Davis’ sudden death reverberates through local sports community

The excitement that came Friday, Aug. 23, with opening night of the high school football season was tempered by the news that former longtime referee Shannon Davis had unexpectedly passed away at the age of 51.

Davis, who called high school football and baseball games for more than 20 years, was working as the maintainance superviser at Barton College after spending many years in that capacity for Nash County Public Schools. He had stepped away from officiating games after calling his third and final NCHSAA football championship game in 2018 but the news of Davis’ death sent reverberations through the officiating community.

“You know, he was just a great guy,” said Mike Webster, who helped Davis and his brother, Chris, get into officiating. “There’s no — I’m at loss for words. I just can’t. It’s tough.”

Webster recalled first meeting “the Davis boys” when they played baseball at Hunt High in the late 1980s. The two were instrumental in the Warriors’ run to the state 4-A championship series in 1989 when Chris was a senior 6-foot-4 left-handed pitcher and Shannon — who not quite that tall and earned the nickname, “Shorty” — was the starting shortstop.

The brothers later were teammates for the Wilson American Legion baseball team and then played on former Barton College head coach Todd Wilkinson’s first Bulldogs teams.

That’s when Shannon took a shine to groundskeeping and started working every summer for Webster when he was the Wilson Parks and Recreation Department parks manager.

“They worked for me for five summers in the parks department,” Webster said. “And I mean, and not only did they work, their granddaddy, Bud Davis, came and worked the whole time with them. I just thought the world of the whole family … They were the hardest working family and group of people I’ve ever been around, and never complained or griped.”

Shannon Davis used that as a springboard into a career in grounds maintenance, eventually turning the playing fields at Nash County schools into jewels.

“He turned their athletic fields and stuff into quite the thing,” Webster said. “I remember when he was calling me, asking me about the hybrid turf grass when Rocky Mount built their new high school and he was instrumental on a lot of that.”

As a longtime referee at the high school and national collegiate levels, Webster helped usher the brothers into officiating. Babe Allen, another longtime umpire and assigner, said that their excellence as athletes transitioned into both becoming outstanding officials.

Shannon Davis started umpiring baseball games for Allen while still in college. He continued to do it before stepping away from baseball for a few years when his kids were young. Allen recalled the time he got a phone call while waiting for a plane on vacation in Florida. It was Shannon Davis calling to ask if he could start calling games again.

Allen couldn’t say yes fast enough.

“I said, ‘Absolutely!’” Allen said. “Because when you lose people like him, it hurts, and then when they want to come back, man, it makes you very excited about it.”

Shannon Davis was on the crew for the 2011 Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas as well. He worked mostly as the back judge but was wearing the referee’s white hat over the last few years of his career of more than 20 years calling football games. Davis worked one NCHSAA baseball championship and three NCHAA finals in football, the first and last with his brother on the crew. Allen officiated the 2003 state final with the Davis brothers in Chapel Hill. Davis and his brother called one last state championship game together in 2018 along with fellow Wilson official Rob Weatherford.

“He was special. He was a special person,” Allen said.

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