schools:
• Don Beebe, Buffalo Bills/Green Bay Packers
• Patrick Crayton, Dallas Cowboys
• Mark Gastineau, New York Jets
• Tyronne Gross, San Diego Chargers
• Jon Kitna, Detroit Lions
• Leon Lett, Dallas Cowboys
• Don Maynard, New York Jets
• Walter Payton, Chicago Bears
• Gene Upshaw, Oakland Raiders
• Derrick Ward, New York Giants
• Ted Washington Sr., Houston Oilers

ABOUT THE NAIA
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics began in the 1930s as the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball. In 1937, the NAIB began a men's postseason basketball tournament, the first of its kind, and the NAIB grew into an association that now includes more than 360 colleges and universities. The organization was a trailblazer for equal rights, becoming the first to offer intercollegiate postseason opportunities to black student-athletes in 1948. It also revolutionized national collegiate athletics with the establishment of athletics programs for women in 1980.

"For one, I just don't think I was good enough," he said. "And second, they had six freshmen coming in on scholarship so it was kind of bad timing — or good timing, if you want to look at it that way."

In his first two years of college, Davis was simply a student. He only played sports on intramural teams or when his friends from the football team would invite him to play pick-up basketball games in the school gym. During one such game, Azusa's football coach spotted him and was intrigued with the 6-foot-4 Davis' athleticism and leaping ability.

"The coach said, 'Hey, you're pretty athletic. Can you catch a ball?' " Davis remembered. "I joked, 'Yeah, how hard could that be?' "

Harder than Davis imagined.

"I looked like a fool my first day," Davis said. "I felt like everyone was kind of looking at me and wondering, 'What in the world is this kid doing here?' " Davis said. "It was very humbling and kind of shocking at the same time."

Despite an uncomfortable first day, Davis was a quick study with help from the wide receivers coach and veteran teammates. Still, after going through spring camp and returning for summer practices, he remained at the bottom of the depth chart.

During an intrasquad scrimmage, Davis was put on the scout kickoff team and decided he was going to hit someone as hard as he could. When he laid out his man five consecutive times, the coaching staff took notice and rewarded him with a spot on the second-team offense — though only after a couple of other receivers suffered injuries.

Davis made the most of his opportunity during scrimmages, making a couple of highlight-reel catches and scoring a touchdown as he earned a permanent role with the second string.

In Azusa's second game of the regular season against defending NAIA champion Carroll, Davis scored his team's first touchdown of the season. Two games later, he was in the starting rotation. But in the fifth game, Davis sustained an ankle injury and missed several weeks. He returned to action the final game of the year, only to suffer a severe concussion.

Being that he hadn't played football since junior high until that season, Davis determined he could do without the concussions and physical punishment of football.

"I decided at that point, 'I'm not going to do this anymore,' " Davis said.

Davis officially left the team and did not attend spring camp. But Santa Cruz, who'd recently been hired as Azusa's new coach, pleaded with Davis to return.

"Number one, the first reason I wanted him back is because of who he is as a person," Santa Cruz said. "He's the type of great young man we want to have in our program. I think maybe he'd caught one TD or a few passes, but we saw that he was a good athlete. We saw that he was raw, but he's just a good teammate."

Davis returned that summer, again at the bottom of the depth chart. But unlike the season before, he worked his way into the starting lineup the very first game of the year.

While the team struggled through a 3-7 season, Davis led the Cougars with 29 catches for 302 yards and three touchdowns. It wasn't until the following spring, however, that Santa Cruz knew Davis was going to be special.

"Last spring he really understood body control and leverage and you saw that crystallize in his mind," Santa Cruz said. "He just made some catches that were phenomenal. We didn't know if we had to recruit somebody, a real go-to receiver, but after spring we said, 'We got him.' "

Boy, did they ever.

The connection between Davis and quarterback Rudy Carlton was clear from the first game of the 2007 season, when the duo hooked up for a school-record four touchdowns. Fade routes, slants, curls, it didn't matter; Davis was catching everything in sight. Opposing teams put their top cover corner on him each game and he was double-teamed on a regular basis.

But teams still couldn't stop him.

When Azusa played Wisconsin-La Crosse, ranked 6th in the NAIA at the time, the opposing defense triple-teamed him on nearly every play, with a cornerback in his face, a safety helping over the top and a linebacker floating out for any in-routes over the middle. When the defense went into preventmode with 40 seconds left in the game, Carlton found Davis on the first play: a 50-yard TD pass to tie the game. Though Azusa lost the game to drop to 1-3 on the season, it was clear there was no stopping Davis.

By the end of the season, the guy who never played high school football had finished the season with single-season records for touchdowns (21) and points (128), earning him a spot on the Victory Sports Network All-American team. His 21 touchdowns was tops in college football at all levels until Texas Tech's Michael Crabtree surpassed him with a touchdown grab in the Gator Bowl.

"You never know how it's going to pan out, but with a lot of faith and hard work, we felt it would work out and he would contribute for us," Santa Cruz said. "Obviously, he did a lot more than contribute."

And with one year of eligibility remaining, Davis isn't done contributing. Unlike NCAA rules, where athletic eligibility begins when a student-athlete enrolls at the school, NAIA regulations allow an athlete four years of eligibility no matter when he starts school. In Davis' case, he didn't begin until his junior season. He's already earned his bachelor's degree and is now on scholarship as he works to get his double master's in business and human resources and organizational development.

Even then, his playing days might not be over, as several NFL scouts have asked Santa Cruz for game film, and San Diego Chargers fullback Lorenzo Neal — Davis' sister is a full-time nanny for Neal — gave the receiver's highlight video to his agent.

"It's something that's in the back of mind," Davis, now 22, said of the NFL. "But I think it's still motivation because right now I don't think I'm that close to that level. If I have a really good year next year, that's when I'll think, 'OK, I have a shot.' "

For now, though, Davis is focused on preparing for his final year at Azusa. After all, Carlton has graduated and Santa Cruz expects his "sixth-year senior" to be a leader to the program's three young quarterbacks. And, as if Davis' story needed any more intrigue, his younger brother Matt, a freshman at Cal Poly, may transfer to Azusa to play either running back or receiver.

"I really hope he comes. It'd be a lot of fun to play with him," said Davis, who's never been on the same team as his brother. "I think he's going to be a better athlete than I am."

Hard to imagine that being true, considering the improbable path The Natural took to college stardom.