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If one skims through the South Lafourche football roster, nothing seems overly impressive about senior linebacker Davey Cheramie.
For starters, Cheramie is pretty small. He stands just 5-feet, 6-inches tall.
Heck, he’s not overly thick, either, weighing 150 pounds.
“And that’s if he’s soaked and wet,” Tarpons coach Dennis Skains is quick to say.
And a linebacker? Surely, that’s a type-o, right?
Wrong. That’s Cheramie’s actual position.
Surely, this little guy doesn’t see the field much, right?
Wrong again.
Despite his small stature, Cheramie is a big-time player for the Tarpons’ defense – a unit that is one of the best in the entire Tri-parish area.
In the Tarpons’ recent win against Central Lafourche, the linebacker scored two touchdowns – one on special teams and one on defense.
He creates havoc for opponents, despite having two bum shoulders, which causes him excruciating pain in games.
“He’s tough as nails,” Skains said. “He’s quick. He knows where the football is going to be. He’s smart. The only thing that limits him is his height. But he overcomes that.
“We understand that if someone else sees him out there, they might not think he can be an impact player. But don’t judge a book by its cover. We rely on Davey. He’s a big-time, special player for us.”
‘YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO KEEP HIM OFF THE FIELD’
This is Skains’ second season with South Lafourche.
Skains said that during a coach’s meeting in his first spring with the Tarpons, assistant coaches alerted him of Cheramie’s ability.
The young defender had just completed his sophomore season at the time as a defensive back for South Lafourche.
“(Defensive backs) coach Scott Sanamo and I were talking personnel that spring and he told me, ‘Coach, you’re going to see this kid, and you’re not going to think much of him because of his size,’” Skains recollects. “But then he told me, ‘But you’re not going to be able to keep him off the field.’”
Skains said he saw Cheramie for the first time during that set of practices and Sanamo was exactly right – on both fronts.
“I said to myself, ‘This is Class 5A football. There’s no way this little guy can play with these kids,’” Skains said. “But then sure enough, we gave him a shot, threw him in at cornerback. And guess what? He was fricken unbelievable.”
The Tarpons’ little guy said that he has a high-powered motor simply because he doesn’t have any other choice.
Cheramie said he’s always been smaller than the other players on the field. That quickly taught him that he needed to work hard in order to be successful.
He’s always around the football or making hustle plays for the team.
“It’s been like this for me my whole life,” Cheramie said. “When I was a kid, I played offense, and I was always one of the smallest ones. Now, I am on defense and it’s the same thing. For me to have an impact, I know I need to never give up and play as hard as I can on every, single play.”
Cheramie was a starting defensive back as a junior for last year’s Tarpons, which was a terror for opponents to face.
South Lafourche rolled to a 9-0 record in 2012 and won the Bayou District Championship.
But while Cheramie was dominant, his time on the field was limited.
He suffered a shoulder injury early in the season that limited him to just a handful of games.
Skains said he thought his defensive back was out for the season when the injury occurred.
But he returned for the team’s final contests of the year, something Skains said proves the character of his player.
“They said he could play up to the tolerated pain,” Skains said. “So that right there will show you the level of toughness that this kid has. He gives everything he has to our football team. He’s a gamer. Davey has his heart in this. He’s very emotionally invested in what we’re doing. He cares about our team and cares about what we’re doing.”
‘I LOVE TO BE ABLE TO HIT THE OTHER TEAM’S QUARTERBACK’
When the 2012 season ended, the Tarpons had to say goodbye to a huge senior class.
That meant roster spots were open all throughout the team’s depth chart.
Knowing that Cheramie played with a high motor, Skains offered him a spot as the team’s outside linebacker – a job that was held in 2012 by All-State winner Braxton Acosta.
“Those are huge shoes to fill, because All-State players don’t come around often,” Skains said. “But Braxton was successful because he was aggressive and active. We thought Davey could do the same things for us at the position.”
He said no – at first, anyway.
Cheramie said when the coaches first introduced the idea of being a linebacker, he resisted, telling them that he wanted to remain a defensive back.
The Tarpons’ senior admits now that fear was a motivator in the decision.
“Honestly, I didn’t know if I could do it because of me being small and everything,” Cheramie said. “So the coaches told me, ‘Just try it out and see how it goes.’ They told me, ‘If you hate it, we’ll move you back to DB.’
“But I didn’t hate it. I fell in love. I love to be able to hit the other team’s quarterback.”
Cheramie took over Acosta’s job this past spring. He kept the job into the 2013 season.
Through the first-half of the season, Skains said the transition has been seamless.
Cheramie is one of the Tarpons’ leading tacklers. He also is always around the football on big plays, including against the Trojans when he scooped up both a blocked punt and a fumble and took each into the end zone for a touchdown score.
“I think I have a little bit of an advantage because I can tackle and because I also have the speed to play coverage,” Cheramie said. “I think that being a defensive back before is a big help to me now because of that. Being able to do both is something that gives me a huge advantage.”
‘‘MY ARMS GO DEAD … IT HURTS LIKE HELL’
But even while making plays, Cheramie’s shoulders bark with pain throughout each game.
Cheramie’s shoulder injury from 2012 was actually a torn labrum of his right shoulder. He said he also has a beat-up rotator cuff in his left shoulder.
Because of the injuries, Cheramie said he will “likely never be 100 percent” in his playing career.
The senior linebacker said that doctors have repeatedly told him that he can play freely as long as he is able to withstand the pain that may come with the injury.
Cheramie said he pulls himself out of the game when it becomes too unbearable.
“My arms go dead,” Cheramie said. “A numbing pain just shoots down my arm. I also feel a really sharp pain in the back of my shoulder. It hurts like hell. I don’t have any other choice but to sit down and wait for it to slowly come back to life.”
Skains said when Cheramie first returned from the injury, he was sometimes spooked to put him in the game because of how sharp the pain is when he gets dinged.
“I used to panic when I’d see him get up slow or walk off the field wincing,” Skains said. “But they tell me over and over again, ‘Coach, he’s OK. He’s not going to get hurt any worse.’ It took a while, but now, I just know that this is just what we will have to live with – that pain isn’t going to go away.
Cheramie combats the injury by wrapping both shoulders with a sophisticated medical design that is geared to limit the pain.
It also forces him to give away some of his mobility in each arm while on the field.
“He’s all bandaged up. He can’t hardly move. It’s like he’s Robo Cop or something because he’s out there swinging some clubs around on the field,” Skains said. “But through it all, he finds a way.”
‘WE’RE GOING TO FIGHT UNTIL THE END’
So with their little linebacker helping to lead the way, the Tarpons are now focused on the second half of the district season.
South Lafourche is currently 4-3 and 2-1 in league play.
The Tarpons have won three-straight games. Their lone loss in the past month was a one-point defeat at the hands of East St. John.
Cheramie said the team is approaching its peak and is eager to show the rest of the area what it can do going forward.
“We want to prove that we’re a good football program here,” Cheramie said. “Not just a program that has a good season once every three or four years. We, as seniors, want to lead the way and prove that we are always a team to be reckoned with.”
If the results in the last months are any indication, Cheramie just may be right.
These Tarpons just may be able to play with the big boys – even if they are led by someone that’s the opposite of big.
“He’s a great story, because there aren’t many like him in the high school level,” Skains said. “He’s a champion story in overcoming adversity and doing things the right way in order to find success at this level when no one else would expect him to even be on the field out there with his classmates.
“I just want to do whatever I can to help my football team and my teammates,” Cheramie added. “Anything I can do for my team, I’m going to do it – without hesitation. There’s not going to be any holding back for me. There’s not going to be any holding back at all. We’re going to fight until the end.”
South Lafourche linebacker Davey Cheramie poses in front of the Tarpons’ sleds before practice this past Wednesday. With just a 5-foot, 6-inch frame, one might think that Cheramie is a bench player for South Lafourche. But Tarpons’ coach Dennis Skains cautions those to avoid judging a book by its cover. He said that Cheramie is one of the team’s top defensive players because of his energy.
