How walk-on Braden Waterman became cancer-free — and inspired Ole Miss football

OXFORD — Brock Waterman paused for a moment, searching 21 years of moments, milestones and ‒ more recently ‒ trials to come up with the word that best describes his son, Braden, a walk-on Ole Miss football quarterback.

“Inspiring, I guess, is probably the right word to use," he said. "I’ve learned so much from Braden in just the last two or three years. Just awe-inspiring.”

After a bout with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that began with a New Year’s Day diagnosis in 2020, Waterman announced on social media in October that doctors had declared him cancer-free.

The news brought the native of Bakersfield, California, to the top of a mountain he’d spent nearly three years climbing, blazing his own trail when he didn’t like the one proposed to him. While fighting for his life, Waterman went out of his way to uplift others, reaching out to local cancer patients to offer suggestions and support.

The Ole Miss football program counted itself among the list of beneficiaries. Rebels coach Lane Kiffin said he’s used Waterman’s positivity in the face of adversity to help offer perspective to other players on the roster who might be dealing with comparatively minor issues.

Kiffin, too, has found himself drawing inspiration from Waterman’s courage. Kiffin once texted Waterman that he hoped his son, Knox, would grow up to be like him.

“I meet a few kids every once in a while ‒ Matt Barkley was like this, the quarterback at USC ‒ where I’m like, that’s how I want me son to be, and that is who I want one of my daughters to marry,” Kiffin told the Clarion Ledger. “To find somebody like that ‒ and Braden’s like that ‒ is very unusual.”

Starting the journey

At the age of 17, Waterman was slinging it for Paso Robles High School. His focus, like most talented football players his age, rested on his recruitment.

But around the halfway point of the season, Waterman said he began to crumble physically.

“Things started kind of falling apart,” Waterman said. “Getting some fevers during the day, losing weight. It was kind of weird. I was like, ‘Dude, what’s going on with me?’ ”

Blood tests didn’t provide any answers. Doctors theorized that it might be a virus. Waterman and his family hoped it would eventually dissipate.

When football season concluded and Waterman transitioned to basketball, he found himself unable to get up and down the court.

His mother, Michelle, scheduled an appointment at a Fresno area hospital, which admitted Waterman as they searched for answers.

“I was so sick,” Waterman said. “I was, like, dead. I was dying.”

Finally, Waterman’s doctors landed on a diagnosis: cancer.

His doctors put him on an intense chemotherapy regimen, lasting four months. He lost all his hair. He struggled to eat.

“I did that until about April of 2020,” Waterman said. “We stopped the treatment. They said, ‘Hey, you’re good to go. The PET scan came back clear.’ Then, come to find out, the PET scan was not correct.

“I got a CT scan two months after that PET scan, and they found a little lesion in my stomach. And that’s when they told me that they wanted me to do 18 months of chemo.”

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Forging his own path

Doctors told Waterman he couldn’t go to school. They warned him that radiation might make it impossible to have children down the line. He’d have to spend weeks in a hospital bed.

Instead, he decided on a different course.

Waterman cut all of the sugar and gluten out of his diet, hoping to starve the cancer and slow its growth.

“It worked for a while,” he said. “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is a very fast-growing cancer. I slowed it down for three years, so I know what it worked to some degree, but we obviously didn’t kill it.”

Waterman implemented his wholistic approach to treatment and eyed a return to football. That September, he asked his dad to take him to the local field to throw.

“His fingers weren’t working,” Brock said. “He literally couldn’t throw the football. He falls to his knees and he’s crying. I’ve seen him cry twice in my life, and this was the second time and it just broke me. He said, ‘Dad, I’ll never play football again, I’m done.’ ”

But he wasn’t.

Waterman re-taught himself to throw. He built up the strength to run again. His family requested additional eligibility from the California Interscholastic Federation, allowing him to play his senior season in 2021 at Bakersfield Christian.

“He crushed it,” Brock said.

He threw for 3,027 yards and 41 touchdowns, according to his Hudl page. But the college interest in him that had existed before his illness had largely dried up. The impact of the transfer portal and COVID-19 pandemic left few schools with space for a high school quarterback.

Waterman’s quarterback coach connected him with Seth Doege, then an analyst on Ole Miss’ staff. Kiffin and the Rebels’ staff made it an easy sell, Brock said. And the Rebels’ staff liked Waterman’s football intelligence.

“Just really smart and savvy,” Kiffin said. “Really good talent, but just really smart with the football and throws really well.”

The final step

After joining up with the Rebels for the 2022 campaign, the 6-foot-4, 205-pound Waterman’s introduction to college football proved difficult, he said. The demands of Kiffin’s offensive system were heavy. But as he geared up for preseason practice in 2023, he felt like he’d cleared the mental hurdle.

Then the weight loss began again.

“I was pretty sick again,” Waterman said. “I was like, we gotta start chemo.”

Waterman began a six-week treatment at Invictus Health in Fayetteville. He leaned on his faith, family and the dietary principles he used to manage the cancer for years.

Still, he worked to be around the Ole Miss program as much as time would allow.

“His energy, his positivity, he shows back up here after doing chemo,” Kiffin said. “He’s just so cool, and I just love being around him. I talk to our players when they’re down about how they don’t have enough plays or they didn’t carry the ball enough or catch the ball enough. Look at what he’s going through and fighting through and is still here and positive.”

On Oct. 20, Waterman shared that he’d been rewarded for his faith.

“Cancer free, baby,” he told The Grove Collective’s Walker Jones in a video shared to social media.

“It’s a three-stage thing. We’re killing it. We’re going to get the cure. And recovery. Next is the cure. We’re working on the cure right now.”

David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.

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This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: How Ole Miss football QB Braden Waterman won his fight with cancer