Taj Davis Overcame Health Scare to Return to UW, Be Heroic at Autzen

Taj Davis touched down in the end zone at Autzen Stadium with an electrifying 62-yard touchdown catch firmly in hand and just 3:07 on the clock in the Washington-Oregon football game.

Rather than jump around wildly because this huge play would provide a 34-34 tie, Davis chose to stand there and soak in the moment. He wanted to see and be seen before his teammates arrived and wildly engulfed him.

"I wanted to make sure my presence was felt," he said. "I just looked around the stadium. I was on top of the world."

Davis was as visible as ever in playing a lead role in the Huskies' eventual 37-34 victory in Eugene, an outcome that moved the UW program forward in so many ways, and likely wouldn't have been possible without him going the distance with a Michael Penix Jr. pass.

This was a far cry from two years earlier when his Husky coach at the time, Jimmy Lake, somberly announced to an assembled press corps that Davis had opted out of the 2020 season.

No detail was offered at the time. Everyone simply assumed that the 6-foot-2, 190-pound and now sophomore wide receiver from Chino, California, had been unnerved by the COVID pandemic and chose to ride it out at home.

That wasn't the case at all. He was dealing with a different kind of virus, one bad enough without encountering the deadly contagion that would sweep through the UW football team and and bring an abrupt end to the 2020 season.

"I actually got sick really bad," Davis said. "I got myocarditis. I got a sickness in my heart. That was pretty much the main decision and why I left and I had be home with my family. I couldn't run, I couldn't practice. I just kind of needed that for my mental space."

Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart, caused by a viral infection, that can affect someone's heartbeat and cardiac muscle, and is treated with medication.

Once recovered, Davis returned to the Huskies for the 2021 season and played for the first time, becoming fairly active and productive. Starting six of the 11 games in which he appeared, he caught 26 passes for 329 yards and a lone touchdown against California.

This season, Davis has started three times, with the Huskies opening in different formations that require specific personnel, and he has 15 receptions for 224 yards and two scores,

Of his 41 career catches so far, none were bigger than the home-run ball he ran under against Oregon, catching an absolute dart on the left sideline from Penix, who threw a blistering fastball back across the field from the right hashmark, and then tiptoeing along the boundary and sprinting 29 yards to the end zone.

Once Davis lined up for the third-and-7 play and surveyed the Oregon coverage, he felt something good might happen.

"Pre-snap read, I kind of took a deep breath and looked ahead of me," he said. "I just had a little nick that something was coming. I knew since we ran this play previously in the game, there was a big chance the corner would stay in the flat and the whole window would open up, and that's exactly what happened.

"Mike made a tremendous throw, a perfect throw, perfect, it couldn't be any better."

So heading into Saturday night's Colorado game, Davis has not only beaten the Ducks, he's beaten myocarditis and what others thought were long odds that he might ever return to Montlake.

He might someday be the Huskies' No. 1 receiver when some of his teammates move on and he continues to advance his game and, most of all, stay healthy.

But it will take a lot to surpass that moment in Autzen Stadium that became frozen time for him as soon as he crossed the goal line and started taking mental snapshots of his glorious surroundings.

"Moments like this, you get to look back and see all the things you've gone through to get to this moment," Davis said, "and that makes even more special."

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