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Thomas Davis might have made a difference Thursday night against the Miami Dolphins. He did make a difference two nights earlier at Lola's Restaurant.
Davis and his wife, Kelly, have an organization called the Defending Dreams Foundation. It's a good name. The name says that no matter who you are or how you grow up, you're entitled to dream and you're entitled to put yourself in position to realize your dreams.
The foundation's goal is to help children and their families. At Lola's, 100 kids and women from the Salvation Army's Center of Hope shelter help themselves to turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, collard greens, cabbage, cornbread, yams, macaroni and cheese, banana pudding and homemade sweet potato pie.
Davis, 26, plays linebacker for the Carolina Panthers. He did, anyway, until two Sundays ago. He had lined up opposite Devery Henderson, the wide receiver for New Orleans. Davis was running backward with Henderson and, when he planted his foot, the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee tore.
A tremendous athlete, Davis finally was playing tremendous football. But he knew as soon as he went down that his season would end eight games before Carolina's did.
"I asked, 'Why me?'" Davis says at the front of the restaurant, from which we can see the NASCAR Hall of Fame looming on the other side of the street. "I asked for two days. But that was selfish. Did I want it to be somebody else? God has put this on me for a reason."
He'll have surgery Nov. 30.
Davis also worried he would be unable to help organize the dinner for the Center of Hope, in which case Kelly would have to do almost all the work - and she's due to have their fourth child in January.
"Crazy, right?" she asks, laughing.
That's a lot of pressure on a woman who is almost eight months pregnant.
My wife occasionally turned mean toward the end of her pregnancies. I ask Davis if Kelly has.
"She was mean before," he says.
Everybody laughs. OK, two of us laugh.
For Thomas and Kelly, the foundation is personal. Although neither grew up with money, both grew up with warm memories of Thanksgiving. Kelly's mother cooked what the Salvation Army in Greenville, S.C., provided. She remembers the fruit cups in a can.
Thomas grew up in southwest Georgia in Shellman. His grandmother, and later an aunt, would host Thanksgiving dinner. Davis is not emotional, but as he describes those dinners - the macaroni and cheese, collard greens, dressing, fried chicken and ham (he's not a fan of turkey), sweet potato pie, chocolate pie and strawberry pie, it's as if he's standing in front of a pulpit.
"That's still his favorite meal," Kelly says.
Back at Randolph-Clay High in Shellman, Davis played quarterback, running back, wide receiver, defensive end and safety, and in his spare time he punted, kicked and returned kicks.
You imagine going against him in a Thanksgiving Day football game in the street?
"I was too full," says Davis. "I stayed in and watched Detroit and Dallas on TV."
Defending Dreams sponsors a football camp and helps families on Christmas as well as Thanksgiving. Last Thanksgiving, it gave away turkeys.
But giving turkeys to women to cook didn't feel right. So Thomas and Kelly sent a Rose's Limousines bus to the shelter, the largest women's and children's shelter in the Southeast.
The bus brought 50 women and kids for dinner at 5:30 and another 50 at 7:30. The restaurant volunteered to stay open late.
Flanked by rookie teammates Sherrod Martin and Corvey Irvin, Davis introduces himself to his guests.
"I want you to sit down and enjoy yourselves and have a nice meal and have someone else serve you for a change," he says.
Everybody ought to have the opportunity to be served.
Everybody ought to look for the opportunity to serve.
If Davis is thinking about what he's lost, there's no evidence.
Despite moving at half-speed, he's the most animated adult in the room.
"Oh, man, this is genuinely exciting," he says.
