Beloved Michigan football fan ‘Meechie’ Walker dies after battle with bone cancer

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Beloved Michigan football fan Dametrius “Meechie” Walker died Friday after a two-year battle with bone cancer.

Meechie was a star high school football player for Muskegon and had offers to play for several Division I programs. But in the fall of 2020, he started having knee pain and was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer.

Meechie required a full knee replacement to remove a tumor, and spent nine months undergoing chemotherapy treatments. But in September 2021, he found out the cancer had returned, and even after surgery to amputate his left leg, the cancer had spread by January 2022.

Doctors reached out to Michigan football — a team Meechie had dreamed of playing for during his high school career.

“Michigan — that would be a blessing to get an offer from your dream school that you always wanted to go to, you know?” Meechie said during a feature on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff in September. “My dream was to go to the NFL.”

Meechie became a household name in August, when he went to a Michigan football practice and scored a touchdown during a scrimmage.

“I fear dying, man,” Meechie said during the special. “I don’t want to die, especially not young. I know we all have to go some day, but I’ve got too much to live for right now. I just turned 18. I still have a lot of life ahead of me, man. I try my best every day to get up and stay strong for the family, for my son, for my brother.”

His story became an inspiration nationally when it was shared on Big Noon Kickoff on Sept. 24 and on ESPN’s College GameDay on Oct. 15.

He was honored during the Maryland game and received a standing ovation, and Jim Harbaugh rewarded him the game ball in the postgame locker room.