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JJ Davis suffered a broken wrist playing football, a cracked collarbone during wrestling practice, a broken collarbone playing baseball, and a fractured ankle playing soccer; he got stitches under his eye twice, broke a finger, and weathered a few concussions—all before the age of 18. For most of his life, the Baltimore native who grew up in the city’s Loch Raven neighborhood had been told “you’re too small” for whatever sport he was pursuing, forcing him to accept the fact he’d never be a professional athlete.
“I weighed 86 pounds my freshman year in high school, and I weighed 100 pounds when I graduated,” he recalled. “I always loved sports. But as everybody was getting bigger, I stayed the same.”
That didn’t mean he didn’t try. Saddled with the nickname “Rickets” due to his weak bones—“I knew my way to an X-Ray room,” he said with a chuckle—Davis pivoted to sports like tennis, wrestling, and soccer, which weren’t necessarily contingent on size.
“I wrestled only because I was the only guy under 100 pounds, and I played tennis, which I really wasn’t any good at, but our high school team wasn’t that much better,” he explained. “I played those three sports and was only one of two seniors that got three varsity letters.”
Although his small stature held him back in some areas, Davis was set on becoming a sportscaster and fortunate enough to discover that early on.
“Curt Gowdy was my hero growing up in the ’60s,” he said. “He called a lot of major sporting events, so I knew I wanted to be a sportscaster, and when you're that age, most of us had no clue what we wanted to do. I was lucky. I knew what I wanted to do.”
Armed with limitless ambition and an encyclopedic Rolodex of sports facts, Davis graduated with a degree in mass communications from Towson University in 1978 and took an internship at WJZ-TV while juggling a job waiting tables at The Family Fish House. His dream, however, was to work at ABC Sports in midtown Manhattan, something he eventually accomplished. But two weeks into the job, he realized it wasn’t for him.
“I wasn’t into being subservient,” he said matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t into scheduling the reservations, getting the ‘monies,’ or supplying the talent with all the statistics and things like that.”
So Davis left after 10 months and continued jumping around the country—a lot. He had stints as a sportscaster in West Virginia, North Carolina, Montana, and South Carolina (to name a few), while simultaneously chasing his passion for theater. In 1986, he packed up his car and moved to Los Angeles, where he got an agent and landed a job as a room service waiter at Universal Studios.
“I was there for 10 months, got an agent, got head shots taken twice, auditioned for shows and didn’t get anything,” he remembered. “You think you look good? Go into a room and there’re 20 other guys that look better than you.”
Davis’ Hollywood dream was turning into a nightmare and he missed sports. So he took another sportscasting job in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and continued acting at the Scranton Public Theater.
Along the way, he met his wife, Joan, and they had three children. While his personal life was on course, Davis was still struggling to find stability in his career. Fate soon intervened and landed him in Omaha, where he worked at KPTM from 2002 to 2010. There, he shot, produced, edited, and anchored nightly sportscasts and live sports specials.
Needless to say, Davis has lived more lives than a cat. Now a producer at Iowa Western Television at Iowa Western Community College—where he’s been since 2012—and the host of his own podcast, “In Focus with JJ Davis,” the 68-year-old has managed to keep his unwavering love of sports and storytelling alive.
“My gift is energy,” he said. “I have more energy than most people have at my age.”
It’s true; it comes across in everything he does. His infectious personality and unrelenting drive paired with his joie de vivre makes him a triple threat. His “can not can’t” mantra has taken him to unimaginable heights.
“I’m truly proudest of just ‘doing it,’” he said. “Lots of people talk about it, but not too many ‘do it.’ Perhaps the long-term dream never became a reality but in the end, it doesn't matter.”
He continued, “I have done what I have loved and not lived a life of quiet desperation. I have tried to stay humble. I know what I have done and the journey I have been on. No one else has a story that is close to mine, but we all have stories. One of my favorite sayings is ‘victory is in the attempt.’ No one has tried and believed any harder than me.”
In terms of the future, Davis is always setting new goals. After shooting, producing, writing, editing, and hosting “The Bluffs Sports Zone,” a weekly half-hour show he helmed for the first seven years at Iowa Western, he moved on to hosting a show called “IWTV News.” He’s also been the hand-held cameraman for MECA at the College World Series multiple times. For the past year, he’s been churning out stories about Iowa Western on social media platforms while juggling his theater career. He was last seen playing Jean Shepherd in the 2024 Rose Theater producer of “A Christmas Story.” Despite all of his accomplishments, Davis knows he has more work to do and vows to never retire.
“One of my new sayings is ‘keep going,’” he said. “I just want to keep working at Iowa Western, keep doing my podcast, keep doing theater, and make an audiobook of my story, ‘JJ of Loch Raven.’
“I’m always thinking about becoming a motivational speaker, too, as people tell me that I have a gift and should share it with people, inspire kids and so on. I am trying to enjoy life with my wife, Joan, and our kids, but I’m also never giving up or quitting on myself or my dreams. When you let go, when one just ‘settles,’ what else is there?”
This article originally appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
