For years, Houston’s sports market has only had room for one KD, and that’s Kim Davis.
So imagine the confusion last summer when another KD, who runs in NBA circles, moved into town and joined the Rockets. Davis’ “The KD Company” nameplate has marked her spot in the Rockets’ media room this season.
“Some of the people I’ve worked with for years are like, you work for Kevin Durant. I’m like, no, I’m KD.
“He is the famous one. I’m the OG KD.”
That’s classic OG KD: Quick-witted, unflappable, and able to put someone in their place with a smile and without them immediately realizing it. Davis has been playing the game and playing it well as a trailblazing Black woman, not just working but making an impact in Houston’s white-male-dominated sports media market for three decades.
What’s interesting, though, is that Davis never set out to blaze a trail or to fill a missing void. The Lamar High School and Texas A&M grad really just wanted to tell good stories.
“I always came from the side of wanting to tell really good stories and do really good interviews,” Davis said. “Some of those people, I guess, inspired me early. The more I got into it, then came someone like a Robin Roberts who I got a chance to see. But there weren’t a lot of women who worked in the business, which is why I went to print.”
But in true Davis fashion, she wasn’t going to stay in a box too long. Over the years, she has worked on-air for local affiliates of NBC, CBS, Fox, and ABC, and has done a stint on a BET sports talk show.
Today, Davis works for herself or takes on projects under her own The KD Company. You can catch her on her ground-breaking Chalk Talk podcast, where she isn’t just talking sports but bringing readers into the locker rooms of the Texans, Rockets, and Astros.
Davis is also six months into a new venture, Htown Sports Talk, co-hosted with Brad Gilmore, which airs on KIAH-TV (CW 39) on Friday nights at 10 p.m. And if that isn’t enough, Davis debuted her self-published novel, titled Sports, My Love Language … It’s Complicated, which highlights her triumphs and challenges of working in the news and sports business.
“It’s the doggish pursuit for excellence. That’s what it is,” said Fox 26 Morning Sports Anchor Nate Griffin, who has known Davis since the 1980s. “And she has not allowed anyone to discourage her. She has found a way to find inspiration with the people with whom she works, with the people with whom she covers, and the stories that she covers.”
Pioneering radio personality and sports journalist Ralph Cooper has also watched Davis grow, thrive, and become one of the most credible journalists in the market, regardless of race or gender.
“I have nothing but respect for what she does and how she does it and how consistent it is with the podcast and then the fact she took time to write a book,” Cooper said. “She wrote a book, she has been doing these broadcasts for 30 years, and it’s all been positive.”
“I think all of the experience — I like to write, I like to develop stories–– has just helped me. Quite frankly, I haven’t seen anybody along the way who makes me say, I should stop doing this. I feel there is still a space for me, and I need to keep doing it.”
Kim Davis
While Davis doesn’t necessarily see herself as a trailblazer in the industry, she doesn’t shy away from it either. Davis welcomes the idea that she has made an impact in an industry that is often unforgiving to Black people, and she embraces being an inspiration to those coming behind her.
“If I am a trailblazer, then I hope that I’m doing it the right way because I get a lot of young women who will call me sometimes, and even young men, and I appreciate, one, that they follow my work, either written or visual, or however they follow it,” said Davis, who served as the vice president of the Houston Super Bowl XXXVII Host Committee. “And they want to work with me or hang out with me, and I always tell them, ‘Are you interested in learning the craft, because I can help you with that. Or are you interested in being a star?’ Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of people do nowadays. I can’t help you with that because that’s not my approach.”
What Davis brings to the table is a great deal of institutional knowledge and enduring relationships with players, coaches, front-office personnel, and ownership. Even as an independent, Davis is credentialed on press row for all the pro teams and colleges, except for the University of Houston, which is definitely a sore spot that made its way to her book.
“Some people said I shouldn’t have put the University of Houston in my book because I may never get credentialed by them again,” she said. “I’m fine with that because I’m credentialed everywhere else.”
Davis’ relationships with the people she covers, and her storytelling, made her a natural fit when CW 39, a network that doesn’t do a lot with sports, wanted to start a radio-style sports talk show for its platform. This past fall, they teamed her with Gilmore, and the chemistry has been off the charts for two people who were strangers before their pairing.
Gilmore, whose background is in entertainment and professional wrestling, praises Davis as his safety net and guide in this relatively unknown space for him.
“To be a pioneer in Houston in general, let alone for women, let alone for women of color,” Gilmore said, “she has done so much for everybody individually. And to have the breadth of knowledge and experience she has had and brings it into this, the show wouldn’t exist without Kim Davis.
“Without Kim, we don’t have anything, seriously. She brings so much into this thing.”
Gilmore continued with the KD praise.
“She makes me feel comfortable. You can turn the camera on, and I can be silly for 30 minutes, but feel comfortable in a room talking about sports,” he said.
While Davis is still out here fighting the good fight in a white-male-dominated field, she says the triumphs and challenges have made her who she is today. And if that’s being a trailblazer, then so be it.
“I was fighting that battle. I deserved to be here,” Davis said. “I worked hard. No one is going to tell me I can’t do it.
“And along the way, it switched to, I enjoy doing this. I think my voice is needed, and I’m willing to put in the work.
“I guess that’s what it is. I’ve been willing to put in the work and to not be deterred. Maybe some of that is me being really, really stubborn. I decided a long time ago that nobody else gets to determine what my future is or my career path is.”
