Love Endures All Things
Josh Love and Tom Hager
In partnership with Athletes For God
Josh Love, stand up!
I can still remember the day vividly. It was the final scrimmage of the summer before my redshirt freshman season, and my coach called out my name. He had announced a few names before mine, and when he told us to turn around to the scoreboard, I had a pretty good feeling of what was about to happen. But I couldn't be sure until I actually saw the scoreboard light up.
What I knew for certain, however, was just how much adversity I had faced to get to that point.
My name is Josh Love and I am the starting quarterback at San Jose State. People say you should play for the name on the front of the jersey, and not the back, but when your last name is Love it's a little different. The Bible says love believes in all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. And after what I've overcome in the last couple of years, I know it's true.
When I started my high school career, I never thought I would one day be standing in that group at San Jose State - not because I had anything against the school, but because all of us in that group were walk-ons with no scholarship.
I began playing football at five or six years old, and by the time I was in middle school, I felt like I had a pretty bright future ahead of me playing the game I love. I would attend the 7 vs. 7 circuits during the offseason, and back then our team was destroying everybody. Of course, my teammates had plenty to do with that...I grew up in Southern California, which is loaded with talent, but even for this area my teammates were special.
I thought my path would take a similar route when I started my high school career. Little did I know it at the time, but I would end up playing for six different head coaches over the next seven years.
But as only God can do, He used my adversity to make me a stronger person.
My high school career got off to a slow start at Orange Lutheran High School, but I understood that my time would come.
At Olu, we had a great freshman football team. I knew that I would be on varsity as a sophomore, and things would be headed in the right direction. Jim Kunau was a legendary coach in the area, who by the end of my freshman season had a career record of 182-52-3. Once I could learn the game under him, I felt I would start to get attention from recruiters.
Then randomly in the spring of my freshman year, he was let go. And the guy they brought in was from Air Force, where they ran the triple option. While I'm sure he was a terrific coach, he did not believe in passing the ball. I knew that I wasn't going to get any scholarship offers by pitching the ball in an option offense. My teammates knew it too.
We all scattered..., Jaylinn Hawkins went to Buena Park, and Equanimeous St. Brown - or Nimi, as we liked to call him - went to Servite. I went to Tesoro High School in Mission Viejo. The team had a three-year starter, and so I decided to wait my time. Again.
Then after the season ended, before I got a chance to play for their coach as a junior, he got fired too. It was like history repeating itself. I wouldn't say I hit the panic button, but I knew at this point that I was starting to run out of time. Some players get recruited as freshman, but by your sophomore year, you should definitely be starting to gain the attention of some recruiters.
Since the administration at Tesoro was floundering on hiring a new coach, I decided to take a huge chance on myself - I transferred to Long Beach Polytechnic High School (Poly). The school had produced more NFL players than any other school in the country (over 60) and when I got there, they had another future star in JuJu Smith-Schuster. I felt I needed stability in the program with Coach Lara, who was the head coach there for years.
If you ever have a chance at a scholarship, I thought, this is the place where it's going to happen.
Transferring to Long Beach was like opening my eyes up to the real world. Orange County is one of the wealthiest areas in the country, and one of the least diverse. When I got to Long Beach, I was one of only a couple of white kids on the team, and for the first time in my life I got a real understanding of the struggles other people go through.
I've never seen people work as hard as my teammates did there. I learned how to get along with people of all cultures, and that no matter what people look like on the outside, we are all children of God. I will never forget the culture there at Poly. The students and faculty were real. I made good friends with my teammates and other students. I cherish the memories and friendships I made from Poly. I thank God for the opportunity to have experienced this in my life.
Of course, there was still the matter of actually playing football.
In my opinion, I emerged from fall camp as the best quarterback on the team, but I was not placed as the team’s starter. Poly was coming off a CIF title the year before, which is like a state title in other parts of the country, and the head coach was loyal to his senior quarterback returning from the previous season. Coach Lara made sure I would never start as a junior - I later realized how detrimental this would be for my recruiting.
The situation couldn't have been more awkward. We started the season against Crenshaw, and our team struggled to pull out a win. The coach put me in for a few throws to get my feet wet, but in those couple of passes I threw our team's first touchdown of the game, even though I had not started the game. That wasn't enough to get me the starting job, but in the second game our starter struggled once again. We were playing Servite, ironically against my old teammate Equanimeous (Nimi), and after our offense got off to another slow start, the coach brought me in off the bench.
I led the team on multiple scoring drives, but instead of emerging as the starter, I found myself in a manufactured quarterback controversy.
I've been playing quarterback my whole life, and I understand the tough dynamic of the position. Only one guy gets to play and he gets all the attention and all the accolades. Sometimes I was the starter, sometimes I was the backup, but in all those years we always managed to make it work. Except that year.
Things reached a boiling point in the next game, because when it came time to make a choice at quarterback, our coach didn't make one. Our team would switch quarterbacks after every series, each game, for the rest of the season. Regardless of how superior I played, that was how it would remain.
It worked...to a point. We advanced to the CIF semifinals, where we lost to Mater Dei. I held my own when I had a chance to play, and I finished the year with 17 touchdown and just two interceptions.
And 0 scholarship offers.
I finally had the team to myself my senior year, and I really started to turn the corner. Coach Lara was replaced by Antonio Pierce (Giants) as the head coach and TJ Houshmandzadeh (Bengals) as our receivers coach. I give God all the credit, but I finished that year with 41 touchdowns, 6 more rushing, and just four interceptions; breaking a number of school records. But still no scholarship offers.
Teams weren't coming out to see me, so I started to come out to see them. And each time I tried to make a visit, I ran into one roadblock after another.
I went to the Elite 11 Camp in Columbus, Ohio with a broken thumb on my throwing hand. With my hand wrapped and a long sleeve shirt, I killed it there, but I was still an unknown. There were just too many quarterbacks in the class of 2015, and all of us were chasing after the same thing. Then I drove more than three hours east, where I had a meeting scheduled with a perennial top 25 program. And when I got there, they had little interest in talking to me. I barely met with the coach, and didn't even get to throw.
As I later found out, that was because future Heisman Award winner Lamar Jackson was making his visit the same day. Lamar didn't even end up attending that school, nor did he know I was visiting at the same time, but it was enough to prevent me from getting offered.
I then traveled to visit to one Ivy League school, where I was told that if I came and threw for the head coach, I would be offered a scholarship. This was it - the moment I had been looking for. Even though I was sick and my thumb was broken, this was my chance. I took the red-eye flight out east, and had a good throwing session. . .only to be told afterwards that they needed to see my ACT scores.
That's fine if you tell someone that before scheduling a visit, but you don't encourage someone to fly across the country to just drop that news on them. And even though I do well in the classroom, my scores weren't good enough for them.
But even at that point I still thought I could make an Ivy League roster. I had another head coach in that conference who had been messaging me on Twitter and texting me. This time I felt wanted. Then when I showed up at his campus to meet him in person, he didn't know who I was. He literally didn't remember me.
I then had one Mountain West school talk with me about meal plans, stipends, and the whole financial package, until a future top-10 NFL pick wanted to transfer there. Another MWC school told me they would offer me if one of their visits didn't commit that weekend, which of course he did.
It got to the point that TJ Houshmandzadeh told me that maybe I should take a look at junior college. I remember signing day when many of my teammates revealed which school’s scholarship offers they would be accepting. They all wore their future team’s gear - I was wearing a plain white tee shirt.
I say all this not to complain, but to show that sometimes God makes us wait for the things we want. And in doing so, hopefully it brings us closer to Him. Romans 8:28 says that "in all things God works for the good of those who love Him" - it just doesn't say how.
I would get that answer soon enough.
As hard as the recruiting process had been, the process of finding my college was actually incredibly easy.
San Jose State, who I had been following the entire time, suddenly had an opening for me. One of their quarterback recruits decommitted, while another couldn't come, and just like that I was suddenly a Spartan.
The only thing was that I was a preferred walk-on, meaning that I had a roster spot but no scholarship. Even though I didn't play my first season, I was thankful to be on the team. I made sure to take mental reps at practice, envisioning that would be me someday. And if I could actually earn playing time, maybe the scholarship would take care of itself. Through all of this, I had a chip on my shoulder to prove all coaches wrong, even the ones I had at San Jose.
Then it happened.
When my coach called my name to look at the scoreboard, I saw the giant word "SCHOLARSHIP" flash on the screen. I barely had time to read it before my teammates mobbed me.
Hard work and perseverance really do pay off.
The crazy thing was that within a few weeks of that moment, I was actually getting on the field. We were playing at home against Utah when our starting quarterback got hurt near the end of the third quarter. I was only in the game for a handful of drives, but in the limited time I saw, I threw for 184 yards. My coach then told me that in our next game, in front of 60,000 people at Iowa State, I would be the starting quarterback for the San Jose State Spartans.
I wish I could say that the rest is history, but that wouldn't be the case. I remember my first touchdown pass against the Cyclones was called back because of a penalty, and on the very next throw I threw my first interception. Of four. But it was a learning experience, and I approached the 2017 season hungry to earn the starting job and keep it.
The ironic part was that within a few months, none of that stuff seemed to matter. I didn't really care anymore if I started at SJSU, and I couldn't concentrate on my academics either. I was about to go through something that put life in perspective really quick. Although I had been a Christian most of life, I had never needed Him like I would over the next few months.
At the end of the 2016 season, my head coach was fired and replaced again. Then in the spring of 2017, something happened to me and some of my teammates that was criminal. In order to protect my teammates, football coaches and SJSU, I have decided not to make public the details of what happened.
I told my parents what happened, but I knew that their support wasn't going to undo what happened. I felt reminded of the incidents on a daily basis which would play out in my head all over again.
I tried to hold it all in. At first I reported what happened, but because I didn’t want it to be a distraction for my team, I let it go. As it turned out, I was the one who was distracted. I had never struggled academically, and all of a sudden I found myself having difficulties keeping up. I was physically in the classroom, but my mind was somewhere completely different.
It got to the point that my parents were concerned for me. Not only did I feel horrible because of what I was going through, I felt even worse for the effect it was having on others. I felt like an anchor dragging down everyone's happiness, from my parents to my teammates, and I needed something to change. In the winter break of 2017, I felt that the only option was to leave SJSU, but God had other plans for me.
Then all that recruiting nonsense from high school started to play out all over again. Since I wanted to transfer right away, and it was too late to enroll in other colleges or universities, I would need football to help with this. I would garner interest from all these schools, only to be turned away from one school after another. The difference was that I wasn't running toward something, like a scholarship. I was trying to running away from something and nobody was opening the door for me.
The only doors that seemed to really be open were those at Saddleback Church. The counselors, David and Christina, talked and prayed with me without me uttering a word. When you have nowhere to turn, turning to God is a pretty good place to start. I learned that God had the strength I needed and He had a plan for me.
In Matthew 11: 28-30, Jesus sums up exactly what I was feeling.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest," He says. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jesus knew what I was going to endure before I was ever born, but He also gave me the heart to take all my burdens and place them on Him. And if Jesus loved me enough to die on the cross for my sins, I knew He loved me enough to change my life back around.
God gave me the strength to return back to SJSU in the spring of 2018, though I did not want to be there. God again proved His being with miracles like changing the circumstances at SJSU to allow me to be able to endure coming back.
But I wouldn't have to do it alone. One of my teammates, Bryson, had become a Christian earlier in the season and was totally devoted to it. So was another quarterback on the team, as well as my tight end, Josh Oliver. My teammate, Mike, also attended church with me, and as time went on I slowly began to put myself back together.
Then something beautiful happened...As I began to rebuild myself, I found the strength to bring others closer to God. In a time where everything seemed to be going wrong, Jesus was the only thing going right, and I wanted my other teammates to experience that. This might have been totally out of my comfort zone ten years ago, but now I had this passion to share the gift of God's love with others.
With the help of my friends, we began to invite everybody else on the team to go to church. And sure enough, many accepted our invitations. Now for the first time in my life I was the one doing the recruiting, and it turns out that recruiting isn't actually that hard when hope, redemption, and salvation are waiting on the other side.
I saw teammates accept Christ for the first time in their lives, and I found myself being brought to tears. On multiple occasions. I have witnessed many changed lives.
My family started to change as well, and everywhere I looked, people were opening their hearts to God's love.
It was incredible to see what transpired once our team became unified by something bigger than football. We stayed together during a rough stretch over the last two years, when we lost many games.
And when we finally broke a long losing streak against UNLV, that was one of the sweetest victories of my life. It didn't qualify us for a bowl game or win a conference title, but it showed what a football team can do when we stick together.
I knew things had come full circle when I ran into TJ. He had been supporting me the entire time, and with a big smile on his face he told me that I proved him wrong about going to junior college. Of course, I knew this wasn't an apology - it was a congratulations.
I've made it a point to become a vocal and emotional leader on this team. I admired the way Joshua became a leader for his people after Moses died, and I am trying to make my last year here count. I wrote a letter to each of my teammates telling them how I felt about them, and if that helps us win more games next season, then that's great. I am focusing on changing lives with God’s help and won’t stop until my entire team is saved.
But if they can see God's love in me, and what He can do in someone's life, then that’s even better.