Vosean Joseph leads the Gators with a career-high 69 tackles. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
Story of Vosean: Yes to Football, No to Fashion Modeling
Tuesday, November 6, 2018 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – They know No. 11, the go-for-broke linebacker who plays with a bull-in-a-china-shop approach.
They see the hits, the emotional outbursts, the speed at which he attacks. The highlight reel is online for instant access to anyone unfamiliar with Vosean Joseph, Florida's leading tackler.
"Vosean's a dog,'' teammate Kyree Campbell said. "He has determination."
Joseph is aware of the outside perceptions. Fiery. Reckless. Hungry.
If Campbell's analogy is applied in a literal sense, Joseph is a pit bull in shoulder pads, always on the prowl for the next hit. A junior, Joseph is turning in his best season for the Gators following a summer of reflection.
At the end of last season when the Gators hired head coach Dan Mullen, Joseph wondered where he fit in new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham's vision. The previous coaching staff was one of the first to show interest in Joseph as he physically dominated at Norland High in Miami, where former Gators defensive coordinator Randy Shannon starred.
Joseph's father, Wesley Joseph, would sit in the stands and watch as Vosean and fellow Vikings linebacker Rayshad Jackson, a year ahead of Vosean in high school and now a Florida teammate, and Florida State linebacker Emmet Rice crunched on opposing running backs like a bowl of Fruit Loops.
An excellent athlete whose parents expected his future to be basketball, the 6-foot-1, 226-pound Joseph gravitated toward football with the mindset of a bowling ball headed toward the pins. In high school, he played some quarterback, punted and did whatever else the Vikings needed.
"At 8, 9 years old, you could not keep the football out of his hands. I know he loves contact,'' Wesley Joseph said. "Everybody around me, I could hear them talking, 'Wow, that No. 10, he is the best player on the field.' I would just listen. They didn't know I was his father. He was pretty good."
Growing up in the rough and tumble Carol City neighborhood of Miami, Vosean turned to sports at an early age, playing whatever was in season to expend his energy: football, baseball and basketball his primary hobbies. His parents had moved to Miami late in their teens to rejoin family members and find their own way. Wesley is from the Bahamas. His mother, Nattalene Vanreil, is from Jamaica, where she was a good enough athlete to play for Jamaica's national field hockey team.
They both come from large extended families, which meant an eclectic childhood for Vosean, who would visit the Bahamas with Wesley and spend a portion of the summer in Jamaica with Nattalene's family.
"We are very family oriented,'' Nattalene said. "His dad's side, my side, there are always events, get-togethers. I do fashion and costumes. Most of the time he was with me if we weren't at sports."
Gators linebacker Vosean Joseph, center of backrow, has a large extended family in Miami with roots in the Bahamas and Jamaica. (Photo: Courtesy of Nattalene Vanreil)
Nattalene moved to the U.S. to study fashion design. As Vosean got older and began to develop into an elite athlete, he often attended fashion shows where Nattalene and other designers showcased their newest work. They often asked if he would serve as one of the male models.
The answer was always the same.
"He was not with that,'' Nattalene said. "And I tried."
Instead, Vosean preferred uniforms over colorful costumes.
"I remember I wore my football cleats to school and got in trouble,'' he said. "In second grade."
Once he figured he wasn't going to be the next Chris Bosh due to his height, Vosean developed a tunnel vision toward football early in high school. His motivation only grew when the idea of earning a college scholarship started to seem real.
By that time, Joseph understood some of life's harsh realities, including the violence and drug culture that existed in the neighborhoods where he grew up and that swallowed friends. Football was a way to opportunity, much like coming to the U.S. was for his parents.
Ask him what he has learned about himself in his three years at UF, and Joseph looks back at his old stomping grounds.
"Don't let where you come from define you. That's one thing I want to say,'' he said. "A lot of people may say I look mean, or I'm mean just because where I'm from is gritty. It's not easy. At the end of the day, I've got a kind heart, if you are willing to receive this kind heart and take it.
"I'm a cool person. I just like to chill and make people laugh and have fun."
Of course, most Gators fans got their first introduction to Joseph during his freshman season when he delivered a rocket hit on LSU quarterback Danny Etling near the goal line that prevented a touchdown and sent Etling flying like a Frisbee. The play went viral on social media and defined Joseph for his first two years with the Gators.
Joseph took another trip on the viral train last month when he was ejected in Florida's win at Vanderbilt. After receiving an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for slamming a Vanderbilt player to the ground, Joseph was ejected when both teams received unsportsmanlike conduct penalties later in the first half after Mullen and Grantham got into a shouting match with Commodores coach Derek Mason, who was near UF's sideline to attend to an injured player.
Joseph was not directly involved in the fracas, but due to a little-known NCAA rule, a player who has already received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty is automatically ejected for a second violation if the team receives one.
Joseph was unaware of the rule when they told him he had to leave the sideline, prompting an outburst that made the rounds on social media.
"I talked to him right away,'' Wesley Joseph said. "If you look at the video, when the whole team gets that unsportsmanlike penalty, he didn't realize what happened. He thought it was something that he did at that moment. He was fired up after that. He was so ready for that game. He's got some fire. His momma is fiery just like him."
Minus the abbreviated appearance at Vanderbilt, Joseph is enjoying the best stretch of his career. In Florida's victory over No. 5 LSU on Oct. 6, Joseph recorded a career-high 14 tackles to earn Walter Camp National Defensive Player of the Week honors. And after battling a case of the flu for several days, Joseph led the Gators with 13 tackles against Georgia before recording a team-high 12 in Saturday's loss to Missouri.
Joseph is seventh in the Southeastern Conference with 69 tackles, already surpassing the career-high 55 he had as a sophomore. His increased production – he is third on the team with four sacks and has eight tackles for loss -- can be attributed to an increase in his attention to detail and reliance on playing his role instead of racing around the field in a furry the way he did in high school. He also dropped about 10 pounds prior to the season with a commitment to better nutrition and conditioning.
"My goal was really just to improve from last season. I didn't have the season I wanted to,'' he said. "When Coach Grantham came in here, he sat me down and said, 'It's really up to you. You can do what you want to do in the defense. You can shine.' I want to say the pressure [fits my game]. I feel like that's one of my strong suits. You have to stay within the defense for the defense to be successful. I pretty much tried to make every tackle, and that made me overrun plays and give bad reads and stuff like that. I really sat down in the film room with coaches and they were like, 'just be patient. You are fast enough to get where you want to be.' "
Soon after the new coaching staff arrived, Joseph sat down with his dad on a trip home to discuss making a favorable impression on the new coaches.
He took care of the rest on the field.
"He's a guy growing and learning about the defense,'' Mullen said.
"The guy's really fast," added Grantham. "He's really a conscientious guy as far as wanting to perfect his craft and be a very good player at his position. And he's put a lot of work into watching tape, understanding fits, understanding what the other team's doing. "
What fans are seeing now is a player who learned more about himself by watching hours of game film from last year in the offseason. It was a highlight reel of plays he didn't make.
As a result, Joseph is gaining notoriety for more than his famous hit on Etling or that outburst at Vanderbilt. Following a recent practice, Joseph was stopped by a fan who requested a photo.
Joseph waited patiently as the man fiddled with his iPhone.
"You're my man. You're the real deal,'' the man said. "You're a player."
Joseph smiled, knowing the work he put in for that to happen.
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