Coach ,

For Madison-Ridgeland Academy, the 2019 season ended with head coach Herbert Davis and his players storming the field and hoisting a state championship trophy.

2020 ended the same way with MRA repeating as state champions.

The story of adversity and the will of a coach to overcome it in between those 365 days is one of inspiration and courage. In the months following the 2019 season, Coach Davis was diagnosed with Stage 5 kidney disease and needed a new kidney.

As the year progressed, the added threat of COVID to Davis’s condition made the picture bleeker.  It’s a situation that would sideline most people.  

But not Davis.

When asked by a reporter about the huge risk, Davis replied:

“I am a football coach; this is what I do. You gotta live life. Now, in my case, you gotta live it smart. I coach from the lift at practice. I don’t go in the locker room. When I am around the kids, like in the film room, I wear two masks and a face shield.”

“I love the kids, I love the game. This is who I am. Shutting it down was never a consideration. Never.”

In addition to taking the extra precautions, he undergoes 7 1/2 hours of dialysis every night while he sleeps. He is on the kidney transplant waitlist, waiting for a matching donor.

Like 2019, it was the perfect ending for MRA and Coach Davis.  It reflects Davis’s and his team’s mantra when facing adversity: Doesn't matter, trust God.

After the perfect 12-0 season with an early signature win over Deion Sanders' team on ESPN, Davis’ overall record as a head football coach is 208-85. He is believed to be the only active coach in Mississippi to have coached five different schools to state championship games. 

These past two championships didn’t come about on pure will and determination.  MRA needed to find some strategic advantages to what they were doing.  

They had struggled against their rival who they would play twice each season.  Over a ten year period, MRA was only able to score 24 points or more twice while their rival missed scoring over 24 only two times. The bottom line was that MRA had to score more points.

Since they have made what Davis refers to as “the switch,” MRA has excelled at scoring points and putting teams away early.  Davis discusses “the switch”  the results in this video:

In his course “Calling the Perfect Play,” Davis teaches how they use RPO,  “Gas” tempo,  screens and verticals to create explosive plays and put points on the board.

In their vertical 3rd level RPO called “Pepsi” they were 8 of 9, 61% with an average gain of  19 yards.

Here is an example of “Pepsi”:

Receiver’s Coach John Weaver explains the basis of the quick game which becomes part of their RPOs:

The combination of their package and the tempo at which they run it provided the strategic advantage they needed to be able to overcome their rival and win back-to-back-state championships.

Coach Davis and Coach Weaver have put these two courses together into the “Perfect Play Bundle” so you can learn exactly how they did it.

Though the state championship trophy stays at MRA, the battle is not over for Coach Davis.  We offer our prayers and wish him the best of luck in his path back to being healthy. 

Thank you Coach Davis for your shining example of how to fight and overcome adversity!

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski