Julius Davis, a football student-athlete at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville, takes nothing for granted these days.

"When I'm in practice, I go after every play hard because it could be my last. I say nice things to people when I see them. That stuff goes a long way," he said.

Davis would know.

In August of last year, the now-sophomore defensive back took a knee to the stomach during a routine tackling drill.

"It felt like I'd gotten the wind knocked out of me," said Davis, who recalled figuring that he would take a quick breather before returning to the field. "Usually when I get the wind knocked out of me, I recover in a couple of minutes, but for some reason it didn't happen that way."

Davis' condition worsened.

"During practice, my stomach was hurting a lot so I went to see the trainers. They didn't know what was wrong, but they thought I had bruised abs, so they gave me some rib pads," he said.

Davis never put the pads to use, though. He made a go of participating in the second practice of the day, but the pain became so unbearable that he sat out. Ultimately, he decided to go to the hospital.

"They took X-rays," he said. "When the X-rays came back they found a tumor."

A tumor Davis had no idea existed.

"I had no problems before this. No symptoms," he said.

The grapefruit-sized mass was blocking one of his kidneys, and although doctors were able to restore normal function to the organ, the tumor was wrapped around it.

"When I had surgery, they tried to detach it, but it didn't work so they ended up taking my kidney," Davis said.

Although one of his first questions to doctors was whether he would be able to return to the football field, Davis said he thought about abandoning the sport.

"After they told me it was possible, I thought about not playing because my mother didn't want me to play. I just put all the pros and cons together," he said.

In the end, Davis' competitive drive helped tip the scales in favor of a comeback.

"I've been playing football all my life and I love it," he said. "This didn't kill me so it had to make me strong. Plus I'm a competitor. I couldn't see myself not playing football and knowing I could still play. It was just me being a competitor."

The recovery was made more difficult by the fact that Davis had never faced serious injury. But he received an abundance of support in the form of calls and visits from family, coaches, teammates and roommates.

"My family was always there for me and the team was there for me all the time. I think that spirit brought us closer together," he said. "Just knowing that my team was out there playing hard for me and that I could be out there the next year -- and just thinking about stuff I could be doing that I'd taken for granted motivated me."

As he recovered, Davis set three goals for himself: to regain his strength and weight, to catch up academically and get back on track to graduate, and to come back to help Wisconsin-Platteville win.

While he admits he has some work to do yet on regaining his strength and weight and catching up in the classroom, Davis gives himself an 'A' for reaching his third goal. He returned in time for the 2004 season and contributed two interceptions and 43 solo tackles to the Pioneers' 6-4 record, their first winning slate since 1992.

Davis is a physical education major and aspires to become a teacher and coach football.