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Salute to Heroes game hits home for one Aggie

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Doug Drakeley has followed many a path in his lifetime.

A decade ago, he was part of the first graduating class at Vista del Lago High in Folsom, a letter-winning football player and a pretty decent student. It was a road that led to a scholarship to play for UC Davis and former head coach Bob Biggs in 2010.

But Drakeley, by his own admission, wasn't ready for the classroom or the next-level gridiron.

A young man whose father Doug Sr. was a colonel serving as director of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for headquarters in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, Drakeley chose the family business and enlisted in the Army. This path included the streets of Iraqi cities and the rural roadways of the country in conflict.

After five years with the 1-325 Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, Sgt. Doug Drakeley — now a worldly 27-year-old — retraced some of his earliest steps and found himself back at UC Davis. This time, he was comfortable in the classroom, gung-ho with his new Aggie football brethren and happy with his current life.

Drakeley, one of this season's feel-good stories, is a defensive lineman who walked on to defensive coordinator Robert Tucker's unit. A long shot to make the team a year ago, the 6-foot-4, 290-pound veteran not only earned a roster spot, he contributed mightily before knee and calf injuries interrupted his season.

On Saturday, when UC Davis presents its Salute to Heroes and Senior Day celebrations at the Aggie-Montana State football game, Drakeley literally and figuratively will stand tall among his teammates.

"He's been a really pleasant surprise," Tucker explains. "Hearing his story and having him being a part of our Aggie family has been amazing.

"The years away, the experiences he's had, have given him a powerful voice within our program. He has a really good perspective on things and I think he appreciates every day that he's able to practice and play the game. I know he enjoyed the brotherhood, the camaraderie and the family being a part of what we're doing.

"He's done such a great job in such a short time from a leadership standpoint," continues the coach. "He's got such a strong, powerful, positive voice. Encouraging. Motivating. He means so much to us."

Drakeley's a busy man. The psychology major is carrying a full class schedule. For anyone, a football commitment can be all-consuming, with practice, chalk talks, travel. And for Drakeley, add to that appointments with doctors and trainers (thanks to his recent injuries), and casual observers might think he's overwhelmed, up against an impossible task.

"Adversity? What is hard?" Drakeley explores a question about how he juggles all his responsibilities. "What's hard is subjective for every single person. Each individual might be overcoming some sort of adversity. For me? This is all very exciting, rewarding."

Remember, not even two years ago, the El Dorado Hills native was leading his squad on patrols in the war-torn regions of the Middle East. So, taking down oncoming ball-carriers — in the spectrum of overcoming adversity — pales in comparison to taking cover from sniper fire.

Understandably, Drakeley has no interest in talking about specifics regarding his 10-month deployment. He does, however, look back at his military career with pride. He credits the Army for molding who he has become ...

As a soldier, Drakeley says he grew patient, learned to focus acutely on matters at hand and built a respect for responsibility — looking out for the women and men in his unit first with self-preservation often as an afterthought.

The diversity at UC Davis, in the classroom and on his Aggie team, reminds him of the military, although the background stories in the Army were more similar.

"With football, it's definitely a privilege to play here, right?" Drakeley offers. "It's certainly not available to everyone, but here you have new dudes every year; a diversity of the people and their stories are (wide-reaching)."

While folks in the service also come from many different places, their stories are more similar: tough backgrounds, maybe unfortunate upbringing or trouble with authority. Drakeley says while Aggie players "want to be here and excel," often, members of the military "need to be there."

Drakeley is just glad his life's paths have crossed ...

"The military made me a better person," Drakeley tells me. "It was a huge growth experience. Being a leader, everything you do is for the people you're in charge of."

As for his current band of brothers?

"These guys are inspiring," Drakeley reports. "I look up to them in that I wish I had that kind of dedication as a kid. It puts in perspective so many things. My Aggie teammates are a good group of people to surround yourself with."

As Drakeley heads into his final regular-season games, he knows it's doubtful that he'll play again. Nonetheless, he works to recover: "I hope in time for Sacramento State (Nov. 23)," Drakeley insists.

What was his favorite time as an Aggie? He didn't hesitate, pointing to the North Dakota State game.

Despite losing to the nation's No. 1 team on the road, Drakeley said he was in his element:

"That's a true football experience, (a dome) where nobody likes you and where it's loud — really loud. That's where I feel most comfortable. That kind of environment. We'd go out on defense and it would be quiet (for their) offense.

"Then we'd go out on offense and (their fans are) cheering, making things difficult to hear. But our offense was still making things happen. (We were) one or two plays away from going a different way.

"What I liked about that game was everybody was working together, firing together. Yeah, we made a couple of mistakes … but, overall, it was a very well-played game."

And as for the next couple of Aggie contests?

"We're going to do all right," Drakeley believes. "We have a phenomenal coaching staff, and they get us in the right position. And our players? They're knock-out guys.

"We have both engines rolling on all eight cylinders."

Dad continues to work with the Air Force Reserves, putting together an artificial intelligence arrangement with the giants of Silicon Valley. Mom Caroline is a public-relations consultant after years owning her own business, InfoPros, into the late 1990s. Both parents are UC Davis graduates, Doug Sr. having played football for the Aggies.

Drakeley's sister Sara is an MIT graduate who worked in Disney animation (watch for her credit on "Frozen") and now works at a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency corporation.

"She's the really smart one. She ended up getting all the brains. I ended up being big," says "little brother" Doug.

Outside of football, given a chance to leave it all behind, Drakeley would gladly head into the Sierra and go camping for a couple of weeks. He loves Northern California and remembers coming home in 2018 after almost six years away:

"In Iraq, there were a couple of times it got to 136 degrees ground temperature. So when I got back, it was like 105 here and everybody was saying how hot it was. I just said, 'This is nice, I can hang here.'

"And camping? It's soothing. Just no desert camping, please. I didn't like waking up with scorpions in my boots."


Editor's note: One of the most well-known and respected sports writers in the industry, former Davis Enterprise sports and managing editor Bruce Gallaudet joined the UC Davis Athletics staff as its feature writer in the summer of 2018. Since then, visitors to UCDavisAggies.com have enjoyed his unique perspective on campus student-athletes, coaches, teams, individuals, programs, events and projects that represent the fifth-ranked public school in the nation.
 
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Players Mentioned

Doug Drakeley

#96 Doug Drakeley

DL
6' 4"
Senior

Players Mentioned

Doug Drakeley

#96 Doug Drakeley

6' 4"
Senior
DL