Former Blue Jays’ draft pick aims to take flight as pilot

Ontario Blue Jays and Junior National Team alum Cooper Davis (Mississauga, Ont.), shown here with the Vanderbilt Commodores, has retired from his playing career to focus on coaching and becoming a commercial pilot. Photo: Hustler Multimedia/TrumanMcDaniel

February 27, 2023

By Melissa Verge

Canadian Baseball Network

The perfect combo. Fish and chips. Hamburgers and fries. Mac and Cheese. Or, in Cooper Davis’ case, flying with a side of baseball.

The 23-year-old’s days revolve around his two passions - baseball and aviation. Although there are no ties in baseball, there’s a tie when it comes to his two loves. On a scale of 1-10, they’d both land at a hard 10, he said. From the moment he wakes up until he hits the pillow, he’s either coaching baseball, flying, or in between one of the two activities.

That’s just the way he likes it. The 2017 Blue Jays’ 25th round draft pick, although retired from his playing days for the time being, is now locked in on his goal of becoming a commercial airline pilot.

It’s a long term goal, years away, but baseball has taught the young coach a lot about exercising patience. You don’t become a great player over night, and the path to a career as a pilot isn’t necessarily straightforward.

After graduating from Vanderbilt University in 2021, he moved back home to Mississauga, and started working at a warehouse to save for flying lessons.

In the day, he’d work at the warehouse, and in the evenings, he’d take up his coaching duties, which he still does, with the Mississauga Tigers High Performance. He helps high school players train and get exposure to scouts and college recruiters. He also coaches young athletes, from six years old (his favourite) to 16, 17 and 18 year olds.

The long days are welcomed by Davis.

“I have two things in my life that I really want to keep going and keep doing so it's given me a reason to work extra hard,” he said.

His love for flying was perhaps created before he was even out of diapers. He was around six months old when he boarded his first flight, he said, and didn’t even have a birth certificate yet. As he got older, the love stayed.

As a young kid his favourite cartoon was Jay Jay the Jet Plane. As a teenager, before he even had his drivers license, he was learning to fly a plane. On his 14th birthday, he was gifted a flight class from his Dad. He loved it and wanted to start flying more right away, he said, but, at the time his baseball career was just taking off.

He played with the Junior National Team Program, and got to travel the world because of baseball. Later, he went to two college world series with Vanderbilt.

Now, retiring from baseball has given him the opportunity to simultaneously pursue his flying goals and coach on the side.

This past September the university grad started his lessons at the Brampton Flying Club after saving up enough money working at the warehouse. If the weather cooperates, he should have attained his private pilot’s license by this summer. From there, he’s going to work towards gaining enough experience to eventually be a pilot for one of the large Canadian carriers like Air Canada or WestJet.

His favourite part of flying is putting the pedal to the metal so to speak.

“There really is no better feeling than when you line up with the runway and you apply full power,” said Davis.

Having flying as a passion to turn to when he finished up baseball at Vanderbilt made the transition easier, as did his coaching, he said.

“I never wanted to lose baseball, I’ve always wanted to stay around baseball,” he said. “I've honestly been enjoying coaching now just as much as I enjoyed playing, which is a lot of fun.”