The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1526802
OCTOBER 2024 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 27 BY JOHN BORTON A dversity? I'm used to that, so I know how to deal with it." Davis Warren, master of understatement, made this observation in a somber press room in- side Crisler Arena. He wasn't tearful. He was ticked off. His team had just lost to Texas — con- vincingly. U-M turned the football over three times, got gashed defensively, and turned a hyped national showdown into a deflating 31-12 defeat. Warren looked miserable — frustrated, annoyed and vexed almost beyond words, given the preparation. Still, on the big- picture adversity scale, a tough afternoon of football represented a blip on the radar. Years earlier, the hotshot prep quar- terback from Los Angeles sat in a high school weight room, unable to hoist even the scarcest resis- tance. Soon, he'd hear unbelievably shocking words. Leukemia. Cancer. Treatments. Hair loss. Recovery odds. There's no playbook that can prepare a teenager for such a life blitz. "I was a huge football fan growing up, so you wake up early and watch 'Game- Day,'" Warren recalled. "You always see those stories, but you never expect that to be you, right? You never think that you could be the kid that's in those shoes and having to deal with something like that. "In the blink of an eye, you're going from a 6 a.m. workout where you can't even lift the warm-up weight, and be- fore you know it, you're in the Children's Hospital and someone tells you, you've got cancer." No molecule of Warren wanted to deal with it at the time. No fleeting thought wished to linger on what lay ahead. Even after he came through the nightmare, he didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to talk about it. Didn't wish to acknowl- edge what had happened, and how he'd been struck down so unexpectedly and unfairly. Years bring perspective. The fourth- year Michigan quarterback can talk about it now. He can use the battle he faced to help others — from similar shock- ing medical pronouncements to dealing with unkind football fates. When you've walked the long, dark tunnel he endured, an unhappy trip up the Michigan Stadium tunnel just doesn't seem the same. "It was really difficult," he said. "I spent almost that entire time in the hospital. I lost probably 35, 40 pounds, almost all my hair, stuff like that. I just got really lucky, that I can come out here and play the game that I love, pursue my dreams at the highest level. Not every kid gets the opportunity to do that. I just count myself super lucky and blessed. It just redefined a ton of things for me." Jeff and Terri Warren, Davis' parents, witnessed that battle from seats on the 50-yard line. They tell a tale of heartache, courage and ultimate triumph regarding their son. HEALTHY AND EXCEPTIONAL Davis Warren gave no hint of physical challenges, growing up in a Manhattan Beach, Calif., home, near Los Angeles. According to his parents, he oozed en- ergy, empathy and a knack for leadership. Calling him just a normal kid wouldn't do it justice. He organized his fellow kids at pre- school into sporting events at break times, leaving an impression on the school di- rector. "He was definitely the ringleader, the director used to say," Terri Warren re- called. "He told me, 'I'd never seen a kid do that, and I haven't since.' That was Davis." On his own, he'd hit plastic golf balls into a net for hours. He also weighed in on proper protection practices when younger brother Brandon began attempting to walk. Terri allowed him to tumble. Davis objected. "You can't do that" she recalled him saying. "He can't fall." Davis also looked out for others in- clined toward a fall, she assured. "His whole mindset, of trying to help these kids now at Mott [Children's Hos- pital in Ann Arbor], he was just always like that," Terri noted. "There was a special needs kid at the school he went to. He'd stop playing a game and make sure he was OK. Even one of the dads stopped me one time on the street and said, 'I just want you to know what your son does for my son at school on a regular basis. Always says hi to him, asks him how he's doing.' That's just Davis. He was just born with leadership, empathy and focus." You name it, Davis played it. Golf, soc- cer, football, base- ball, basketball — if there was competi- tion to be had, he not only dove into it, he generally excelled at it, without a setback in sight. "He was a healthy kid," Terri offered. "Didn't have ear infections. Didn't come home sick. We have none of that in either of our families. So, it was completely out of left field." It didn't arrive until his junior year at Loyola High School, following the foot- ball season. A dental surgeon performed a routine extraction of Davis' wisdom teeth, but the healing (or delay thereof) trig- gered a much more daunting discovery. A LIFE-SHAKING SHOCK "He had some swelling underneath his chin," Jeff Warren recalled. "He was feeling sluggish, and several weeks after the surgery he went back to the dental surgeon. The surgeon said, 'Look, this is normal. It's got drainage from the wisdom teeth extraction.'" Still, Davis didn't feel right. In one memorable weight room session in prep- aration for spring football, he couldn't hoist a 135-pound warm-up weight. That triggered a trip to a local urgent care, when the Warren world turned. "They did a blood test, and his white cells were through the roof," Jeff recalled. "The urgent care attending physician came in and said, 'Look, these are all signs " FIT FOR THE FIGHT An Early Setback Can't Shake Davis Warren