From the Orphanage in Ghana to the IWU Gridiron

The Amazing Resilience of Josh Davidson

Some students tackle a lot each day to remain in school. Others, like Josh Davidson, do this on and off the football field. He has led the IWU football team in tackles all four years, including 20 in one game. Not too shabby for a young man who never saw an American football game until being adopted out of an orphanage at age nine.

He moved here in 2008 from Bolgatanga in Northern Ghana with his two younger brothers. His widowed mother, Fatima, was unable to care for his two younger brothers, four-year-old Caleb and two year-old Gideon. “My father went to work one day and came back in a casket.”

Fatima was reluctant to send the youngest boys to an orphanage alone. Josh, seven years old at the time, agreed to join them, to ensure that they stayed together and safe.

He saw a need and offered himself, and his future, as its solution.

Eventually, two years later, the orphanage found a family that would take all of them. Although the initial placement was short lived (due to the family taking in too many children), within two years in America they woke up in an amazing home— and were soon adopted by Brian and Christine Davidson (now in Lynchburg, Virginia). They enrolled the boys in a Christian school.

He says, “Back in Ghana, we were Muslim. When I moved here… I didn’t make Christianity my own faith until one of the chapels when I was in high school—literally, I don’t know what came over me, but I just felt like Jesus was calling me.”

Josh could have played elsewhere, but his faith, and Head Coach Langs’ father-in-law (“Uncle” Rick McKinley, ’81), ultimately led him to IWU. From his linebacker position, his job on any given play is to identify needs, and to use his instincts and athleticism to provide a solution on the field, whether that means plugging the line or dropping back into coverage.

Josh’s time at IWU has left him with close friendships on and off the field. He says, “I’ve been able to lean on people like Jamis Carson, a safety on the team, and also Jaxon Savieo. The Christian walk is not an easy walk and without those people in my life to lean on, to help and push me forward, I think my journey might look very different.”

Josh’s favorite IWU class focused on entrepreneurial business—which at this point shouldn’t surprise us. Dr. Matt Voss taught that entrepreneurs, in the simplest terms, identify needs and meet them with innovative solutions.

As much as he’s enjoyed IWU, Josh’s eyes light up when he mentions a return trip to Ghana—it’s been fourteen years since he’s seen his two older brothers or his younger sister in person. It’s no surprise that’s where he’s headed after graduation, at least for a while.

The strongest tug is to hug his family, and then to embrace the community. And, you might say, after understanding more fully its needs to help tackle them.

Written by Nick DeNeff ‘07 and Jerry Pattengale ‘79