CHESAPEAKE — Ryan Davis might want to dispute Queen and David Bowie’s lyrics, “Pressure pushing down on me, pressing down on you no man ask for. …”

Maybe Davis isn’t asking for the pressure, but he doesn’t seem to mind the pressures of being the new boys head basketball coach of the Chesapeake Panthers.

Davis knows there will be pressure to win, but he said it should work to his advantage and the team.

“Coming into a place where people expect to win and I expect to win, it’s pressure but it’s good pressure,” said Davis.

“At Chesapeake, they expect to win the conference every year and advance to in the tournament every year. It makes the job easier. That’s the kids’ goal and it makes it easier to sell them on that goal.”

Davis has been the assistant coach at Jeffersonville High School in Indiana the past two seasons. His 2006 team posted a 23-2 record and advanced to the regional finals.

He also coached at Iroquois High School in Kentucky from 2003-04 and was in Ohio from 2000-03 at Peebles High School where his teams were 44-21 and claimed two sectional championships.

He had a stint at North Vermillion in Indiana from 1998-2000 where he won a sectional title and was the WAXI Coach of the Year for the 1998-99 season.

He was the Southern Hills League Coach of the Year in 2002 and 2003.

Prior to coaching at Peebles, he was the head coach at Graceland Christian in Indiana and guided the team to a 20-5 record during the 1997-98 season with the school advancing to the Indiana Final Four.

Davis is familiar not only with basketball at Chesapeake but throughout Southern Ohio.

He is a 1991 graduate of Alexander High School and went on to play at Kentucky Christian College in Grayson, Ky., where helped KCC win the NCCAA Div. II National Championship in 1995 and 1996.

He was the winner of the Pete Maravich Award in 1996 as the national Player of the Year. The award also reflects leadership and a Christian attitude on and off the court.

“I’m from Southern Ohio. My parents live in Athens and I coached in Ohio for a few years,” said Davis. “The quality of basketball in Southern Ohio is as good as anywhere in Indiana.”

While Davis said he likes to play an up-tempo offense, he said his main area of concern is on defense.

“We’ll spend the majority of our time on defense. My emphasis is on the defensive end of the floor. Every year, I stress it. I want to be able to guard people and keep people from scoring,” said Davis.

Davis and his wife, Renee, have been married for eight years and have a daughter, Karli, 6.