While senior slot back Chance Warren was spending his plebe season in humbling football anonymity as a member of Navy's scout team in the fall of 2018, J.D. Pruitt, his former baseball coach at Enterprise (Ala.) High School, was certain Warren would not be down there for long.

Pruitt had seen everything Warren had to offer a sport and a team. He had watched Warren make an immediate impact as a sophomore shortstop at Enterprise with his bat, speed, athleticism, fiery competitiveness, dogged work ethic and precocious leadership skills. He recalled Warren's way of encouraging teammates, or chiding them without ever berating them. Warren, Pruitt recalled, was always hardest on himself.

Looking back on Warren's three excellent varsity baseball years, though, Pruitt zeroed in on how Warren responded when Pruitt spotted a hitch in the sophomore's throwing mechanics. It caused Warren to have a slow release, more befitting an outfielder instead of the shorter, snappy motion required to execute good throws across the infield.

Warren hit .381 over three varsity seasons and was a catalyst from day one. He drove in 95 runs, stole 73 bases, and, as a junior, led Enterprise, a Class 7A school — the largest classification in Alabama — to a No. 4 ranking in the state and a school record 30 wins.

But it's the way Warren honed in obsessively on his weakness at shortstop that sticks out in Pruitt's mind about what makes him tick. Pruitt drew a direct correlation to the status Warren has earned at Nav where he has established himself as a versatile playmaker and is serving as one of the Mids' four team captains in 2021.

"If you put a challenge in front of that guy, he's going to respond. Chance had the arm slot of an outfielder. He could have easily been a great centerfielder, but he would have none of that," says Pruitt, who added Warren, who was All-State in both sports, surely could have played Division I baseball if he wasn't committed to football.

"Chance firmly committed to working on snapping the ball to first base with a quicker release. He made hundreds, thousands of practice throws over three years," Pruitt adds. "He always got to practice early for extra work and stayed after to get late work. You knew he was going to be a really good offensive player, but the progression he made as a shortstop was astronomical. I did not think [as a sophomore] he'd become the caliber of shortstop he became by his senior year."

"Where I struggle is always where you'll find me putting in the most work. I like going about my business. I don't like the spotlight on me," says Warren, who also admits his early transition at Navy was extremely difficult to digest. Warren went from being a star receiver among other future college players at a huge school in football-rich Alabama to being relegated to the scout team at Navy.

"No one wants to be put on the scout team. It is not a great feeling. You come to understand it," recalls senior slot back Tyler Goslin, whose bond with Warren as a fellow plebe was galvanized by the experience. "Our way of coping with that fact was we wanted to kick the crap out of the [Navy] defense [in practice]. We had to try and make the defense better every week and get noticed."

Warren recalls how much it stung to look at a depth chart without seeing his name on it after his run at Enterprise. There, his future Division I teammates included current University of Houston senior All-American cornerback/punt returner Marcus Jones.

"It's very humbling to leave high school as a No. 1 receiver and suddenly you're not on the depth chart," Warren says. "I'm a competitor. I don't like to lose at anything, not even in a contest to see who washes the dishes faster. What I figured out was the best thing I could do was to put my head down and go hard at practice every day and earn it. By the end of that year, I wasn't treading water anymore."

As senior free safety and fellow co-captain, Kevin Brennan recalls how Warren embraced the usefulness of giving the Navy defense a good look at their next opponent's offense, performing as a slot back, receiver and sometimes at quarterback in practice. Warren's athleticism and competitive fire stood out.

"[Warren] would give our starters on defense all they could handle," Brennan says. "Chance talks a lot, but he definitely backs it up."

Warren clearly caught the eyes of the Navy coaching staff. He dressed for the final two games of the 2018 season and was named the program's scout team player of the year.

Warren's versatility would be on display during his breakout sophomore season in 2019, a year that saw Navy post an 11-2 record led by elusive and super-speedy quarterback Malcolm Perry that ranks among the best seasons in the program's history.

While Perry dominated Navy's top-tier rushing attack, Warren was a steady blocker at the wideout spot, whom Navy used as a chess piece, sometimes on reverses, occasionally as a passer on halfback option calls, sometimes as a sure-handed receiver adept at getting open and finishing a play. Warren simply found ways to belong on the field in a solid supporting role.

"Even now, I don't know if Chance has a [single] role. He does everything," Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo says. "There isn't one thing we don't think he can do."

"We were so deep at A-back my sophomore year, I got moved to wideout. I was a trickster," Warren says, relishing the opportunistic highlights he helped to create.

He carried the ball only five times, but netted 70 yards and two touchdowns. His lone carry against Kansas State in the Liberty Bowl was an end-around play that resulted in a 20-yard touchdown. More fireworks came later. On a fourth-and-three in the closing seconds, Warren caught a career-long 41-yard pass from slot back C.J. Williams that set up the game-winning field goal in Navy's 20-17 victory.  

Warren also attempted three passes that year. His two completions included a one-yard touchdown pass to Jamale Carothers that fueled the Mids' 31-7 rout over Army. It was also the only pass thrown that day by the Mids.

In addition, Warren's 18-yard pass completion off a reverse sparked Navy's game-winning drive in a 34-25 victory over Air Force. He scored his first collegiate touchdown on a 22-yard reverse in a 35-28 win over SMU. He also averaged 20 yards on six kickoff returns.

"With Chance, you get a really nice balance of a super-confident player who really wants to help his guys win anyway he can," Navy slot backs coach Joe DuPaix says.  

"There's no 'gimme the ball' complaining with him. We knew as a plebe that Chance had incredible hands. He could throw it and make one-handed catches look easy. But he paid the price of hard work and patiently waited his turn. I think of the blocks he made to spring Malcom that year. His energy and spirit are contagious. He is the leader and other teacher in our [position] room."

"I used to complain about the restrictions here, not being able to do this or that when I was younger," says Warren, who will graduate in May with a degree in operations research and aims to be commissioned as a naval aviator. "But it's really a blessing to be here."

Warren, who thought he would be a preferred walk-on at Vanderbilt before his official visit to the Naval Academy as a junior changed his mind, refers to his parents, Chris and Shannon, with the same reverence.

Chance barely knew his biological father. By the time he was 18 months old, his mother was mired in an abusive household and about to get out with her toddler son to start over. She did so with Chris Warren, who became Chance's adoptive father when he was three. Chris and Shannon have been married for the past 18 years and have had three children together.

"We were both determined to make sure Chance did not become a statistic. We wanted him to have an incredible life," Shannon Warren says. "I did everything in my power to make sure Chance was in the right places with the right people.

"He was the type of kid who made us believe he'd do exceptional things. His elementary school teachers would tell us what a leader he was in the classroom. He was a stubborn, persuasive debater but he'd listen to reason. He would break up fights at school and take two boys to the office —to point them in the right direction, not to be a tattletale. He would always push himself a little harder, do things a little better."

Says Chris Warren, "We hunted and fished and did everything together. Chance changed my life, made me a better man. He has exceeded everything I could have asked him to achieve."

"I have learned that good can come from bad," Chance said. "My dad taught me how to throw a football, catch a baseball, tie my shoes and get good grades. He's shaped everything I've known in my life. Without my parents and our faith, I wouldn't be anywhere near the man I am today. I reflect on that a good bit."

Warren adds that last year makes him appreciate one final year as a Midshipmen and a football player in deeper ways he never could have foreseen.

In hindsight, the 2020 campaign was basically a lost cause waiting to happen. Navy had no spring football, no meaningful team bonding, and a socially distanced, no-contact preseason that left the Mids overmatched in the months that followed. Two games were cancelled for Covid-related reasons. The offense and defense took turns struggling mightily.

Warren says he is committed to savoring every day, every practice, every moment with teammates and coaches. He is, of course, all in on being the best captain he can be.

"In all of the ways last year was so negative, I think it's having a positive effect on us, as we go into this season," he says. "The energy, being able to practice together again and sit in meeting rooms as a team, the excitement. It's all elevated.

"Being elected captain is one of the highest achievements of my young life. I can't even do it justice with words to describe what it means to me that these guys think that much of me. My goal, besides getting back to Navy football this year, is to be more intentional every day.

"When this year is over, I'll never be a college student or a football player again. I'll have to get ready for the real world. I don't want to rush any day away."