Michigan football shares championship vibes with familes at Mott Children’s Hospital

The line was intended to be single-file, and yet at one point it flooded out of both entry ways into the Gameday Experience Center on the eighth floor of the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.

In a place where smiles are unfortunately few and far between, the vibes were overwhelmingly position when members of the 2023 national champion Michigan football team, including coach Jim Harbaugh, spent Friday afternoon taking pictures, signing autographs and sharing stories with young patients and their families.

“This has been going on for a long time with the student-athletes here at University of Michigan, our football players,” Harbaugh said. “Blake (Corum) was here a couple weeks ago, and the players come when there’s no cameras here. Robby Emery, our chaplain, our seniors, they lead that charge.

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“Couldn’t be more proud of them that they’re caring about other peoples problems, not just their own and treating others as they would want to be treated.”

For quarterback Davis Warren, visits to Mott hold extra meaning. He was crouched over a child Friday, signing her teddy bear as she explained in a faint voice that she was on the seventh floor, where she's being treated for leukemia.

“I used to stay on a floor like the seventh floor too,” he explained.

Warren was diagnosed with leukemia in March 2019, when he was a junior in high school. After six months of treatment, he was cleared that fall. He’s been in remission ever since, but being in hospitals still reminds him of his time at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the doctors who “saved my life.”

It’s why he has made it a point to visit every month as a Wolverine. Days like Friday are important, he said, but what he cherishes is the lasting relationships he has developed with patients and their families.

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“They’re in here for weeks, months; these things they’re going through take time,” Warren said. “It's great to be able to do this and meet them, that's cool, but if you can be there for them, maybe it’s a quick text or note or short video or something.

“If they just get that and they know that you’re thinking about them and caring about them, that’s what’s really special.”

That’s what Warren has done. He said he had a little more than 200 texts waiting for him after the national championship game. A significant portion of them, he said — perhaps 10-20 — were from families he has connected with during his visits.

He makes sure to write down birthdays so he can send video messages on important dates; he sent out dozens of pictures during Michigan's trips to Pasadena, California, for the Rose Bowl and Houston for the College Football Playoff title game.

“From my perspective they are obviously winners on the field, but they’re even bigger winners off the field,” said Luanne Ewald, Mott’s chief operating officer. “They care about the kids, they care about the families, so for me this is just a combination of celebrating them all year long.

“We try to distract them with books and technology, so when we can distract with an amazing national championship team, we couldn’t be more excited.”

For as uplifting as the afternoon was, there were sobering sights everywhere. Many of the children who came in were either in a wheelchair, attached to an IV pole, or had some form of cast or brace. Staffers walked around with hand sanitizer, constantly disinfecting touch points.

At one point, Harbaugh had to go to a corner of one room to meet an immunocompromised 6-year-old boy in a J.J. McCarthy jersey; his father explained he had just undergone his second bout with chemotherapy and needs a bone marrow transplant.

Another girl, not yet 2, suffers from hypoplastic left heart syndrome and will need a heart transplant in the future. Her parents are in the process of compiling a video of people sending positive wishes for her to watch as she grows older; Emery, Harbaugh, Warren, defensive back Jesse Madden and wide receiver Jake Thaw all participated in.

“(A saying) I really love is, ‘Tough times don’t last, tough people do,’ ” Warren said to the camera. “We know you’re a tough girl, you’re gonna get through this and we’re all cheering you on. Go Blue!”

But even when moments were tough, Friday was a day of cheers, of celebration, of reflection.

Harbaugh frequently reminded patients to attack the day "with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind,” and got many families to laugh when kids would introduce themselves as “Grace” or “James,” only for Harbaugh to exclaim, “That’s my kid’s name, too!”

The Gameday Experience Room was designed to replicate the Big House, Ewald explained. Having some of the faces who participated in Michigan's 12th national championship run meeting fans in that room will make memories for a lifetime.

"It's nice for the parents to get away and do something like this," said Ryan Miles, whose son Elijah had just been transferred to Mott after suffering some complications at birth in Farmington. "Hospital stays can be stressful on parents, sitting around, just waiting and worrying about their kid.

"They don't have to take their time out to do this, but they do it anyway, so it's just special."

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football brings championship trophy to Mott Children's Hospital