With the possible exception of Fred Hoiberg, no student in the last five years has been more recognized than Troy Davis.

Across the country, people know of Iowa State because they know of Davis. As arguably the best football player ever to wear a Cyclone uniform, Davis was a phenomenal asset to the university. And he was a pretty nice guy, too.

A huge fish in a little pond, everything Davis did was news, still is, really.

So in response to more-than-expected questions, that’s primarily why the Daily put an article on the front page Friday about Davis scoring low on an intelligence test. It ran “above the fold,” meaning it was on the upper half of the page, as our No. 2 story.

The story said that according to a Milwaukee newspaper, Davis scored extremely low on a standardized intelligence test used by National Football League teams when evaluating players to be selected in the upcoming draft.

Of the 322 players who took the test at an NFL combine last month, Davis scored the second lowest. He scored a six on the 12-minute, 50-question test.

Also included in the article was former Iowa State lineman Tim Kohn’s score, a 41. Kohn’s was the second highest.

What we did not intend with the article was this: We did not intend to belittle Davis. We did not intend to suggest that he is incapable of playing in the NFL. That, quite frankly, is not up to us to decide. We did not intend to draw undue attention to Davis’ shortcomings. We did not intend to be sensational. And we did not intend to take away from the great things Davis did for Iowa State.

What we did intend with the article was this: We intended to be open. We intended to report the facts. We intended to communicate to the Iowa State community what we knew.

We intended to let you, the reader, decide how Davis’ score should be interpreted. We intended to put out a complete news product.

One caller asked why we would print something negative about Davis, a man who perhaps more than anyone, helped put Iowa State on the football map. That, I thought, was an easy one.

My response was something like this: The news isn’t always good news. Bad things happen to good people. Unfair things happen to good people.

Simply because Iowa State owes much to Davis and his accomplishments as one of the greatest college running backs in history doesn’t mean he’s immune to negative news coverage. And conversely, if Davis’ and Kohn’s scores were transposed, we would have reported that as well.

The extremity of Davis’ score also contributed to the play of the article. The average score on this test is a 19. A six, by all accounts, is pretty low. And for someone in Davis’ position, it has the potential to make a difference.

Davis is considered on the bubble between the first round and the second round. In the purest capitalistic sense, the difference between the two could be huge. We’re talking millions of dollars.

What’s more, the article was news because NFL teams apparently do put stock in this test. “A player needs a baseline mental capacity to play this game,” Carmen Policy, president of the San Francisco 49ers, told the Milwaukee paper.

That being said, my own view of the test is that it’s somewhat of a crock. I’ve never been a fan of standardized tests, in any form. I think they measure little more than a person’s capacity to correctly respond to the material in front of them. The tests speak precious little to someone’s intelligence, which isn’t just a matter of being able to spit out factual information.

The time limit also seems a little odd to me. It simply takes some people longer to process information. That doesn’t mean they are mentally deficient.

And for Davis, at least, there’s a precedent. As an Iowa State student, he was pretty good.

Davis didn’t shatter any academic records, but there is no doubt that he was a success in the classroom, as well as on the field.

The good news is that players can retake the test as many times as they want. I’d encourage Davis to go at it again.

And when he does better, as I’m sure he will, we’d love to let you know about that, too.

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Chris Miller is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Marshalltown. He is editor in chief of the Daily.