Sometimes life just gives you a bad draw. Even before you’re born, people can already tell your life isn’t going to be as easy or as normal as everyone else’s. Josiah Johnson was one of those kids whose entire life was going to be an uphill battle, since he was born without legs. But if there’s something we should all take away from this brave 13 year old, it’s that mentality will always win out to your physical limitations.
The kid actually plays for his school basketball team as a very valued member, but that’s not the big kicker here. Josiah refuses to play in his wheelchair. He’s a very competitive kid that’s been doing sports for pretty much his entire life, and refuses to do things if they feel like they’re too easy.
He wanted to make the basketball team purely on merit of his skills and not as a sympathy vote, so he went to all the trials and give it his 100% until the coach finally gave him a spot.
And now that he’s on the team, he’s still refusing to play in a wheelchair and is even using his position on the ground as an advantage. It makes it much harder for his opponents to actually take the ball from him so he’s the best player on the team when it comes to taking the ball, dribbling and giving passes to his teammates.
His mentality shows us that despite being born with a severe disability, he can still manage to play on an equal level as the other kids.
As for Josiah himself, he hopes that all we learn from his story is that we can do things that we thought we couldn’t do. I think we can all agree that if Josiah can play basketball, we can all do a bit better as well. Here’s hoping we can one day see this kid in the NBA!
