Football is not for the beginners! It’s way more than just a sport. Michigan Wolverines’s Davis Warren, a high school quarterback from Los Angeles, passed the challenge with grace and stood out as one of the most reliable talents in Sherrone Moore’s roster. When we say, ‘the challenge’, it’s not just limited to the gridiron. Warren had an awe-inspiring path to success that became a guiding light for millions.

Davis Warren, as a kid, fought off a life-threatening disease. Warren and his parents were at an area hospital when doctors first diagnosed him with acute myeloid leukemia. The five-year survival rate for kids was not more than 66 percent. After knowing that his life was on line, all little Davis could ask the doctor, ”How soon can I play football again?”

Well, after a rigorous treatment process, Warren is back on the gridiron, setting the bar higher for his team. But the best thing he did in his life was inspire a little toddler to overcome his leukemia journey with a very personal follow-up. The kid named Hudson became best friends with Warren, who often visited him in the hospital. Two weeks back, the kid was deemed cancer-free, and he met his Robinhood at a no-more chemo party and shared a warm hug. When asked what made him feel good about being friends with Davis, the junior told an ESPN reporter, “Knowing that I had the best friend that who was a college football player and a nice person.”

The way he connects with the kid, realizing his pain as of his own some years back, made all the difference. The kid’s mother said, ”They were best buddies, like they had known each other forever. It was something I hadn’t really seen before in Hudson. Davis has been attending a few of Hudson’s baseball events.

”It’s just been an honor to be there for him when he needed me the most and it’s grown into a full-on friendship,” said Davis. The selfless support and empathetic company from a renowned footballer who has been there, done that gave nothing, but a much-needed boost in a child’s heart to carry on with his life, which is a lot more unusual than the other kids around him.

And it gave the adult in the relationship a million-dollar satisfaction and a feeling of purpose in going through all the hardships in his life. ”Being able to show them like hey cancer can be a part of your journey without defining who you are. That’s a really special thing. It made me feel like my journey was worth it thousands times over,” said the Michigan QB in an altruistic confession. But he was not always this open about his journey with cancer.

Davis Warren was anything but a whinny kid for his past with cancer

To say, Davis Warren has an edgy path to the helm of his career at high school and college would be a clear understatement. Dealing with huge body symptoms that can take away your lifetime and still choosing to appear in games and deliver one’s best is no joke. It takes a very rigid soul to reach that mindset. Apart from an aggressive treatment, Davis faced hurdles in between his games. After dropping 40 pounds and a lot of hair, Warren reverted to his high school following a four-and-a-half-month initial treatment. He got back, but quite understandably, his performance in the junior mid-season was far from his level of best.

In one game, his platelets rate went down so low that he needed to be taken off in the middle of a game. The young prodigy refused to give up. He guzzled papaya juice for a whole week and adjusted the count again. Coming back to the next game, the kid nailed with five of six passes. Eventually, Ohio State happened after he managed to grab a walk-in offer from Jim Harbaugh and the rest is history.

The weirdest yet the most thoughtful thing about his journey was he used to be extremely reluctant to let anyone know about his physical struggle. The mindset behind this was he wanted to be recognized as a QB first and not just a kid who overcame cancer on any sympathetic ground.

The man with the level of maturity, resilience, and compassion is ready to give a lot more to Ann Arbor, as well as to the thousands of kids fighting fatal diseases at the cancer ward in the Mott Children’s Hospital down the road.