Football Assistant Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator Ray Davis believes that St. Thomas High School is where he was always meant to be and has a string of serendipitous signs to prove it.
Hailing from Fayette, Missouri, he attended Fayette High School, where he played varsity football and baseball. On some occasions, he suited up to become the school mascot, Freddie the Falcon.
“The mascot could be a descendent of Tom Eagle,” Davis said.
“That is where my path to St. Thomas begins,” he continued.
Following his high school graduation, Davis enlisted in the United States Army, just five days after his seventeenth birthday. He served overseas twice, from 2003-2005 and again from 2008-2009. During his first deployment to Iraq, he was tasked with convoy security and transportation missions. His truck mate and battle buddy hailed from a small town, whose population at the time was roughly 200 people.
That town was St. Thomas, Missouri.
Carved into the metal plating of their truck was a message that read: ‘Show me the way home: Fayette, MO. St. Thomas, MO.’ Riding through the streets of Baghdad, Davis read those etchings every day.
Davis graduated from Central Methodist University in December 2006, with a degree in Mathematics and minor in Education.
He learned of a job opening in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District while attending a job fair at the University of Missouri. By chance, a fraternity brother and former college football teammate of his was already living, teaching, and coaching in Houston. Davis reached out for advice. The friend picked him up from the airport and drove him to the interview.
“Before we could do that, though, we went to where he lived, which was at the Bayou Apartments,” Davis said. “That’s right. The apartments that sit on the former ground that once belonged to St. Thomas High School.”
The very first football field Davis saw in the city of Houston was Granger Stadium.
“I could tell even then that the school was a special place,” he said. “And that it was surrounded by a community that cared.”
After working at Tomball Memorial High School and in Spring Branch ISD, Davis was finally shown the way home to St. Thomas in 2017.
“I didn’t recognize all these pieces before being hired,” Davis said. “The one that hit the most was when I was showing someone pictures from my time in Iraq, and we came across the photo that showed ‘show me the way home to St. Thomas, MO.’ The odds of knowing someone from there are very small, so being paired with Sergeant Bax, and then finding myself at home at St. Thomas, seems to be a fateful event to me.”
Soon after joining the Eagle family, his military service threw a wrench in his time coaching at the school. A few months into his new role as Defensive Coordinator, he was activated to serve and did so for the next 28 months in support of U.S. Border Patrol.
Despite being actively enlisted and out of Houston, Davis made it home to St. Thomas for every game in both the 2018 and 2019 football seasons, driving in from his various stations in Texas. He always arrived to the field in time for kickoff.
His mission ended and he returned to STH in August of 2020 as a PE/Health Teacher. He retired from the military in December of 2021 with 23 years of service.
“The motto of Eagle Fight Never Dies is one that coincides with the Army values.” he said. “I truly believe St. Thomas is where I was made to be.”
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