A special brand of scorer

Somewhere on a farm in the heart of Ames, Iowa, gold medal wrestler Cael Sanderson is saying his dinner prayers twofold.

See, about a full day's drive east, in North Andover, Mass., there was a young kid on the wrestling mat making waves that resonated around the country, including the farmlands of Iowa.

Charlie Davies was a wrestler in every sense of the word. As a grappler at Brooks School, he went an undefeated 26-0 in his four year career, with cat-like quickness and throw-down strength that would have made any wrestler shake in his singlet. In his first year of wrestling, after having never touched a mat before, Davies went out and won the New England championship. In his next three years, he won two more, including three ISL championships.

Davies was set to be the next big thing to crash the sport of wrestling. Listed at 160 pounds, Davies would have weighed in at 72.6 kilograms for this summer's Olympic Games. If he gained three pounds over the next four years, Davies would move up to the 74-84 kilogram class in Beijing, the same class where Sanderson took gold three months ago.

No one would have held it against Sanderson for being a little frightened. But he won't have to worry, because when Davies left Brooks School, he left his wrestling shoes in the ring, so that he could continue to play his first love: soccer.

"He was the best new wrestler I have ever coached," said Brooks wrestling coach Alex Konovalchik. "He could have been a Division I All-American if he had stuck with it."

His wrestling coach wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Can you even imagine that?" asked Boston College soccer head coach Ed Kelly. "Wrestling was his second sport. I have never heard of anybody who could have been a National Champion in their second sport. It was incredibly impressive."

Soccer had always been Davies' sport, but a rule at Brooks School forcing every student to participate in a sport during all three trimesters led Davies to take up wrestling.

"I just thought to myself, what is the hardest sport I can do," said Davies. "I am glad I picked wrestling. It gave me the strength, discipline, and mental toughness I needed to improve my soccer game."

While Davies turned the heads of wrestling scouts from around the country, the whiplash he gave to soccer scouts didn't even compare. As a senior at Brooks School, Davies led the soccer team to a perfect 15-0-0 record, helping it win its first Gummere Cup (which comes with an ISL championship) since 1996 and become the first team to ever run the table in ISL play.

Davies set single season records in with 70 points, and 31goals, three of which came on a hat trick in the team's final 6-0 win against Lawrence Academy.

To sum up how good Davies was, his high school and now BC teammate Shane Boggis didn't need many words. "Unstoppable," said Boggis. "That kid's special."

Davies was definitely a special kind of soccer player, and it didn't take BC long to realize that. In fact, it took them approximately 60 seconds. At 12:01 a.m., on the first day college coaches were allowed to call high school players, the phone in Davies' house rang. Davies wasn't there to answer it, since he was sleeping over at a friend's house that night. But the quickness in Coach Kelly's dialing was noted.

"My father wanted me to stay close to home," said Davies. "After thinking a lot, it came down to between BC and UConn. But the way Ed [Kelly] called me a minute after the deadline really made the decision easier. It really made me feel wanted. I am glad I came too, because Ed [Kelly] and Heno [Ian Hennessy, men's soccer assistant coach] are really the best coaches I could have"

"It is the first time I have ever done that," said Kelly about calling so early on the first recruiting day.

Good thing he did. If the hat trick in his final game in a Brooks uniform was any indication on how good Davies was at finishing a career, what he has done in the first month in a BC uniform sure shows that he knows how to start them as well.

With a little over 30 minutes gone in his first game as an Eagle, Davies scored the first goal of his collegiate career, which also stands as the first goal in the Eagles' 2004 season. In his second game, Davies scored again, this time his goal being the only goal scored in BC's 1-0 win vs. Cal State Northridge. If that wasn't enough to get fans squirming in the bleachers on Newton Campus, Davies scored the game-winner in BC's third game at Syracuse, where BC again won by the score of 1-0. In a total of eight games, Davies leads all Eagles with five goals, 12 points and 24 shots on goal.

With all of his early success with BC and at Brooks School, Davies has spent a lifetime impressing people. But as good as he has been, there is still one person who remains unimpressed by Davies' play, and who refuses to be satisfied with what he has accomplished.

"I haven't been happy with a performance yet," said Davies. "I leave every game with a list of things to improve on. If I scored three goals, than I should have scored four."

With five goals and three game-winners in eight games, it is difficult not to find something to be happy about. But for Davies, it is that kind of attitude that drives him to always keep improving his already phenomenal game.

So what can we expect from Davies as he approaches his second month in a BC uniform?

"He has really arrived as a player and a young man," said Konovalchik. "He has so many opportunities at his feet, and he'll only get better as he continues to grow."

"Certainly his best days are ahead of him," said Kelly. "If he keeps everything in proper perspective, he will be great."