Los Angeles native Jay Davis is a San Jose State economics junior who’s making a name for himself as a TV star in a new Netflix original docuseries.
Davis is being featured in the show “Last Chance U: Basketball” after transferring to SJSU as a student-athlete at his community college.
The series is a spinoff of the original football version that premiered in 2016 and gained popularity on the platform.
Davis grew up in the Mid City neighborhood in Central LA and said sports has always been a big part of his life. He would travel around the area for sports and to visit family, but said he comes from humble beginnings.
“We were playing football in the street like all night,” Davis said during a Zoom interview. “We were playing freeze tag, tag, anything like that.. So l just grew up, like I said, real
old school.”
Davis said his skills on the basketball court and his respectful, hard-working mindset are how he caught the attention of SJSU’s then-assistant men’s basketball coach Jay Morris, who convinced Davis to apply to San Jose State after high school.
Davis said his plans changed after Morris took a job at another university and he didn’t end up playing for SJSU his freshman year.
“My first year, I was scrambling,” Davis said. “At that point, I was just coming off a state championship and I was like, I’m still trying to hoop. I’m still trying to play.”
He said he didn’t let that negatively affect his mental health. Davis persevered and spent that year networking when he played in a showcase. It was there he met Kenneth Hunter, the assistant coach for the East Los Angeles College (ELAC) Huskies.
Davis soon met the rest of the coaching staff and started working with the team in the summer when head coach John Mosley noticed his skills and character.
“I’m a very disciplined dude,” Davis said. “I always respect authority, so he never had an issue with me.”
A couple of months after he started training with the team he tried out and officially made the roster.
That was when the Netflix opportunity came.
After “Last Chance U” gained attention, producers took to the basketball court and focused the narrative on ELAC.
Davis said it was a case of being at the right place at the right time.
“No recruit did [Coach Mosley] tell that Netflix was coming,” Davis said. “I was already committed to coming to ELAC before I even knew Netflix was [coming or] anything
about Netflix.”
He said Mosley even kept information regarding the show from other coaches.
The team didn’t realize the power their show would have and Davis said they even questioned if the series would be good. Him and his teammates were pleasantly surprised with the final product.
“We couldn’t find the story that they were going to project until it came out,” Davis said. “When they gave us a chance to see it, we were like woah. This is why y’all
get paid to do this because once it came out, we were like ‘yo, this is great.’ ”
He said the feedback the team received after the show came out has been amazing, but he doesn’t focus on that aspect too much.
Davis’ older brother Ryan Davis expressed pride about the person he’s become.
“I have watched him become such a good, well-rounded young man,” Ryan Davis said during a Zoom call. “I always tell people he [Davis] is the best version of us.”
Ryan Davis said Davis was so casual about the entire Netflix situation.
“It got me because he just sends me a text like ‘hey, I’ll be on Netflix in a couple of week’s,’ and I’m like, ‘I was at those games. You didn’t tell me when I was in the stands. This is what took y’all so long in the locker room,’ ” Ryan Davis said.
Through the jokes, Ryan Davis said he’s happy to see his brother excelling and even said he looks up to Davis and he knows whatever Davis does with his future will be great.
Political Science junior Tatiana Sallins has been Davis’ friend since their freshman year at SJSU.
“We both took Psych 1 together and we sat next to each other,” Sallins said during a phone interview. “We just started talking and became good friends. I would say he’s one of my good friends even still.”
She said she’s not the only one rooting for him and is happy he had such an amazing opportunity.
“I was so proud of him and it was such an amazing achievement, all of our friends were so proud of what he’s done,” Sallins said.
Davis graduated with his associate’s degree from ELAC last year and is back at SJSU where he’s expected to graduate in spring 2022.
