Davis Warren's improbable road from kid with cancer to Michigan's starting QB

It was the spring of 2019 and then 17-year-old Davis Warren, a high school quarterback from Los Angeles, sat down on the bench press to start a 6 a.m. weightlifting session.

He couldn’t finish a single warm-up rep with the 135-pound bar.

“I was dizzy, light headed,” Warren said on the L.A.B. podcast with Jake Butt last month. “I knew something was off.”

Soon Warren and his parents were at an area hospital when doctors informed them Warren had acute myeloid leukemia. The five-year survival rate for kids is just 66 percent (and just 29.5 for adults). Warren’s head spun. The talk was about treatments, challenges, side effects and so on. His initial thought was that he was about to die.

“You never expect that to be you,” Warren said this week.

He mustered up a question though.

“How soon can I play football again?”

The disease and the survival rate were scary, but treatment was relatively short — five to eight months. So technically, he could play that coming fall … at least if everything, absolutely everything, went right and he still actually wanted to, the doctor said.

Five-plus years later, Warren is expected to start Saturday for the reigning national champion Michigan Wolverines as they host third-ranked Texas. Across the way will be Longhorns star quarterback Quinn Ewers, backed up by Arch Manning, each former No. 1 overall recruits and potential first-round NFL Draft picks.

Warren’s journey from the children’s cancer ward to the 110,000-seat Big House in Ann Arbor won’t earn him an extra yard or Michigan an extra point, but it is the kind of improbable, inspiring story — even in the professionalized era of NIL — that makes college sports so special.

Warren did beat leukemia and did play high school football on his schedule — albeit after losing his hair and at least 40 pounds. He did it by never losing faith during a four-and-a-half month hospital stay that included walking laps around the facility and even playing catch with his father in a green space.

“The best medicine, obviously, the doctors have their own thing … but a little bit of sweat, a little bit of smiles, get your heart rate up safely? That's priceless,” Warren said.

Warren said he was about 155 to 160 pounds when he returned to play in the middle of his junior season. Understandably, he was just OK, a far cry from some hotshot college prospect. He had to pass weekly blood tests just to get cleared for action. One week his platelets came in too low and he was held out. Frustrated, he had heard that papaya juice could help, so he ordered some extract off the internet and guzzled it all week.

“It tasted disgusting,” he told MLive.com.

It worked — perhaps — and he hit his platelet count for the next game. He completed five of six passes.

Warren was an undoubted success in life. He was already inspiring other kids with leukemia and trying to connect with patients anywhere in need of some hope that better days, normal days, were possible.

Still, he wanted to play college ball, so in 2020 he transferred to powerhouse Suffield Academy in Connecticut for his senior year to get better exposure to scouts. Instead the entire season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Options were limited.

The coaches at Suffield, however, had produced enough Division I recruits to recognize Warren’s potential through the few practices they held. They began reaching out to colleges they knew, which led then-Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh to call and offer Warren a chance to walk on in Ann Arbor.

Warren jumped at it and never looked back. There was no scholarship, but there was a chance. He may have been last on the depth chart, but at least he was on the depth chart. He is forever mindful of that survival rate.

“How many kids don’t get to tell the story I am telling?” he said.

As a freshman he became known around the program for his long hours of film study, often side by side with then starter Cade McNamara, despite knowing there was almost no chance he’d play. Instead, he focused on helping the defense prepare and was named “Scout Team Player of the Year.” He spent seemingly every free moment at the Mott Children’s Hospital, which sits on Michigan’s campus, visiting kids with cancer like he once was.

“[He’d say], ‘Hey coach, there’s a kid from Mott Children’s Hospital that wants to come to practice,’” said Sherrone Moore, Michigan’s current head coach and the offensive coordinator at the time. “[I’d say] ‘Yeah, don’t ask me again, just bring them.’”

In his second year at Michigan, Warren appeared in five games, going 5-of-9. It was mop-up duty, but so what? His presence on the field alone was an epic, emotional accomplishment. Last year, in 2023, he took snaps in three games. He threw five passes. Only one was caught — by the other team for an interception.

Michigan entered the 2024 season with a quarterback battle, and while Warren’s name often came up, there was little expectation he would emerge as the starter. Most thought it would go to Alex Orji, a powerful runner, or maybe Jack Tuttle, a veteran who transferred from Indiana.

Don’t underestimate a cancer survivor though.

“Alex and I talk about just knowing your ‘why.’ Why do you do this?” Warren said of Orji. “My journey, what I’ve been through, how I got to Michigan, I know what my ‘why’ is — kids in children’s hospitals fighting cancer every day …

“That’s my x-factor,” he continued. “Screw being tired. Screw whatever. There are people going through way worse than this; I've been through way worse than this. And when I was in that moment, in that hospital room, dealing with it, all I wanted to do was be back out, be healthy and do the things I love to do.”

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When the Wolverines opened the season last Saturday against Fresno State, it was Warren who started, going 15-of-25 for 118 yards and a touchdown.

“Talk about a fighter,” Moore said. “Had cancer. Senior year canceled due to COVID. Came here as a walk-on. Been a third-string guy since he got here. Every week, the coaches do a test, he’d always have 100 on his test. Always taking notes. Always doing the right thing.”

Orji also took nine snaps at quarterback against Fresno. Both are expected to play against Texas. Moore noted that maybe the best illustration of who Warren is came after Orji threw a touchdown pass. It was Warren who sprinted down to be one of the first to congratulate what is essentially his competition for playing time.

“Selfless,” Moore said. “A phenomenal teammate.”

Texas is a 7.5-point favorite this weekend, despite playing on the road, and the disparity at the quarterback position is a big reason why. That doesn’t matter to Davis Warren. From hospital beds to papaya juice to the scout team, he long ago overcame bigger odds than that.

“I tell kids all the time that are going through it, the kids who are missing school or feel like they are behind in their lives, ‘Hey this is going to make you 10 times stronger, 10 times tougher, 10 times more resilient, 10 times happier,’” Warren said.

“I don’t wake up and feel like I'm having a bad day.”

Especially on Saturday.