Tom Talks: Carolina Panthers – and Charlotte – will miss Thomas – and Kelly – Davis

We knew Thomas Davis was leaving. The Carolina Panthers, as I’ve written before, decided to get younger and faster rather than older and slower. Davis will never be slow. But he will turn 36 in little more than a week. The Panthers told Davis in January they were going to let him go, and on Wednesday he will officially become a Los Angeles Charger.

He’ll be missed. Some players pass through. Others dig in. Davis, a linebacker from Shellman, Ga., about 170 miles south of Atlanta, dug as deeply into Charlotte as any player in Panthers history. He played for the Panthers 14 years, and he and his wife, Kelly, began the Defending Dreams Foundation in 2008.

What did the foundation do? What didn’t it? Defending Dreams mentored kids, raised money and offered college scholarships. The foundation asked what was needed, and then supplied it. I’d heard about the good work the foundation did, and talked to one of the organizations, Salvation Army, with which it worked. Everybody should be talked about once in their life the way Salvation Army talked about Thomas and Kelly Davis. Thomas deservedly won the 2014 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award.

We think of Thomas Davis as a three-time Pro Bowl linebacker. But when the Panthers selected him with the 14th pick in the first round of the 2005 draft, they didn’t know if Davis was a linebacker or a safety. Welcome to the NFL, rookie. These are the only two positions you have to learn.

Davis became a full-time linebacker, and when his instincts caught up to this athleticism, he became an absolute force. He also tore his right knee three times.

The story that best illustrates Davis might be prior to Thanksgiving after a knee tear. On this night, Defending Dreams treated women and their children to dinner, sending limos to bring them from the shelter to the restaurant.

Davis was the world’s happiest waiter. Limping heavily, he moved from table to table. He might be denied the opportunity to run down quarterbacks. But nobody was going to deny him the opportunity to serve, and to see the smiles as he did.

During a brief break that night, Davis and I talked. He was joyous. To be there was to want to put down the notebook and tape recorder and help him. But Davis didn’t require help.

Davis was a superb linebacker, always part of a pair. First, it was Jon Beason, and don’t forget how well he played, in the middle and Davis on the outside. Then it was middle linebacker Luke Kuechly and Davis.

Davis was fast and instinctive, and man did he work. When running back DeAngelo Williams came to the Panthers, he was incredulous that a linebacker had run him down in practice. Then somebody told him the linebacker was Davis.

OK. Then it made sense.

Los Angeles is almost a straight shot across the country, a 36-hour drive, and it will bizarre to see Davis wearing navy, gold and powder blue, and lining up with star safety Derwin James instead of star linebacker Luke Kuechly.

Davis made the Panthers a better team. Thomas and Kelly made Charlotte a better place.

Inexcusable behavior in Utah

I don’t know what the Utah Jazz fan said to Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder. It was the second quarter Monday at Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City, and Westbrook was sitting on the Oklahoma City bench.

The fan, Shane Keisel, 45, says he yelled, “Ice those knees up!”

Westbrook says that Keisel yelled, “Get down on your knees like you’re used to.”

It went on from there, with Westbrook threatening Keisel and Keisel’s female companion.

Maybe Keisel is a loud guy who gets excited yelling things at genuine professional basketball players, and maybe Westbrook is a fiery guy who loses his temper with ease.

But there is a code of conduct at sporting events, especially in basketball. Arenas are smaller than stadiums, which means fans are more likely to be heard.

You don’t get to yell whatever you want at whomever you want. You can’t yell at a player about his wife or girlfriend or kids, and you can’t invoke race.

Fan is the wrong term for some spectators. What they do is performance art, and I’m not sure they know or care what the score is. They believe a ticket entitles them to unlimited freedom. I got a ticket so I can do what I want when I want. And the player I yell at can’t do anything to me because he’s on the court or bench and I’m in a seat with fans in front of me and behind me and on both sides of me, and there are ushers, too.

Westbrook had a confrontation with Utah fans in the playoffs last April, and slapped a cell phone from the hand of one man.

If you’ve gone to basketball games in Charlotte or anywhere else, you’ve heard fans go deep with their insults to players. I heard a fan in Charlotte go after a player on the other team because the player had Tourette’s syndrome. Fan was in the front row.

Some players are put upon and quick to anger. And some fans spend so much time screaming nasty things at players that you wonder what enjoyment that could possibly derive.

The NBA fined Westbrook $25,000, and the Jazz kicked Keisel out of the arena, never to return. The situation could have been much worse. What if Westbrook had gone after the guy, who sits in the third row? How long would Westbrook’s suspension have been – the rest of the season and the playoffs?

Assuming the investigation of the incident was thorough, the Jazz handled the situation perfectly.

The broader issue in stories such as these is why? Why go to a game simply to scream nasty insults?

If you reach that level of anger, why not stay home and Tweet?

My NCAA teams: Wahoos, Terriers

Selection Sunday is one of the most compelling days in sports. We rarely know where our team will go, and have no idea who it will have to beat once it gets there.

Like most of you, I fill out a bracket. Unlike some of you, I can’t pick three or four top seeds. If I picked the favorites, something inside me would die. I’d go out and buy khaki pants and a shirt with an animal or boat on it, buy the biggest SUV on the lot, and change the names of my kids from Lee and Peter to Ryder and Skyler.

But don’t mind me. If you like the favorites, have at them.

Playoffs in the NFL and NBA are great. But no sport has figured out as entertaining and effective a way to end a season as the NCAA has.

I love Virginia. Yes, I know, it will almost certainly be a No. 1 seed. Give me at least one. Tony Bennett has done great work at Virginia, and finally has a team capable of sustained tournament success.

In De’Andre Hunter, a 6-foot-7 sophomore, Bennett has an NBA lottery pick. As a result, the Cavaliers don’t have to try to win every game 48-46.

Since 2014, Virginia is 7-5 in the NCAA tournament, including the 20-point loss to 16th-seeded Maryland-Baltimore County in Charlotte last season. Hunter missed the game with a broken wrist. If you were there, you’ll never forget it. If you weren’t, you might claim you were.

The Retrievers are a game away from returning to the NCAA tournament. They play Vermont Saturday at 11 a.m. at Vermont’s Patrick Gym. Vermont was the American East Conference’s top seed this season, and last season as well. Do not underestimate the Retrievers or Catamounts.

This season, I like Virginia. Another team I like is Wofford. The Terriers are 29-4, 18-0 in the Southern Conference and 3-0 in the Southern Conference tournament. Their losses: North Carolina by 11 in Spartanburg, on the road to Oklahoma (by 11), Kansas (by 25) and Mississippi State (by 11).

When you talk to NBA scouts and to college coaches about coaches, there are names they always mention. For a long time, it was Davidson’s Bob McKillop. By now, both groups figure that if you don’t know who McKillop is, the fault is yours.

Wofford’s Mike Young is another. Sporting News named him Tuesday as its 2018-19 coach of the year.

Young, 55, has spent 30 years at Wofford, the first 13 as an assistant. He’s never had a team such as the one he has now. The Terriers, who haven’t lost since Dec. 19, don’t play small school small ball. They don’t slow games down lest their absence of athleticism be exposed.

There’s nothing to expose. They are athletic. They score inside and out and often. They average more than 80 points a game, 14th in the country (North Carolina is third, Duke seventh). They have a chance to go deep.

The Terriers were ranked 20th this week in the Associated Press poll, one spot in front of Maryland and one behind Wisconsin.

The top four teams in the poll are Gonzaga, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky.

Duke is fifth. But if Zion Williamson returns for the ACC tournament, and he again is Zion Williamson, up there above the rim and everybody else, whom are you going to pick to beat the Blue Devils?

Good luck with your brackets. I’ll need some with mine.

Wake Forest’s coaching quandary

If you’re the Wake Forest Deacons, and you want to play men’s basketball like Demon Deacons, what do you do?

Coach Danny Manning has had almost as many defections as victories. In his five seasons, he’s gone: 13-19, 11-20, 19-16, 11-20 and 11-20. Wake Forest was the first team dispatched from this season’s ACC tournament, losing to Miami 79-71 on Tuesday.

The two coaches who preceded Manning were no better. Dino Gaudio failed in the postseason. And Jeff Bzdelik made such a minor impact that almost nobody learned to spell his last name.

What makes Manning’s job so difficult is that the ACC has upgraded. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and North Carolina’s Roy Williams have long been the standard. Virginia’s Bennett has joined them. To be an ACC coach of the year candidate, Krzyzewski and Williams have to be exceptional. After winning the award the last two seasons, Bennett will have to be, too.

Virginia Tech’s Buzz Williams finished second this year. The Hokies were worse than Wake Forest when he arrived. Seth Greenberg won some. Think how much more he would have won if he had a Curry, Stephen or Seth, at guard. The Hokies went 22-41 overall and 6-30 in the conference the two seasons before Williams.

Williams has won 11, 20, 22 and 21 games in his four seasons there, and this season went 12-6 in the ACC.

Williams, who had coached at Marquette, was a big-time hire. On March 21, 2014, the day it was announced, I ran into a former Virginia Tech player. He was thrilled. The Hokies finally had a basketball coach.

The most underrated coach in the conference is Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. Hamilton last season led the Seminoles to the Elite Eight. This season he led them to a conference record of 12-6. Hamilton finished fourth in coach of the year voting. The ACC footprint tiptoes down there.

For Wake Forest to compete, it needs a recruiter who can coach. It needs somebody who, in the country’s best college basketball conference, at least this season, can hold up.

Manning is not that guy any more than his predecessors were, although he’s a better recruiter.

The biggest problem the Deacons have is that they have for so long been irrelevant that college basketball forgets about them.

But Chris Paul and Tim Duncan went there. Didn’t they use to be good?

Short takes: Paradis a good signing for Panthers; good luck to West Charlotte

▪ The NFL’s free-agent frenzy always begins before free agency officially does. Every time you checked Tuesday, it was as if something else happened, and it was big. After simmering since the end of the season, wallets were opened and general managers free.

The Carolina Panthers began by taking the same approach the Charlotte Hornets did before the NBA trading deadline. They did nothing. And then they did.

The Panthers signed Matt Paradis, 29, a fine center for the Denver Broncos. He broke his fibula last October. If he passes his physical, he becomes an anchor for the offensive line, and frees the Panthers to take whomever they want in next month’s NFL draft.

Paradis was once the best high school football player in Idaho, which is better than being second and third, and means you can play for Boise State, which Paradis did. He’ll replace Ryan Kalil, Carolina’s long-time center, who retired. This was good work...

▪ I never even considered paying a volleyball coach to recruit my kids so I could get them into a school they otherwise couldn’t. The stories with which I’m familiar usually have the school, or an apparel executive, paying the families of high school basketball stars…

▪ I’m pulling for West Charlotte High on Saturday in the state basketball championship game. The Lions will play in Raleigh. The Charlotte to Raleigh trip usually is easy. But the Lions were, through circumstances not of their doing, forced to take the long way. Raleigh feels like a journey. They will play a very good, and very tall, one-loss South Central team. But the Lions are nothing if not resilient…

▪ Out of habit, when my phone rings, I answer it. No more. On Monday I told one guy I didn’t need what he was selling and he hung up on me. You can’t call me and hang up. I get to hang up. I called the guy back but his number was out of service. Can’t remember if he was selling a warranty for my 10-year-old car, open cabins on a cruise ship or supplemental insurance.

My friends and I communicate almost exclusively by text message, and many stopped answering their phone long ago. I worry about missing a call. But if it’s important, they’ll leave a voicemail, right?

This story was originally published March 13, 2019 at 10:42 PM.