Joey Joshua: laying a new foundation

| ANDY BRONSON THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

Joshua would like to make his story one of redemption. For the sake of his life it might have to be. He’s run out of second chances to make good on the potential everyone seemed to see in him, first at Ferndale High School and then again at Western Washington University. He’s run out of third and fourth chances, too.

But then, Joshua has never had any trouble finding people who are willing to believe in him. That line has been long for most of his life. Joshua, though, finally seems to again be ready to believe in himself.

“I was always real good at telling people what they wanted to hear,” Joshua said. “I know some people are probably going to think this time it’s no different. But it also used to be really important to me what other people thought of me. I used to have the parties at my house because I wanted to make everyone happy. I wanted to be the center of attention. That’s not who I am anymore. This time I have to do this for myself.”

For the first time in a long time Joshua is again attending classes at Western. It’s been almost three years since he was suspended after being arrested by WWU police on suspicion of two counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance, losing his football scholarship in the process.

He insists the old friends that pulled him toward the alcohol and the drugs are gone — vapors in a past he would like to put behind him. Last quarter, paying his own way through school, Joshua earned the highest grades of his tenure at WWU. Still his past dogs him.

“It’s something that tarnished me, maybe not forever, but definitely as far as school at Western and athletics in Whatcom County goes,” Joshua said. “There are still people at school who remind me of it. They’ll put it together and it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re the guy who got kicked out for selling drugs. That was you.’ I meet a lot of people who already know who I am because they’ve heard my story.”

He’s also looking for a job, something steady to get his financial footing back underneath him. Last week he interviewed for a position laying concrete foundations for new housing developments. The irony of the position isn’t lost on Joshua. He’s been trying to lay a new foundation for his own life for the last few months.

“I have some experience with that,” he said.

And Joshua is playing football again. This time he’s suiting up at defensive end for the Whatcom County Raiders, hurtling his 6-foot-4, 225 pound frame into anything that moves. His body doesn’t recover quite as quickly as it once did, but he’s happy to be playing again.

It hasn’t been that long since he was terrorizing the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, earning all-GNAC second-time honors with the Vikings. The talent that earned him the full ride scholarship, though not quite as sharp, is still evident.

Bit by bit he’s reclaiming the things that a series of bad decisions took away from him. Step by step Joshua is reclaiming the person he used to be and reshaping the person he’s become.

“Just to get on the field, just to have that camaraderie of playing football has been big for me,” Joshua said. “Football was a major part of my life before I got into the trouble I got into. That was my life for years, playing football, and then to get kicked out of school and kicked off the football, emotionally it just devastated me.”

Joshua’s trouble began long before that January day in 2005 when he was called to the campus police station for what he thought was a traffic issue, only to leave in handcuffs. His numerous minor-in-possession citations weren’t enough to raise red flags. Nor was his laissez- faire attitude toward everything but partying.

“Back at that time I was making stupid decisions,” Joshua said. “I was taking everything for granted. I had a perfect opportunity, but I just didn’t look at the consequences. My priorities were completely askew. I took college as a place to meet people, to hang out, to party, to play football, and then go to class. It was totally backward.”

Before long he was hanging out with a crowd of people he probably wouldn’t have associated with if drugs weren’t the common bond. He was headed down a path of harder and harder abuse and consequences.

“In my own head I got caught up in this image,” Joshua said. “I had this kind of drug dealer, rapper image for myself in my head. I tried to get it, which was just stupid. Anybody that does that ends up arrested eventually. Believe me.”

Joshua hit bottom in March of 2007 with another drug arrest. His attempts to get his life back in order up to that point had been short-lived. He’d worked for a beer and beverages distributor, staying clean and sober for a time, even working as an assistant football coach with the Lummi High School football team, but it didn’t last.

“You could say in some respects I was leading a double life, but I don’t want it to seem like the right things I was doing were just a sham or a cover up because I cared about those things” Joshua said. “When I was coaching those kids out at Lummi High School that was something I loved doing. But I definitely wasn’t the role model I think I seemed to be on the surface. I feel bad for that.”

An appointment to Whatcom County Drug Court, an extensive counseling and rehabilitation program, was the only thing that kept him out of jail. It’s also helped him begin to put his life back together.

“It’s helping me get back to my roots,” Joshua said. “I’m distancing myself from that old life style. A year and half ago I would have bet as much money as I had — which was none — that I would have never gotten back into college and never played football again. At that time those dreams were gone. Now I have choices again. It’s been a life saver.”

Joshua is in the third phase of the Drug Court’s four-phase rehabilitation program. He regularly undergoes drug testing and counseling. For the first time in a long time he’s clean and sober.

“After I graduate from Drug Court I will have had a year of clean time under my belt, new friends, a year to work, to get back into school, to build self confidence,” Joshua said. “That’s a big thing for me. The main reason I was using and doing the stupid things I was doing was because I hated the person I was. I had no selfrespect anymore. In my head I couldn’t succeed.”

After years spent battling drug addictions, abusing alcohol, and making nearly every wrong decision a young adult can make, Joshua is slowly picking up the pieces. He hopes to graduate from WWU sometime next year with a sociology degree. He would like to work with at-risk children, lend a sympatric ear and a helping hand, and share his cautionary story with those on the threshold of taking the same path.

And though he still has a year of eligibility remaining to play NCAA college football, that part of his life is probably over. He’s content to just be playing football semiprofessionally. He’s planning on leaving it at that.

Like so many other things, playing college football has become a part of his past now. He’s busy building for the future these days.

“Even today, getting back into Western, there are still people who want to see me succeed,” Joshua said. “As much as I messed up there are still people who know I have a lot to offer. It’s a great feeling to know that after all that I have done there are still people out there who think I can give back in some way and make a positive impact on this community.”