It all started innocently enough. Two friends, Curtis Thomas and Anthony Saeger, convinced Davis Baldwin to try soccer four years ago. Davis was 10 years old and thought it would be fun to hang out with his friends while chasing a soccer ball. Four years later, Baldwin has turned into a pretty good soccer player who has a real opportunity to take the skills he has learned playing futbol and use them on the football field for the Valdosta Wildcats. “I just started playing to spend time with friends. But I found out I really like the game. I enjoy scoring goals. I also enjoy watching them score and do well,” he says.
Baldwin is a versatile player. He can run, distribute the ball, use both feet equally well, and is accurate to the goal. He plays right midfielder and scored five goals this season, two of which came against Lowndes Middle. In 2013, he also scored a pair of goals against LMS, and he cites those two games as his biggest moments on the pitch.
Soccer is his favorite sport and there are few things he would rather be doing. But the skills he has developed playing soccer have had a bit of an unintended consequence. As he has gotten better on the pitch, he has turned into a pretty good placekicker for the football Wildcats. This season, he handled all of the kicking duties for VMS: kick-offs, extra points, and field goals. By the end of the season, he was kicking field goals consistently from 35 yards out.
Kickers might be spared the physical abuse of a football game but the mental stress of their job presents its own unique set of challenges. Baldwin discovered just how difficult kicking can be this season against Colquitt. With very little time remaining, Valdosta Middle scored a touchdown to tie the game. Baldwin trotted on the field with the kicking team to attempt the extra point. If he made it, VMS would have a slim lead. If he missed, his team would have more work to do. “I took a deep breath and tried not to change anything about the way I kick. Then I just kicked it,” he recalls. The ball sailed through the uprights and Valdosta Middle had the lead. “Everyone started cheering. We thought we had won the game,” says Baldwin. Unfortunately, Colquitt quickly and efficiently marched down the field and scored to win. Football can indeed be a cruel sport.
As Baldwin transitions from middle school to high school, he would like to keep playing soccer and football. He truly loves both sports and will make an impact for the Wildcats on both fronts. He also understands and respects the Wildcats football tradition and being a part of Valdosta High’s gridiron heritage is something special to him. “I’m proud to be a Wildcat. It’s a huge deal being a part of the winningest high school football team in the country. Not everyone can say that,” he says.
Davis Baldwin has also participated in a third sport at Valdosta Middle – cross country. Though cross country and football occur at the same time of the year, he found a way to make it work. He would report to cross country practice and go through his running workouts. Then he would head to football practice and kick. It worked in middle school but won’t be so easy in high school. In fact, he says he probably won’t run next year. “I ran cross country to stay in shape for soccer. I don’t think I can run and play football in high school. I’ll just have to do conditioning on my own,” he says.
Favorites:
• Soccer player: Cristiano Ronaldo
• Subject: Science
• Least favorite: Math
• Last book: House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
• Last movie: Catching Fire
• Person to meet: Cristiano Ronaldo
• Place to travel: Australia
• Pepsi or Coke? Coke
Rising Star/South Georgia/May 2014
Davis Baldwin
Valdosta Middle School
Valdosta, Georgia
Robert Preston Jr.
VMS eighth-grader excels at futbol and football
