Amputee Davis part of Dalton's title run

With his left leg gone from the knee down, 13-year-old Trey Davis said he gets some peculiar looks from people when he's out in public places. But when he's in the swimming pool he feels more regular, like one of the boys.

Only he's faster than most of them in his age group.

Davis swims for the Dalton Dolphins, who are competing this weekend in the Chattanooga Area Swim League's city meet at Warner Park.

Signal Mountain leads the team standings after Friday's first day of competition with 1,038 points - 33 ahead of second-place Dalton. Stuart Heights and Fairyland Club are third and fourth with 791.5 and 700. Competition resumes this morning at 8:30 and concludes with the remaining finals scheduled to start at about 6 p.m.

Davis was born with a chronic bone deficiency that left one of his legs shorter than the other. He said when he learned to walk he found he had to extend to walking tiptoed on the one leg to counterbalance the other.

The condition worsened as he grew. Ultimately he was admitted to the Shriners Hospital for Children in Greenville, S.C., where doctors revealed he had a six-inch discrepancy in the length of his legs and a left foot mangled to the point that Davis was told it looked as though it had been struck with a hammer. He was 11 years old when the amputation took place on Aug. 25, 2009.

Basketball was the first sport he tried while wearing a prosthetic leg, but football was where his heart belonged. He went to seventh-grade tryouts last year and made the team.

"I'd been wanting to play since I was 5 years old," Davis said. "It was a dream come true."

Fulfilling his late grandmother Thelma Diamond's dying wish was how he got into swimming.

"She thought I'd be good at it," he said.

Dolphins coach Charles Todd knows Davis well. Todd also is the head football coach and swimming coach at Dalton Middle, where Davis will be an eighth-grader this year.

"I teach physical education and have Trey in physical education," said Todd, who also coaches the swim team at Dalton High School and the year-around program for the Carpet Capital Aquatics Club. "He's really an outstanding athlete."

Davis is entered in the 50-, 100- and 200-yard freestyle events this weekend, as well as the 100 and 200 backstroke races and the 100 butterfly. He swam a personal-best 30.8 seconds in the 50 freestyle - his favorite event - in the Dolphins' most recent meet at Fort Oglethorpe on July 11. Dalton finished the year 7-1 atop the Blue Division standings.

Todd has encouraged Davis to try to make the U.S. Paralympic team.

"Earlier this year I told him about the Paralympics, which coincidentally are in London the week after the Olympics," Todd said. "He would have to swim pretty well to do that, but it could happen."

Up next, Davis will swim for Team Georgia in the Southern Zone Championships. He will join teammate Ethan Young, a high-point favorite today in the 13-14 boys' age group, in the competition scheduled Tuesday through next Saturday in Cary, N.C.

Davis could end up joining Dalton teammate Taylor Dale, who at 15 was the high-point boys' swimmer in the 15-18 age group in the city meet last year, in the Junior National Championships running Aug. 8-12 at Stanford University.

Given his age, Davis is uncertain about the direction he wishes to move in the future. He's also interested in hunting and target shooting with bows and rifles, and he's involved in Whitfield County's 4-H program.

He also mentors his 11-year-old brother, Ross, who's a swimmer, too. And there's that other sport that's big in Dalton, and its season is on the horizon.

"Football and swimming are different sports, yes, but I love football and want to try to play it as much as I can," Davis said. "But swimming is a little easier physically."

Grandmother had a premonition.

"If he keeps swimming," Todd said, "a lot of good things could happen for him."

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