Amid Ole Miss Football’s 10-win regular season, Twenty-one year old quarterback Braden Waterman received the news of a lifetime, which he shared on social media on Oct. 20 — that he, after two bouts with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, was declared cancer free.
Waterman, a native of Bakersfield, Calif., was first diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2020 at the age of 17 after playing the entire 2019 football season with the illness — a season which Waterman described as weird because he did not know exactly why he felt bad. He was diagnosed after a game where he had trouble focusing and a fever.
For his first bout with cancer, the young man endured four months of chemotherapy. He eventually battled back in time to play his senior season at Bakersfield Christian in which he threw for 4,000 yards and 41 touchdowns, which earned him a walk-on spot with the Ole Miss Football team.
Sadly, this is not where the story ends.
The cancer went away until a couple months ago when he received word that it had returned. Having gone through cancer once already, Waterman knew that the same approach probably would not yield the results he wanted.
“I just knew that I didn’t really want to do the conventional chemo again, so I knew that I needed to find something else that was going to be able to help me,” he said. His mindset was, “I just need to make sure that I get this thing gone for good now.”
The second time around, Waterman cut off all of the sugar and gluten that was in his diet. He rapidly lost weight in hopes of starving the cancer cells, and it worked for a while, but it could never kill all of the cells.
Waterman turned to a six-week treatment at Invictus Health in Fayetteville, Ark. During this time, he turned to his faith, leaned on his family for support and continued his dietary regimen; this all culminated in his Oct. 20 announcement that he was finally cancer free once again.
Having to endure cancer one time is one of the hardest things anyone can go through, let alone two times. Waterman felt weak, sometimes too weak to do anything. He was as sick as sick can be. For so long he was sidelined from the sport that he loved all his life, but he found his own way to recovery.
One thing that Waterman has always been passionate about is football, and he refused to let cancer get in the way.
Michelle Waterman, Braden’s mom, said, “He put a football on his dresser… and he just stared at it all the time like, ‘That’s my reason.’”
Waterman was a highly sought-after three-star recruit out of Bakersfield Christian School. Before his diagnosis in 2020, Waterman held interest from schools like Georgia, Clemson and Alabama, according to 247Sports. However, after his diagnosis, everyone seemed to lose interest — everyone except Ole Miss and Head Football Coach Lane Kiffin.
“I want to give coach Kiffin most of the credit, coach Kiffin and kind of just the Ole Miss football staff, ” Braden Waterman said. “(They) have been super supportive, and obviously, my teammates helped me get through this — obviously, the community donating money, and just the prayers have been super, super good.”
Kiffin raves about Waterman and his contributions to the team and how impactful he has been to the culture of the program despite not taking a single in-game snap since arriving on campus.
“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.”
Kiffin has done nothing but praise Waterman, but on a larger scale, his teammates, Ole Miss and the entire Oxford community have embraced him and supported him throughout his entire journey.
Michelle Waterman said, “Once (the Oxford community) heard that (Braden) was in some strife, I mean, a lot of people are anonymous on our GoFundMe, but I have to say probably 90% of the people that have contributed are all from Mississippi or surrounding areas.”
Waterman has endured so much throughout the last three years, but his answer as to what kept him pushing through was quite simple.
“I look at it as, either you can go through life looking at the negative things, or you can go through life looking at the positive things,” he said. “For me, I look at it as, you know, God gave me another day on this Earth to live, and he gave me another opportunity, so, obviously, he’s not done with me yet.”
Waterman went through his last round of treatment in mid-October and received a clear PET scan around the same time, officially making him cancer-free for the second time.
Michelle Waterman described the scene as “total jubilation” when the family heard the news that Braden was cancer-free. She said that the emotions were running rampant within the Waterman family.
Waterman is, sadly, not the only teenager to endure cancer once or even twice, but the important part is that his stories can stand to inspire and serve anyone out there who may share similar life experiences.
“It’s huge that I need to share my story — I think that’s what God put me on this Earth for, is to share my story,” Braden Waterman said. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”
