Fan Fare: UK walk-on Davis all-SEC in community service

Marcus Davis will always be associated with one of the more bittersweet moments in University of Kentucky sports history.

For the 2009 UK football season opener against Miami (Ohio) in Cincinnati, Davis, then a junior walk-on offensive lineman from Boone County, seemed to be receiving an unusually kind treat from fate.

With UK starting center Jorge Gonzalez suspended for that one game, the 6-foot-1, 283-pound Davis won the battle to start in his place.

It meant a kid who had grown up in the Northern Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati rooting for the Bengals was getting a chance to make his first college start before all his family and friends in Paul Brown Stadium.

"It was a great feeling leading up to it, the excitement," Davis said last week. "Then when the game started, I was in there, playing, it was a great time."

Angela Marcello Paz Vega Rebecca Mader Eva Green Lauren Conrad