By Kim J. Harmon

 

More a victim of unfortunate circumstance and ill-fated timing than a non-descript high school football career, Josh Rouse was at a crossroads.

He played two somewhat run-of-the-mill seasons for the Newtown High School football team – having lost four weeks due to CIAC transfer rules and a few more weeks to injury and illness – and when it was all over the college football opportunities he had been hoping for just weren’t there.

Oh, sure, the University of Massachusetts and Marist knocked on his door and he had an eye on playing for Georgetown, but all his Division I-AA options were non-scholarship opportunities and he ultimately decided against all of that.

“I felt I would be settling for something,” said Josh. “I felt like I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve.”

So he moved on … to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania, for a semester of military-style discipline, education, and football. And about a month after helping lead the VFMAC gridders to a 7-0 record Josh – at 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds – had signed on to play linebacker at Division I Michigan State University after getting nibbles from other Division programs like Illinois, Iowa, Boston College and Northwestern.

“I was hoping to just get a scholarship from someone,” said Josh, 19, who will report as a true freshmen to MSU in early January. “I couldn’t have written it any better.”

Timing

Josh was playing linebacker and tight end for a solid Immaculate High School football program, but after several of his friends transferred out he decided to transfer out, too, and it wasn’t only the loss of some friends that did it but also the feeling that he wasn’t doing as well as he could in school.

When he arrived in Newtown he was forced, per CIAC rules, to sit out the first four weeks of the season. But when he was ready and able to play he was asked by head coach Ken Roberts to fill deep hole at quarterback.

“I didn’t care,” said Josh, who played quarterback as a freshman and jayvee at Immaculate. “I just wanted to play.”

His numbers … well, in two years he was 40-of-110 (36.3%) for 586 yards and five touchdowns. He wasn’t fixing to go to college as a gun slinging quarterback, anyway, but when he saw his dream of playing top-level collegiate football start to slip away coach Roberts helped him get a bead on different prep schools where he could try again.

“I wasn’t happy with the way recruiting had gone as a senior (at Newtown),” said Josh. “I wanted a year where I could play and focus on one position.”

And that’s what sent him to Valley Forge Military Academy. And the irony wasn’t that he then had to get up at 5:45 am, march to breakfast and shine all of his stuff but that VFMAC didn’t, when he arrived, actually have a quarterback.

It was his job.

For two days.

“I had the job until a guy from Virginia came in,” said Josh, who soon settled into the middle linebacker role. “I was very relieved.”

Josh made such an impression during camp that he was voted team captain. A few weeks later, scouts from Michigan State were in the stands looking at a VFMAC lineman and Josh made an impression on them, too.

“A couple of weeks later I got a call,” said Josh. “I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t believe I was talking to Michigan State. I played well all year, but I didn’t think I would ever play Division I football.”

Michigan State was impressed with the way Josh operated on special teams. Once MSU expressed interest, word got around and pretty soon scouts from Northwestern and Illinois had stopped down to see him while Iowa and Boston College expressed some interest. Josh was close to going to Illinois after two friends from Valley Forge decided to go there, but he settled on MSU.

When he reports in early January he will get started almost immediately on his weight training (“they want me to bulk up a bit,” said Josh) and when spring drills come around he will be involved like the rest of the Spartan recruits getting prepared for Big Ten competition against such storied programs as Penn State (the new home of Newtown’s Brennan Coakley), Ohio State, Wisconsin (the new home of Newtown’s Dan Cascone), Michigan, Northwestern, Minnesota and Purdue.

It took an extra semester of school – and getting up at the crack of dawn – but, as Josh says, “It was worth it.”