Nasheena Quick Davis ’10: The Balancing Act

Nasheena Quick Davis (’10) came to NC State on a track scholarship, but she applied herself every bit as vigorously in the classroom as on the field. She is an experienced accountant who speaks the language of business fluently, but she also exercises her creative muscle through freelance journalism. The High Point, North Carolina, native has always defied classification. 

For Quick Davis, the mission to embrace more than one part of her identity began in earnest as an undergraduate student at the Poole College of Management. “Without a doubt, the greatest challenge of my time at NC State was holding both sides of my identity together as a student-athlete,” she says. Most days, she had to finish her classes by early afternoon to accommodate intense weight training and practice sessions.

With the help of her academic advisor, track coach, and other support staff to help her strike a careful work-school balance, the self-proclaimed “nerdy jock” made it work. She exceeded expectations on the field, where she set a school record in the women’s 55-meter hurdles of 8.2 seconds. Nearly twenty years later, that record still stands. 

At the same time she was raising the bar outside of class, Quick Davis was discovering her passion in the classroom. She originally declared a major in biomedical engineering, but she switched to accounting when she realized how much she enjoyed her introductory classes. “The process of analyzing numbers and finding patterns came naturally to me,” she remembers.  

Quick Davis credits NC State with teaching her to nurture her mind and body at the same time. “These were the years I was learning to take care of my body properly, go beyond my comfort zone and develop a sense of dedication,” she affirms. The discipline she learned at NC State paid off when she and her boyfriend, NC State football star AJ Davis, became parents in 2006. The next year, Davis was drafted by the Detroit Lions. The couple soon married and welcomed their second son. 

Quick Davis embarked on the ultimate balancing act when she juggled the demands of motherhood with her academic and track career. “I learned to handle the task at hand and move on to the next one instead of looking at everything in totality, because that’s when it became overwhelming,” she shares. She persevered through long days and sleepless nights to graduate from the Poole College of Management in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science in accounting. After graduation, she landed an executive role at a sports financial firm called Providence Sports and Entertainment Group, where she helped NFL players build sustainable income streams off the field. 

Always Moving Forward 

When Quick Davis and her family moved to Charlotte, she accepted a senior accounting role at Fuse Financial. After the birth of their third son, who is now five years old, she decided to try her hand at writing articles on topics at the intersection of sports and social justice for Revolt TV. Few people expected an accountant to embrace a side hustle in journalism, but Quick Davis had demonstrated a facility for language at a young age. She may have ended up in a more quantitative field, but writing feels like coming back to her roots. Sports journalism in particular, has created a venue to combine her passions onto one page.  

“We’re seeing a new generation of Black athletes recognize their power to effect change beyond the field or court,” she says. “My goal is to amplify their voices.” Quick Davis revels in telling lesser-told stories about who athletes are as people and how they demonstrate courage in their everyday lives, particularly in the context of confronting racial inequities. 

As she splits her time between accounting, writing, and cheering on her sons at their own sporting events, Quick Davis expresses gratitude for the successful foundation laid at her alma mater. “I was never forced into a box as a student-athlete,” she says. “Everyone around me affirmed my value as a person with more than one thing to offer. NC State gave me all the resources I needed to succeed.”