SPRUCE GROVE — It’s hard not to pull for Torrey Davis.

What the six-foot-three, 298-pound defensive tackle went through last year nearly brought his professional football career — if not the entire CFL — to its knees.

The tragic drowning death of his five-year-old son, Torrey Jr., last May was felt throughout the ranks of the northern league.

The youngster was playing on the deck of a pool at an apartment in Tampa, Fla., with his mother — Davis’s high-school sweetheart — when she left to check on some food. She returned minutes later to find a crowd gathering as her son was being pulled out of the water.

He was brought to the hospital, but didn’t survive.

“I lost my son. That was my best friend and really my everything,” Davis said with watery eyes. “He was a large part of the reason I kept pushing through all my falls and failures.

“As a young man coming up through college, he was the reason I wanted to turn around and get it right.”

But he’s not at Edmonton Eskimos training camp looking for sympathy. He’s looking to earn a job.

“I get that kind of feeling when (the coaches) talk to me but that’s nothing that I want,” Davis said after the team wrapped up another two-a-day session Wednesday at Fuhr Sports Park. “I’m used to going hard-nosed in anything I do. I’m going to come out here and compete like the next man.

“I don’t want any handouts just because I had certain things go on. I’m going to come out here and compete and earn my spot just like any other man out here.”

Like a lot of players who get invited to a CFL training camp, Davis arrived on the doorstep of the Calgary Stampeders in 2011 brimming with potential.

“I’ve known Torrey for quite some time, I brought him into Calgary years ago, his first year in the league,” said Eskimos head coach Chris Jones, who co-ordinated the Stampeders defence at the time. “He was at Florida and then he transferred to Jacksonville State and a buddy of mine told me he had a good player.

“We ended up bringing him to Calgary and then from there, he went to Hamilton.”

After being traded to the Tiger-Cats on Sept. 5, 2012, Davis played in the 101st Grey Cup the following season and looked to be on top of the world. That off-season, it all came crashing down.

He didn’t make the trip back to the Grey Cup with the Ticats the next year after getting released four weeks into the 2014 schedule.

“To be honest with you, I think I really needed that time to refocus and use that time to gather myself. I was feeling down for a little while,” Davis said of his time away from football. “I went to the Lord and was told the Lord doesn’t make mistakes.

“It was a horrible tragedy. I think about him every day and I think he would want me to push forward, just to keep going and continue living my dream. Everything I do, I do it for him.”

This year, Davis is getting a fresh start with a new team after being reunited with Jones through free agency.

“Like I say, my guys are always my guys,” Jones said. “And unfortunately, man, that happened last year and it just makes a hole in your stomach.

“But he’s a great kid and when he flashes, he flashes.”

The coach couldn’t be blamed if at least a part of him hoped that skill burns bright enough throughout training camp to land Davis a roster spot.

“It’s a business, so the best players play,” Jones said. “Certainly, you always wish the best for all your guys, but that was a tough pill.

“It shocked the whole league because it’s a small league and everybody knows everybody.”

It just so happens that Jones and Davis know each other better than most.

“We have a great bond, man,” Davis said. “He’s like another father figure or another uncle or older brother to me. He’s a great man, a great father, just a great leader.

“I knew if anything happened anywhere else, his was the first team I was going to come play for.”

Esks ahead of schedule

SPRUCE GROVE — A year ago, it was all on first-time head coach Chris Jones and his staff to lay the new law of the land for the Edmonton Eskimos.

This time around, he’s gathered a much bigger posse of returning players to help lighten the load.

“It makes it where you’re coaching more for one group rather than two groups, so they can police themselves,” said Jones, who is coming off a 12-6 record as a rookie head coach in the CFL with three times as many wins as the team had from the year before. “They know the expectation level of the effort that we need at practice and they know what they’ve got to do to win games.”

And, thanks to having 51 names returning from last year’s roster and another three who were either at their 2014 training camp or have played for Jones in the past, all the other 31 players currently in camp know it too.

“It kind of reminds me of when we were in Montreal, we had a lot of returning players and a lot of continuity,” said Jones, who spent the first six years of his CFL coaching career with the Alouettes. “It’s nice because we can do a lot of things defensively and give the offence a lot of looks.

“I think in the long-run it will benefit us.”

Jones said this team is already ahead of the times compared to his last training camp.

“We’re about in Week 2 of where we were last year with our install and those (new) guys, I’ve thrown a lot at them,” Jones said. “Kind of the whole system and I’m real proud of the efforts they’ve put in.”

Uno Moss

Someone alert the Eskimos that training camp can officially begin now that Joey Moss is here.

The longtime equipment attendant turned up for Day 4 to spread his new-found fame.

“He looked great. He was in rare form, as usual,” Jones said of Moss, the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame’s most recent inductee. “He and Odell (Willis) didn’t get into any skirmishes, so it was all good.

“This morning in the cafeteria, he comes walking through and it’s a plus for him to be around our football team.”

In and out

WR Devon Bailey, WR Chad Bumphis, WR Shamawd Chambers (knee), DB Alonzo Lawrence, RB Aaron Milton, OL Simeon Rottier (knee) sat out practice due to injury, while CB Patrick Watkins remains on the suspended list.

While he didn’t get into specifics, Jones shed some light on the status of Bailey and Lawrence, who reported for pre-camp medicals with off-season injuries.

“They’re both day to day, just waiting to be cleared by our trainers,” Jones said. “I trust what they do and when they get back, they’ll be back.

“It’s just stuff that’s lingering. Kind of chronic-type stuff.”

As far as injuries go, Jones knows he has been pretty lucky in avoiding adding to the walking wounded.

“Yeah, I hate to even say yes,” the coach said. “We’re just hoping to be real smart with them as a coaching staff and not overwork them.”

gerry.moddejonge@sunmedia.ca