Michigan quarterback Davis Warren: From the playing fields of Manhattan Beach

by Garth Meyer

Driving, late in the game in Columbus, quarterback Davis Warren takes a snap for Michigan. He’s missing tight end Colston Loveland, out hurt, who caught more passes than all of the other Michigan receivers this fall combined. Star cornerback Will Johnson was not with the defense. Main running back Donovan Edwards just went out of the game with an injury, his jersey off on the sidelines. 

But Loveland’s backup, a freshman from Medina, Wash., cut to wide open turf in the end zone at Ohio Stadium. 

Warren looked. Unseen under his shoulder pad, on his bicep was a small scar – from a PICC line, Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter – used to pump medicine into him during five months at Los Angeles Children’s Hospital to fight acute myeloid leukemia. 

His parents had flown out from Manhattan Beach to watch amid the 103,000 spectators Nov. 30.

Warren threw. 

A redshirt junior, he won the U.M. starting position at the end of the summer, then was benched after the third game, brought back five weeks later, and kept the job for this game. 

The game. 

Bo, Woody Hayes, the 10-Year War, Harbaugh father and son, “we’re-going-to-beat-Ohio-State-or-die trying,” the dark days of Rich Rodriguez, John Cooper got run out of Columbus because he couldn’t win this game; and this year, Michigan coaches told the announcers in the booth that if it’s a one-score game in the fourth quarter, their unranked team could win, would win. In the pre-kickoff broadcast, Michigan great Charles Woodson appeared to work to keep a straight face when he picked his 6-5 alma mater to win.

Warren’s pass flew toward Loveland’s backup. The kid was about to score in Ohio State vs. Michigan – welcome to the greatest American sporting event over the past five years.

But a problem arose. Physics majors in Ann Arbor and Columbus both knew – that ball did not have enough arc on it. So did Ohio State senior linebacker Jack Sawyer, haunted by four of those last five years.

He leapt and pulled the ball out of the air for an interception. 

“My heart dropped to my heels,” said Jeff Warren, Davis’ father.

But there was still time; and the Michigan defense. 

They delivered another chance, the game still tied 10-10, and Warren and the offense were soon back driving toward the end zone.

Davis Warren looks to throw against Ohio State, in Columbus, November 30, 2024. Photo Courtesy U-M Athletics

Beginning

The Davis family lived in Hermosa Beach until they needed a bigger house, and moved to Manhattan Beach.

Davis went to Rolling Hills Country Day School in Palos Verdes, then Chadwick for middle school. 

After his junior football season and a coaching change at Loyola High School in Los Angeles, he decided to look into prep schools on the East Coast. Jeff contacted two of them, and one returned his message.

The University of Pennsylvania had invited Davis to a junior day, in February, and on that trip he visited The Peddie School, in Hightstown, N.J., founded in 1864. He committed to enroll in the fall. 

Three weeks later, in March, he was diagnosed.

Four rounds of chemotherapy in Los Angeles followed, Davis living at the hospital throughout – to guard against potential infection – with a couple days at home in Manhattan Beach between rounds. 

He finished treatment and was released, ringing the exit bell Aug. 13, 2019. 

Then he waited for blood counts high enough to travel.  

Davis left for New Jersey Aug. 28, reclassified as a junior.

“I just felt like he was going to get more sleep at boarding school,” said Terri Warren, Davis’ mother, noting the early-morning commute to Loyola.

Many boarding/prep schools have post-graduate programs, which allow a fifth year of athletic eligibility if a student has graduated from another high school. Since Davis had not yet, and reclassified as a junior, he had two years to play.

BCS days

Jeff is from Haverford, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, a banker/leadership consultant and avid golfer. Terri, a former UCLA soccer player, met him at business school in Westwood. She went to high school in El Toro, Orange County, a three-sport athlete; volleyball, soccer, softball.

Davis is one of four children, the second oldest.

“He would pick up a ball and do anything,” Terri said.

He started Beach Cities Sports (BCS) flag football in Manhattan Beach in kindergarten, playing against first, second and third graders. By the second year, Davis’ position was quarterback.

Tackle football began in high school, when he and a dozen other boys vied to be the starting quarterback for Loyola’s freshman team. Davis got the job.

Jeff and Terri now have 40-yard line seats at U.M, and they sat down low, behind the end zone at Ohio Stadium the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

They went to all of Michigan’s games this year, except for at Illinois. 

Davis was not starting then. 

He lives in a house in Ann Arbor with three other players – all once preferred walk-ons like himself – fullback Max Bredeson, receivers Peyton O’Leary and Joe Taylor, and a football staff trainer.

An average Tuesday during the season for the players is as follows: 7 a.m. wake-up, 7:15-7:45 breakfast at the football facility; 8:30-11:30 classes, 12:15 p.m. weightlifting, 12:45 p.m. lunch, 1:15-3:30 position and unit meetings, 4:15-6 practice, 6:30 dinner, 7-9:30/10 p.m. opponent film study.

Davis Warren (second from left) freshman year at Loyola High School with fellow students from Manhattan Beach Shane Stroyke, Aiden Peters, and Alex Horowitz. Photo courtesy of the Warren family

Blood counts

Leukemia has two main types, AML – acute myeloid  – and ALL – acute lymphoblastic, which has a longer treatment period.

AML is rare for children.

“There’s really no guarantees. It’s a blood cancer,” Terri said. “It’s not a tumor you can see. It’s these cells in your blood replicating.”

Chemotherapy cuts the white blood cell production to zero, eliminating them from the body.

“Then it comes up and you hit it again,” she said. “I don’t think any of us were prepared for how much worse each round got.”

While in New Jersey, Davis went to a Philadelphia doctor to check his blood counts and heart muscle, which bears some of the brunt of the treatment. 

This August was the five-year anniversary of ringing the bell.

“Every time I’d take him in for a blood test, I was just worrying. You’re already on the path. It was definitely scary,” Terri said. “It could come back at any time. The risk now is a lot, lot, lot lower than in the first year, the first two years, three years.”

In the hospital, arriving near the same time as Davis in 2019, was a kid a year younger named Jake Stromberg, a baseball player from Sherman Oaks, with Ewings Sarcoma. 

Davis got to know him well. 

He died Nov. 17.

At Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, 2019. Photo courtesy Davis family

To Ann Arbor

Davis switched to a second boarding school for his last year, Suffield Academy in Connecticut, because  the Peddie football coach left that December and the team dissolved into transfers. Davis never played for Suffield. The season was cancelled due to the pandemic. 

(He first played football again, after his sickness and treatment, in October 2019 at Peddie, once he regained the needed weight and returned to football shape). 

With his last season eliminated and no recruiting visits allowed, he drew interest from Princeton, Duke, Elon and Fordham, and received a preferred-walk-on offer from Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, over Zoom. 

The day after finishing prep school, Davis reported to Ann Arbor. He lived in a football dorm for the summer, then a regular dorm when school started.

Redshirted as a freshman, he backed up J.J. McCarthy and Alex Orji for the next two years. After Michigan won the 2024 National Championship, McCarthy was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings.

In Fall ‘24, new head coach Sherone Moore named 6-foot-2, 195-pound Davis the starter, over Orji, a new freshman and a transfer.

“He’s selfless, he’s always taking notes, always doing the right thing, a phenomenal teammate,” Moore told the press after the season-opener against San Jose State. “(Davis is) the ultimate team guy and the guy you want as your quarterback.”

Parents’ angle

What’s the most surprising part of all of this for the parents?

“How much time he has to put in,” Terri said. 

Her son missed the last two Christmases (College Football Playoff preparations), then was home for two days last Christmas before the Rose Bowl, when Coach Harbaugh adjusted the policy.

“Every week, a lot of hours, so much extra stuff. It’s pretty much a year-round endeavor. It seems the kids need more of a break,” Terri said.

She has four sisters, and a “super-sporty” mother. One sister was a swimmer at Texas A&M, another a runner at Ball State. 

Of the 11 grandchildren, three are Division I athletes and two Division Three. 

“I always say to Davis, before games, just pretend you’re in the BCS, because he could just make things happen,” said Terri.

He also played club soccer growing up in the South Bay, and would say, “the problem with being a goalie  is, if we’re losing, there’s nothing I can do. But if I’m the quarterback …”

Davis finished his last final at Michigan Dec. 11. His degree next May will be from U.M.’s Ross Business School.

“Obviously I am ridiculously proud of him,” Terri said. “He stuck with it. He’s so capable. Just gets it all done. He’s so focused on what he wants, but not to the detriment of anyone else.”

Davis, his brothers and sisters, and father Jeff in the background, as he is released from the hospital Aug. 13, 2019. Photo courtesy Warren family

Odds

A meal train was set up for the family for all five months Davis spent in the hospital.

“Every single night,” Terri said, as she or her husband slept on site.

“One of us always spent the night there,” she said. “We never knew if something was going to happen.” 

Acute myeloid leukemia has a five-year survival rate in adolescents of 66%.

Davis received the same number of donated blood – 66 bags of white blood cells in replacement. 

One night, he had a fever, and six doctors stood around him using ice to bring it down.

An ingrown toenail caused concern that it could be an entry point for infection. Without white blood cells, the body has nothing left to fight it with.

Davis Warren at quarterback for Loyola High School in 2017. Photo courtesy of the Warren family

Easy Reader interview

Davis spoke to Easy Reader a week ago, Dec. 17.

“So many great memories, just playing because you loved it,” he said, of BCS. “I credit a lot of my getting better as an athlete to being able to be outside all the time. Coach Harbaugh lives there now and he’s saying how great it is for his kids.”

After the Ohio State game, a melee flared up at midfield.

When asked about it at the postgame press conference, Davis said he had a coach growing up who told him if that ever happens, to walk in the other direction. 

It was Armin Youngblood, a longtime high school coach in Los Angeles and Orange County. Davis started working with him at age 11 and remains in contact.

Today, once a month at least, Davis goes to U.M.’s Mott Children’s Hospital to visit kids in the cancer ward. 

“You always ask why? Why did this happen to you?” he said, regarding his leukemia bout. “(Doing this) answered that question for me a thousand times over.”

So what is it like to play in a game of the magnitude of Ohio State-Michigan?

“Something that is a strength of mine, is trying to stay neutral, never too high or too low. What wins you the games is the basics,” he said. “Just take a deep breath in those moments. It’s the same field, it’s the same hash marks.”

He sums up his experience of the past five years in a similar vein.

“Just gratitude for all of the opportunities I’ve been given,” he said. “Being healthy, to wake up every day and chase the dreams that I have.”

He potentially has two years of college eligibility left because of an injury last year that kept him out of consideration most of last season. It could make him eligible for a medical redshirt. 

In the new landscape of college football, next year can seem like another world. But it’s still this year, and Davis, who turns 23 Jan. 9, now prepares for the ReliaQuest Bowl Dec. 31 against Alabama.

Davis Warren scrambles against Ohio State November 30. Photo courtesy U-M Athletics

Rearview mirror

Jeff co-coached Davis in BCS football from kindergarten through eighth grade. 

Jeff’s father played basketball and baseball at Tulane. Terri’s father was a Marines pilot. 

“Nothing surprises me anymore with the kids, all of our kids, pretty driven; they go for it,” he said. “Davis had a chance to go to the Ivy league, but he thought he could play at this level. I’m just proud of him, and as a preferred walk-on, you have to doubly prove yourself, which he did.”

The sickness?

“It was extremely scary. It came out of nowhere, terrifying for us…” Jeff said. “We tried to learn as much as we could about it. It was made easier by the great care received from CHLA. We are very grateful and count ourselves very blessed that it was treatable. We’re at the point now where it’s kind of, rearview mirror.”

Changes

Portal? Name, Image, Likeness?

“I hate it. It’s not fun,” Terri said. “I’m sure the coaches don’t love it. It’s a constant kind of uncertainty for the kids and the coaches. I liken it to sorority rush at this point. It’s kind of harsh but if you get to the right place, it can work out. It’s like musical chairs right now.”

As for next year, Michigan just got a commitment from a major recruit at quarterback. An almost-as-major recruit from last year backed up Warren and his contemporaries in the QB room this year.

“Davis has such deep friends at Michigan,” Terri said. “Harbaugh got good kids from good families.”

At last year’s Rose Bowl, she and Jeff hosted a tailgate for 150 Michigan parents. 

As for Davis’ own experience in Ann Arbor, he told the press after the season-opener, “What kept me here was this culture, this group. Obviously, Coach Harbaugh, he took a chance on me. I wasn’t a sure-fire guy with all the stars and all that. He took a chance on me and gave me the opportunity to come here, and I owe it to him and to this program and this university and these guys to be here. I never wavered, I never had any interest in leaving or going anywhere else. I wanted to be here.”

Culmination

Late fourth quarter now in Columbus, Michigan driving again, third down-and-six and running back Kalel Mullings breaks free. 

Field-goal range. 

Davis hands the ball off five more times and Michigan kicks a 21-yard field goal to go up 13-10. 

The defense holds once again, and it was over.

Davis Warren ran over to a high railing off of field level, the game ball in his hand, his girlfriend leaning down, and Jeff and Terri, grabbing his hand, tears of joy on their faces. ER