Men’s basketball alumnus Davis Larson ‘21 was recently named to the active roster for the Duquesne University Dukes after beginning his time there as a graduate assistant for the team.
For the Chargers, Larson was a three-year starter, with 991 career points and he holds the fourth best all-time career three-point percentage.
Larson said he now hopes to become a basketball coach and is pursuing a master’s degree in management from Duquesne, where he originally joined the team as a graduate assistant.
“I was able to work with him hands on as a grad assistant for the first three months that he was here, he was just great, he’s got a really good temperament for the operation and support staff duties, and there are a number of them,” Assistant Athletic Director for basketball administration Ari Stern said. “We asked a lot out of him as a grad assistant and they’re not the most glorious tasks, but he just took everything head on.”
After a rash of injuries plagued the team, a roster spot was left open that the team needed to fill, so they asked Larson. This, however, was not a straightforward decision for the former Charger.
When he joined the team as a grad assistant, neither Larson nor his coaches had any intention of him ever being on the roster. After graduating from Hillsdale last spring, Larson said he viewed his collegiate career, as a player at least, as over and done with.
“I wanted to end my career playing at Hillsdale, but the way I look at it now is that this is more of a professional deal, this isn’t college basketball because my college basketball experience at Hillsdale was too good and nothing could compare,” Larson said. “To be fair to Hillsdale and Duquesne, this is more of a professional basketball type of thing for me.”
Now that he is a member of the active roster, Stern said that Larson has already begun to gel with the team and has taken on a leadership role.
“The biggest thing that stood out to me the whole time was his loyalty to Hillsdale,” Stern said. “That was his only reservation, that he didn’t want to make anyone upset there because he was playing in a different jersey, I think that says a lot about a person, when they have that type of loyalty.”
