Kumar Davis to UMass

Stanford's loss is UMass's gain.

Eastside running back/safety Kumar Davis said he grew tired of waiting
to hear if he had been admitted to Stanford, and ultimately decided to play for Division I-AA UMass instead. The Minutemen finished 10-3 and ranked No. 6 nationally last season.

The 6-foot, 200-pound Davis will sign a National Letter of Intent Thursday  at Eastside. Twenty four hours later, he will play for the Passaic County basketball championship when No. 6 Eastside meets No. 1 Paterson Catholic at noon at Wayne Valley.

"I'm real excited," Davis said Thursday by phone. "They're I-AA but they still have big-time football and they still compete for the national
championship often."

A hard-charging, physical back, Davis rushed for 1,452 yards and 12 touchdowns last season and caught 12 receptions for another 134 yards to earn first-team All-Passaic and Herald News All-Area honors. Defensively, he made 27 total tackles, four sacks and deflected two passes.

Davis turned down scholarship offers from Vanderbilt and Northwestern, both top-notch academic institutions, while awaiting a response from Stanford, which had offered a scholarship but could not admit him until he was accepted by the Admissions Department.

Davis said he was sold on UMass after visiting the Amherst, Mass. school two weeks ago and staying with a host from Teaneck, redshirt sophomore defensive end Mike Hanson.

"They had my jersey hanging up in the lockerroom when I went to visit,"
Davis said. "It had Davis on the locker and everything. They were
telling me about how good the academic department was."

Davis said he will have a chance to play free and true safety as a true
freshman, and hopes to team with Tyrone McBride, a safety from Winslow Township High who also verballed to UMass.

Former Passaic Tech standout Marcel Shipp also played for UMass and is
now with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals.

"Marcel Shipp went there and he's in the NFL," Davis said.