The Cologne Cathedral’s twin spires stand 516 feet tall, dominating the city’s skyline along the Rhine River in western Germany.
“Stand right in front of it,” said Timothy Davis, “and it makes you feel kind of tiny.”
Davis, a senior guard at Cedarville University, grew up in this shadow. His U.S.-born father moved to Cologne to play competitive American football and basketball. Timothy spent the first 15 years of his life abroad before he moved to his father’s home state of Georgia for high school.
Davis had not played organized basketball in two years when he visited Cedarville, a small school in southwest Ohio bordered by pastures and Native American mounds. He had been sidelined by high school transfer rules and COVID restrictions. Nevertheless, the Yellow Jackets’ summer scrimmage played into his strengths.
“I was lucky that at my tryout it wasn’t a scheduled practice,” Davis said.
“That’s what I had been doing for two years, just playing open gym.”
The German-American guard blossomed into one of the Yellow Jackets’ sharpest shooters. In a drubbing of Boyce College in 2023, Davis made seven of seven 3-point attempts, setting a single-game school record.
Cedarville won the 2024 National Christian Collegiate Athletics Association Tournament championship, but it lost every full-time starter in the offseason. Now the team’s only senior, Davis is embracing his leadership role a long way from home.
Worlds Apart
With an American father, Timothy is not your prototypical German. He grew up watching “The Wizards of Waverly Place” and speaking flawless American English. However, when he moved to Georgia for high school, culture shock still set in.
“Seeing all the lockers and the cafeteria,” Davis said, “it felt like you were living out a TV show.”
Davis started ninth grade at Sequoyah High School, 35 miles north of Atlanta, before transferring to a rival school for two years. He transferred back to Sequoyah for his senior year, which lost him his athletic eligibility.
At that point, he’d been recruited by two Division II colleges, but Davis had dreams of playing Division I. He thought a year at the preparatory Winchendon School in Massachusetts could poise him for the next level. COVID policies were more persistent than any college scout, though.
“It was similar to Germany, actually, as far as the lockdowns,” Davis said.
“We had like two games that season, and we were wearing our masks while we were playing.”
Davis’ father’s old college coach connected him with Cedarville’s staff and secured the summer tryout. He met Coach Pat Estepp and made the team. Estepp led the Yellow Jackets for 16 seasons and won three NCCAA Championships. He left Cedarville in the summer of 2024 to take an assistant coaching position at Division I Furman.
Davis fit in as a role player, averaging almost six minutes per game his freshman year and shooting 33% from the 3-point line, but he certainly felt the rust from two years off the court.
“I would come off the bench and it would be really tough for me to catch a rhythm,” he said.
He fought a mental battle to be “fully locked in 100% as you’re stepping out onto the court.”
Full Speed Guy
After his first-year struggles, Davis developed a locker room routine to mentally prepare for games. He spent about 10 minutes doing “a breathing exercise or prayer or both” to create the right headspace before he stepped on the court.
In practice, he created intentionality behind his drills by visualizing late-game situations and maneuvering around imaginary defenders.
“He’s never in there going half speed,” said Head Coach Rob Jones. “He’s a full speed guy.”
“Whenever I hear the ball bouncing and I walk down the hallway to the gym, and I peek in there, he could be in there by himself…he could be shooting with a friend. He’s got a full sweat and he’s getting game speed reps.”
Jones took over a reigning NCCAA Tournament champion in July 2024, but one that had lost every full-time starter.
As the lone senior and player with the most college experience on the roster, Davis stepped into a natural leadership role.
“[He] wears his heart on his sleeve,” Jones said. “And he’s not afraid to use his voice in encouraging ways and corrective ways, accountability ways. He’s really terrific.”
Sophomore guard Anthony Ruffolo, a co-captain with Davis this season, battled through ups and downs his first year. In Cedarville’s first game against Kentucky Weslyan, Ruffolo shot just 2-for-7 from the field and the Yellow Jackets lost by 36.
“When we played them the second time, [Davis] kind of brought me aside pregame,” Ruffolo said.
“And he kind of just instilled in me the confidence just to go out have fun and do my thing.”
Ruffolo scored 18 points, including four 3-pointers, in the game, which Cedarville also lost, but by 13.
“I ended up having a really good game that day in part due to his leadership,” Ruffolo said.
Servant Leader
Davis grew up Christian, going to church every Sunday and understanding scripture. But his parents remained in Germany while he attended high school. Davis hopped between host families in Georgia, some less religious than others, and he found himself idolizing “basketball and popularity.”
Affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, Cedarville takes its faith life seriously with daily chapel services and strict campus policies.
The summer after his first year, Davis missed the regular religious interactions.
“So I just started reading the Bible more and getting in the Word, and that’s when I feel like I fully gave my life to Christ,” he said.
Now a senior, Davis leads the team’s Bible study and encourages the younger players to attend.
“It’s not uncommon for me to walk into the locker room and for Timmy to have his Bible open,” said Jones. “And two or three guys are sitting around.”
“The conversations we’ve had have been some of the most meaningful, impactful and just uplifting,” said Ruffolo.
“You can just see his smile and the way he treats people, and it’s evident of how close he is with God.”
Davis thinks he’s only able to lead effectively with a selfless, Christian mindset.
“It’s so crucial in a leadership role…to be a servant leader,” he said.
“I feel like you can’t really do that without Christ because he’s the one who showed us how to do that.”
Davis also finds his international perspective makes it easier to jive with teammates from Poland, Nigeria and the Czech Republic.
“He can connect with anybody: young, old, man, woman, it doesn’t matter,” Jones said.
“Timmy connects with every single guy, and I think that’s a foundation of leadership.”
Davis likes to introduce himself as Timmy because “it’s contradicting.” When people hear the name “Timmy,” he said, they think of a Caucasian kindergartener and not a college basketball player.
His teammates, though, sometimes forgo any version of “Timothy.” Instead, they call him “Davis Goggins,” after ultramarathoner David Goggins, “because of how hard he works and how much he cares,” Ruffolo said.
Necessity and Invention
In 2017, Davis’ mother Claudia underwent medical breast surgery. When doctors told her she would be unable to lay on her chest or side for the ensuing weeks, she tried stacking pillows to help her sleep face-down. Claudia then designed the LaNora breast pillow, which helps a patient sleep comfortably on their stomach while keeping their chest off the bed.
Timothy, a finance major, started working on LaNora’s brand for a Shark Tank style entrepreneurship competition. He and fellow German student Louisa Schmidt-Krayer pitched the pillow during the competition at Cedarville in 2023.
“It is a high-quality product made in Germany, just like the two entrepreneurs you see standing in front of you,” Schmidt-Krayer said.
The pair won the competition and a $1,000 prize to help build the product.
The Davises are working to scale up LaNora’s production and market the pillow globally. Timothy and his brother pitched the pillow at a fair in South Korea in 2023.
“I’m actually using three of them right now for my foot,” Davis said.
He’s nursing a sprained ankle, which will keep him sidelined through December. Davis, though, is grateful that he should be on the court for the bulk of the Great Midwestern Athletic Conference schedule after the new year.
After graduation, he hopes to play basketball in Germany and continue his work with LaNora.
“He is so gifted. Whether it be from a presentation standpoint, whether it be from the entrepreneurial side, of like creative thinking,” Jones said.
“He always adds value to whatever environment he’s in. That could be athletics, that could be education. Whatever room he walks into, he elevates it.”
It might be easy to realize how small you are when standing beneath one of the world’s tallest churches. But in Cedarville, the highest structures are undulating knolls. So Davis is left raising up those around him, not because “Timmy” thinks he’s small, but because he’s seen enough of the world to know that how small he really is.
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