It must have felt just like old times for Liberal’s Nate Davis. He spent a week preparing for Saturday’s Shrine Bowl football game in Wichita with his two LHS head coaches Tom Schroeder and Steve Warner on his side. “Each coach brought something to Liberal and I took it with me to the game,” Davis said. Schroeder coached Davis his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons. “I felt that Nate Davis and I had a very close relationship,” Schroeder said. “We were very close the last three years and I had the opportunity to coach him one last time.” Schroeder says Davis ran low to the ground which helped him in the game. “He was real effective and Nate ran hard and had his shoulders down.” Schroeder credits running backs like Salina Central’s Taylor Counts and Lacrosse’s Marshall Musil who helped pave a path for Davis. “One thing that characterized this West team is he had number one running backs from other teams who were his blocking backs,” Schroeder said. “You didn’t hear any complaining from the kids or anything like that. And I think the way coach (Bo) Black put this together and sold it all week was great.” Schroeder is the new head football coach at Stillwell High School in Oklahoma. Buhler head coach Steve Warner coached Davis when he was a freshman at Liberal. Warner says when he made the decision to leave Liberal, it was difficult to tell Davis the news. “Nate and I talked when I told him I was leaving and it was very hard for both of us,” Warner said. “We were pretty close after just a year together because he was just a freshman when I left. That was hard but it was a lot of fun to have him here (Shrine Bowl)” Warner says he expects big things from Davis at Garden City Community College and beyond. “He’s just gotten bigger, faster, and stronger and he’s going to have a great career.”

Davis was successful in the game running for 67 yards and a touchdown. His touchdown gave the West a decisive 14-7 lead. “There was a small little tunnel,” Davis said. “I just tried to get low, coach has been on me all week about getting low. Right when I crossed the line I loosened up the grip of the ball and it fell out and I had to catch that back in.” Davis says he enjoyed the experience at camp in Salina leading up to the game. “It felt good. I was playing with the best and they pushed me the whole practice. If I let up one time I was sitting on my butt with a headache. It was either show up or go home.” Davis signed at Garden City to play football.