MICHIGAN SOCCER NETWORK: MSN NEWS: www.michigansoccernetwork.com/msnnews
BY DAN STICKRADT
COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST | WEB AND CONTENT EDITOR | DIRECTOR OF NEWS
PH: (248) 884-1051
TW/X: @msn_stickradt @LocalSportsFans @MiSoccerNetwork
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Jake Davis says there was no real pressure growing up in a household of athletes, in particular soccer players.
The former Rochester Hills, Michigan, resident believes that he would not have flourished in such an atmosphere.
Now, he is still a rising star in the U.S. soccer community.
“There really wasn’t much pressure growing up,” said Davis, now 22 who resides in the Kansas City, Missouri, area. “After games I would talk to my parents and would ask them questions about how I played and what I could have done differently. What I need to work on and things like that. There really wasn’t much pressure from them about succeeding. They would give me an honest answer but would always ask if I was having fun (playing soccer)? It was always about if I was having fun or not.”
The answer to that question was a resounding ‘yes’ even if his team won or lost or by his own estimates, if he played well or not on the pitch. Soccer was Jake Davis’ first love and he still loves the game even more as an early 20s-something athlete than he was as a young kid growing up in Michigan.
Jake Davis’ parents, Jason and Kim Davis, have a rich soccer background. Even his younger brother, Dylan Davis, is a sophomore-to-be at NCAA Division I University of Michigan in the Big Ten Conference.
Kim Davis played club and high school soccer while growing up and even played at Wayne State University, an NCAA Division II program. Jake’s father, Jason Davis, has served as a coach at the high school (Birmingham Groves) and club levels (Metro Stars, Michigan Wolves, Vardar, Sporting Michigan) for over 25 years and has coached a multitude of highly-successful players over the last quarter century-plus. Jason Davis also played professional indoor soccer with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Detroit Neon and Detroit Safari, and the former NCAA Division I University of Akron star was once a high-level coach in the Olympic Developmental Program system as well.
As for Jake Davis, he has grown up around players and coaches involved with a multitude of layers of the U. S. Soccer pyramid and could be the best Davis of them all when all is said and done. He’s well on his way.
Courtesy Photo | Sporting KC Communications
“I always try to have fun out there but learn from my mistakes and always try to listen to my coaches and improve on my game,” offered Jake Davis. “I’m always looking for ways to improve, work hard, and stay humble. I always try to do what (coaches) tell me.
“But I can thank my parents for helping me to get to where I am now,” said Jake Davis. “They really didn’t put much pressure on me. I don’t know how I would have reacted if there was too much pressure. But they always listened to me and were always willing to provide me with the best chance to succeed.”
‘SPORTING’ A GREAT RESUME
Like most young athletes, Jake Davis got his start as a young elementary school student, kicking the ball around with some neighborhood kids around the age of kindergarten or the first grade.
“I had a good friend Luca, he’s from Italy – I’m trying to remember his last name – and he used to always go kick the soccer ball around at school or in the yard,” recalled Jake Davis. “I used to go out there and play with him. I fell in love with soccer at an early age. I couldn’t wait to go out there and play.”
With both of his parents growing up around the sport, Jake Davis was put into a recreational league for young elementary school-aged kids in suburban Detroit, Michigan, and he quickly picked up the sport. By the time he was in late elementary school, Jake Davis was tearing it up in youth travel leagues. He was often the best player on his team all through elementary and into middle school.
After his eighth-grade year, Davis’ parents got him a tryout with Vardar’s U.S. Soccer Developmental Academy U-15 team (now MLS Next Academy). The talented midfielder/outside back had no problem making that high-level club team’s roster.
“I talked to my parents and they felt like I needed the challenge,” recalled Jake Davis of played in the Vardar Academy system. “I needed a better environment to get better, to be around some really good players.”
Davis was a freshman at Rochester High School, some 25 miles north of Detroit, during his first season on the Vardar Academy squad – he skipped high school soccer altogether even though some of his friends played varsity or junior-varsity there at Rochester, a large school rich in athletics tradition. He honed his skills traveling the Midwest on weekends and training multiple times a week with some of the top ninth and eighth graders in the Detroit area. His younger brother Dylan was in middle school at the time and climbing the ranks as well.
The common thread saw Jake Davis emerge as one of the best freshman talents in all of Michigan, and he excelled with Vardar to the point where those around the soccer community in Michigan saw a rising star in the making.
“I had a conversation, well a bunch of conversations with my dad about what I wanted in the future in terms of playing soccer and if I wanted to be a pro one day,” recalled Davis. “We talked in great length about all of it. (My dad) felt and I felt that the best way for me to succeed would to be in environment where I wasn’t the best player – just another good player in a really good environment.”
Jake Davis had some exposure training with some high-level players at some ID camps and clinics during his ninth grade year. He drew interest from some MLS franchises to train and compete in their youth Developmental Academy environment.
Courtesy Photo | Sporting KC Communications
He ended up signing with the Sporting KC Developmental Academy youth team in the summer of 2017. So, he packed up his belonging to go live with a host family in the Kansas City area through Sporting KC’s residency program where he attended a traditional high school during the day but ate, breathed, lived and slept soccer the rest of the day and on weekends.
Davis had to give up being around his friends at Rochester High and with Vardar, and from being around his parents and sibling on a daily basis and relocate to the Kansas City area – where two states, two cities, one team was the theme with Sporting KC – to begin a youth and later pro career in Sporting KC’s system.
“That was a tough choice, but it was the right choice for me to develop as a soccer player,” he recalled. “Sure, I was away from everybody else, but I got a chance to compete against some of the best.”
Jake Davis competed for Sporting KC’s Under-17 and Under-19 Academy sides over the next 2.5 years and over three full seasons, accumulating eight goals mainly playing a center midfield position. More importantly, Daivs grew into a top 100 prospect in the nation in his age group earmarked for a potential professional soccer career if he continued to improve his game.
Davis also joined the Under-17 U.S. Youth National Team for the first time in 2019, competing in the 19th Annual Nike International Friendlies at the Premier Sports Campus in Lakewood Ranch, Florida, in November of that year – his senior year of high school.
“It all happened so quickly,” said Davis of his time with Sporting KC’s Academy youth program. “But it was a great experience because when I got there because I was not the best player. There were always guys I thought who were better (players). I got to train with some of the best players around and got to play in a league against some of the best players in the country. I did whatever was asked of me. I wanted to get better and worked so hard at my game.”
Courtesy Photo | Sporting KC Communications
FAST RISER
Fast-tracked up the soccer system from his elementary days and into the spring of his senior year of high school, Davis has had more highs than lows during his journey. There was a small delay during the climb, but one that everyone had to go through at the time.
Academic-wise, Jake Davis was a well-educated young man and rising star on the soccer pitch. He was in great academic standing when the Covid crisis began in March of 2020, forcing everyone to go through some trials and tribulations of no travel or little travel and not to be on a regular schedule in terms of training and playing games for a few months.
During the 2019-2020 school year, Davis also gained some experience playing with Sporting KC II team one level above the Sporting KC Developmental Academy youth system.
“I was all set (in terms of graduating). No problems there. I had to wait this out like everyone else,” said Davis of the spring of 2020.
After the few-months delay, Davis opted not to go the college soccer route and was permanently promoted up to Sporting KC II, which competes in the MLS Next Pro league for players in their late teens and early 20s who have a shot at an MLS or international soccer career. He remained in the KC area and played 62 matches for Sporting KC II from 2019-2022 all while continuing his rise up the soccer charts – with a bullet.
THE CALL
All young kids at one time or another dream about being a professional athlete one day. Playing in the NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS or NFL are the dreams of millions of aspiring kids all over the world. To be able to play in front of thousands of rabid fans and on TV with large paychecks and endorsements and all of the fame and attention an athlete can have on the grand stage.
Very few young athletes on a planet with some eight billion people ever come close to living out that dream.
None of that stardom mattered to Jake Davis, who remained hard working and humble during his soccer career up until the last few years. The passion for soccer never faded but he never takes anything for granted, either.
Davis got the call to play in his first MLS game on Sept. 15, 2021, a 4-0 victory over Minnesota United. He split time between Sporting KC in the MLS and Sporing KS II in the MLS Next Pro league during 2021 and 2022. He played 17 matches with Sporing KC’s MLS team in 2022 and even helped the team reach the semifinals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 2022 – a long-standing, multi-month tournament that features a multitude of leagues and levels of the U.S. Soccer hierarchy that began way back in 1916.
By the time 2023 arrived, Jake Davis was full-time with Sporting KC in the soccer big leagues – the MLS – and earning a quality paycheck in the U.S. Soccer’s top domestic league. He earned his first MLS start on April 29, 2023, in a home match against CF Montreal.
“The very first time I played in an MLS game – that was surreal, especially the first few minutes,” recalled Davis. “But I settled down after a couple of minutes and tried to treat it just like any other soccer game. I had a job to do and that is try to help my team win a match. From then I just tried to remain humble, kept working hard and again try to do everything my coaches told me to do regardless if that was with second team (Sporting KC II) or up on the first team (Sporting KC MLS).”
During his time between Sporting KC II and Sporting KC’s MLS side, Davis also began playing on the back line as an outside back along with his natural position of a play-making central midfielder.
“You have to be versatile in this game. I was willing to do that and never argued it,” he said. “I just trained as a outside back and will play there in the back or in the midfield – wherever they need me. I think to excel at this game you have to have that type of attitude.”
Beginning with the 2023 MLS campaign, Davis started 36 straight games in all competitions between the MLS, U.S. Open Cup and friendlies over 11 months and into the spring of 2024. Sporting KC was 16-9-7 with Davis in its starting lineup but 0-8-3 when he was out of the lineup over the last 15 months of action. In 2023, he was named Sporting KC’s Defensive Player of the Year during what is considered his breakout campaign.
OLYMPIC CIRCLES
Davis began the 2024 MLS campaign with two goals and two assists rotating between the back line and midfield and has started 21 of 24 matches as of late June. The now 22-year-old scored impressive goals on March 30 against Toronto FC (a 3-1 win) and again against Austin FC on May 18 (a 3-2 loss). He currently ranks second on the team in key passes (22) and ranks eighth in the MLS with 52 tackles through June.
As still a rising star, Davis also received an invite to try out for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Men’s Soccer Team, which is for players 23 and under. He later found out he had made the 22-member team as one of four alternates.
At the U.S. Olympic games in France, soccer teams can only carry up to 22 players and designate and dress 18 players for a game. Coaches can replace one of the 18 players with one of the four alternates due to injury or other reasons and the versatile Davis could still gain some playing time on the U.S. roster later this month in France even though he is listed as an alternate.
Following Wednesday’s (July 10) U.S. Open Cup game against FC Dallas, Davis and Sporting KC teammate John Pulskamp (goalkeeper) will board a plane on July 11 and fly to France to commence training with the 2024 U.S. Olympic Men’s Soccer Team with games beginning July 22.
“It’s an honor just to even be considered for the Olympic games, and I will never forget it,” said Davis. “You know I never really thought about it much, but it really is an honor just being able to play the game I love and to be able to play professional soccer in the MLS and to go out there and train and play every day. I get to go to France in a couple of days and train on the Olympic team. How cool is that? Not everyone gets to do that. It’s quite an honor.”
Davis has not yet received a call of getting pulled into training camp for the U.S. National Men’s Soccer Team but would love the chance of that opportunity if it ever presents itself.
“That is something out of my control,” said Davis. “If that (call) ever comes or does not come, I will keep working hard to be the best that I can be. I love playing soccer every day.
“Soccer was my first love and is still my love,” added Davis, who is not yet married and is far from reaching goals in that arena. “I have the opportunity to be out there and play the game I love.”
From backyards to soccer academies, to tryouts and glorious moments and everything in-between, Jake Davis tries to remain humble while suiting up in his gear to play the beautiful game. In all aspects, he is truly living the dream that only few young athletes could possibly fathom.
Today, Jake Davis is sporting both a professional and Olympic soccer jersey – and his journey is far from its final chapter.
MICHIGAN SOCCER NETWORK: MSN NEWS: www.michigansoccernetwork.com/msnnews
(Have a story suggestion for the Premier Media Group and the Michigan Soccer Network regarding club soccer, high school varsity, amateur soccer, collegiate soccer or professional soccer of teams or players with Michigan ties, contact Communications Specialist/Web and Content Editor/Director of News Dan Stickradt via email at stickradt@michigansoccernetwork.com, or call 248-884-1051. Dan Stickradt is a 31-year veteran of the Michigan Media circles and recently joined the staff full time in March of 2024. Want to schedule a broadcast game or live show, contact PMG/MSN Director of Broadcasting Jonathan Turner for availability and pricing at jonathan@michigansoccernetwork.com.)
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