Zamir White’s journey from two weeks to live to Georgia’s star back and beyond

ATHENS, Ga. — Shanee White was 14 years old when she became pregnant with her first child. At six months, a doctor told her that her baby, a boy, weighed just one pound and advised her to abort the pregnancy.

Her grandmother, Nancy White, quickly overruled the doctor.

“We’re not going to terminate the pregnancy,” she said. “No matter what’s wrong with him, he’s going to be born.”

Shanee, already overwhelmed about having a child while still in high school, urged her grandmother to listen to the doctor.

“The doctor is not God, so he doesn’t have the last say,” her grandmother told her. “If he takes one breath, he’s going to take it.”

Shanee’s baby was born on Sept. 18, 1999. Although he had grown to about seven pounds, he had a cleft lip and cleft palate. The next day, after his body temperature dropped and he was losing weight because he wouldn’t eat, he was transferred to a hospital in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Doctors there told Shanee that her son might not live for another two weeks.

“I was just sitting there staring,” Shanee said. “I just looked at him for a long time like, ‘What am I going to do?'”

Today, the baby boy that was given just two weeks to live is the leading rusher on the No. 1-ranked college football team in the country.

Zamir White not only survived, he grew to become a five-star recruit, a Georgia Bulldogs fan favorite affectionately known as “Zeus” and a potential NFL draft choice in 2022. And, more importantly, he has become an inspiration for children who were born with the same medical condition as him.

But it wasn’t always easy. After three months in the hospital, Zamir survived and finally got to go home for the first time. When Nancy White’s great-grandson finally came home, she…