BOWLING GREEN — On every trip JaJuan Hudson made to a neurosurgeon, his mother, Shemeika, knew what was coming.
The visits were periodic check-ins to monitor his condition, Chiari malformation, a structural defect in which brain tissue extends past the opening of the base of the skull.
Surgery can be necessary depending on severity, but for JaJuan, it mostly meant one thing: No contact sports.
“He would always ask them the same question: ‘When can I play football?’” Shemeika Hudson said. “I told him, ‘Please stop asking the doctor about you playing football, because they already told you that you’re not playing. You can’t play.’”
The family discovered JaJuan’s condition after he experienced splitting headaches as a child, and doctors gave them a laundry list of things he couldn’t do, including no roller coasters, no diving into pools, and especially no football.
But he wasn’t giving up that easily.
“After that, I used to want to be a punter,” JaJuan Hudson said. “I wanted to play football so bad that I would tell my mom, ‘Punters don’t really get hit that much.’ I was like, ‘Maybe I could be a punter.’”
JaJuan Hudson kicked pinecones to prepare for his moment as a star punter, what he saw as a lone chance to play football.
In early adolescence, however, JaJuan Hudson stopped experiencing headaches and tried his luck once more.
He and his father, Matthew, drove from the family’s home in Camden, N.J., to a checkup with a doctor in Philadelphia, and after a full brain MRI that lasted hours, doctors determined JaJuan Hudson’s condition was a mild case.
He was given the all-clear to play football, news he raced into the house to tell his mother.
Seven years later, JaJuan Hudson is starting as a true freshman at Bowling Green. He became one of the surprises of training camp for the Falcons, and he’s started all four games for BG so far this season.
The Hudsons traveled to Bowling Green for the season-opening game against Morgan State. JaJuan was not announced as a starter, but when the defense came onto the field, No. 28 was there — an unforgettable moment for his parents.
“When they go on the field, I hit my husband, and I’m like, ‘He’s in! He’s in!’ I was so nervous,” Shemeika Hudson said. “I’m like, ‘Why am I so nervous?’ It was surreal for us to see him out there and know he had worked so hard for this.”
The cornerback ended up at Bowling Green, in part, because of former Maryland defensive backs coach Chuck Heater, a friend of BG coach Scot Loeffler. Heater liked JaJuan Hudson and alerted the BG staff, and JaJuan Hudson was on campus taking an official visit eight days later.
The Falcons see a great deal of potential in JaJuan Hudson, whom they are tasking with major responsibilities on every snap.
“To go out there and play cornerback as a true freshman is not easy,” Loeffler said. “He’s learning on the fly, which is tough, but with time, the positives and negatives that are occurring right now will benefit him in the future.”
For now, the reality is that opposing offenses almost always will test a freshman cornerback, something JaJuan Hudson knows well.
“It’s just the simple fact of you know that they’re going to keep trying you,” he said. “It’s like you have to play even harder.”
Though JaJuan Hudson is only in his second year playing cornerback, he appreciates the amount of trust given to him by his coaches, and he aims to prove them right by learning from this trial-by-fire freshman season.
“Granted, you’re going to give up a lot of passes. I have so far — but it’s going to change,” JaJuan Hudson said, smiling. “It just gives you an edge mentally. It prepares you for the future, because you’ll be mentally tough and always have that edge.”
Loeffler called JaJuan Hudson “great for our program” and said the freshman has the mental makeup to be a special player during the Falcons’ rebuild.
“I remember La. Tech throwing a touchdown pass on him, and I went up to him and said, ‘Demeanor,’ and he popped right back into forgetting about that play,” Loeffler said. “I really like him. We all like him.
“He’s going to make our program better in the long run.”
First Published September 25, 2019, 8:27 p.m.
