NC State football isn’t his first stop but here’s how Daniel Joseph landed in Raleigh
N.C. State’s Daniel Joseph has yet to get the full North Carolina experience.
He moved to Raleigh from State College, Pa. during the middle of the pandemic. Joseph didn’t get to go to any festivals on Fayetteville Street or attend any live shows that come to the city during the summer months.
His first welcome to North Carolina moment was realizing how hot it is in the south — while going two months without the air conditioning working in his car.
“The heat here is something radical,” Joseph said. “I knew it was going to be hot, but I didn’t know it was going to be this hot. I didn’t know it was going to be so hot you can’t have your windows down.”
Before Joseph played at Penn State, he lived in Chicago. Before spending four years in Chicago, Joseph was in Toronto, where he was born and lived with his family during his formative years. It’s easy to understand why the Carolina summers were a shock to the senses for a man who spent most of his life in cold cities.
Not that it matters. Joseph, 23, came to Raleigh with a business-like approach. He has a clear goal in front of him and so far in life, he’s taken very calculated steps to make sure he reaches that goal. He’s been on his own since he was 16, moving to another country at such a young age, chasing a dream, with a ball dangling in front of him like a carrot to a rabbit.
Maybe when the pandemic shifts, Joseph will get to really experience North Carolina. He can travel to the beaches, visit the mountains, or hang out on campus.
But, be clear, he’s here to take care of business on the football field, and that’s all that matters. That’s the next step to reach the ultimate goal. A goal that started with a move to a foreign city at the age of 16.
For Daniel Joseph, ‘there is no Plan B’
Joseph moved to Chicago to put himself in a better position to be recruited. He packed up all his things, left his parents and moved to another country, all to earn a college scholarship.
He was at a boarding school nine hours from his parents. He wasn’t getting home-cooked meals and didn’t have mom and dad watching over him to make sure tasks got done. Joseph had to figure out how to take care of business, and in a hurry. It was a big change for him at such a young age, but a necessary one if he wanted to get that full ride.
Like so many kids, sports was the big ticket. And like so many who pursue their dreams on making this a career, it’s all or nothing.
“There was no Plan B and still to this day there is no Plan B,” Joseph said. “I still have my number one plan and that hasn’t been achieved yet. There is no Plan B.”
His brother, Faith Ekakite, played at Iowa and was the No. 1 pick of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 2017 Canadian Football League Draft. He has a cousin, Ese Mrabure-Ajufo, who also played in the CFL. Joseph has those same kinds of aspirations. Joseph has those same kinds of professional aspirations, preferably the NFL.
He’s bet on himself before, and so far it’s worked. Leaving home at 16 to put himself in a position to get a college scholarship worked in his favor. Looking for a better opportunity after Penn State, led to a starting position at N.C. State. So far so good. The next step is yet to be determined. But Joseph uses the pressure he puts on himself as motivation.
“To be able to provide for my family later down the road has always been the pressure for me,” Joseph said. “I know what my family has been through and what they had to endure. I want to do right by them by being able to take care of them. Why I do what I do is to be able to provide for my family when it’s all said and done.”
From Penn State to NC State
At 6-3, 265 pounds, Joseph is proud of that fact he can dunk a basketball. He’s a bit heavier than when he started playing, but a recent video on his Instagram shows he has some hops.
Basketball, as it turns out, was his first love. He still loves playing basketball, and it was the round ball, not the pigskin, that brought him to the United States.
In Canada, hockey is the country’s big-time sport, but Joseph and his brothers gravitated towards hoops. Basketball is what made Joseph follow in his brother’s footsteps and move to Chicago to attend Lake Forest Academy. Sports are big in Canada, but he knew he could get more exposure in America.
Arriving in America the fall of his freshman year, Joseph had to wait to get on the hardwood since basketball was a winter sport. In the meantime he had to find a way to quench his competitive thirst, so football it was. As a freshman he played sparingly, mostly on special teams. He didn’t fall in love with football immediately.
“It takes a while to fall in love with a game when you’re getting smacked a few times,” Joseph said. “When I first started I didn’t really enjoy it because everyone was definitely bigger, faster, stronger, they understood what was going on.”
But he still loved basketball. He continued to play both sports, getting better on the football field, but still checking the mailbox for those Division I basketball offers. The letters were coming, but not the ones he wanted. Joseph was still holding onto his hoop dreams, but the harsh reality was his ticket to the next level would come through football.
The football offers started rolling in and the basketball offers were nowhere to be found.
“After that I knew I was going to college for football,” Joseph said.
Not that it mattered. Joseph wanted two things: to go to school for free and a chance to compete. Even though he hoped it would be for basketball, football still produced the same results. And, as it turns out, he was pretty good at this football thing.
Joseph was ranked by ESPN as the No. 1 player in Illinois and the No. 11 defensive end in the country coming out of high school. As a senior he had 25 tackles for loss and two interceptions. He also caught 10 touchdowns as a part time tight end.
When it came time to pick a college, Joseph selected Penn State, arriving in State College in the fall of 2016. Joseph played in 32 games for the Nittany Lions, finishing with 29 career tackles and 5.5 tackles for loss. But he felt he wasn’t thriving enough. Not enough for the goals he had set for himself. His growth and development wasn’t where he wanted it to be, so Joseph decided a change was needed. Through some coaching connections, his defensive coordinator at Penn State, Brent Pry, put Joseph in contact with N.C. State defensive line coach Charley Wiles.
So Joseph made a trip to Raleigh, where he met defensive coordinator Tony Gibson.
Gibson knew right away that Joseph wasn’t your typical teenager you host on a recruiting visit.
“Sat him down and talked a lot of football with him,” Gibson said. “He wasn’t interested (in things) like most 18 year-olds are on a recruiting visit, so we got down to business. He was coming here to play ball and start on his graduate program.”
Gibson showed Joseph had he would fit into his system and the rest was history. Joseph arrived over the summer and said he was welcomed with open arms by his new teammates. It didn’t take him long into winter workouts to realize that he transferred into a group just as determined and goal oriented, as he was. That made fitting into a new group easy.
“They were eager to work and reach a goal of winning as much as I was,” Joseph said. “I feel like the acceptance into the team was when I realized the guys here want to win just as much as I’ve always wanted to win. That pushed me to want to gravitate towards them more.”
Since he was a transfer, Joseph was reluctant to be the voice in the room when he first arrived in Raleigh, but defensive line coach Charley Wiles told the media that Joseph, who was buried behind some good players at Penn State, has wanted to be the guy for a long time.
“He’s been hungry for that type of role,” Wiles said. “Daniel is motivated. He wants to lead and he’s at that point of his career. He knows it’s a one-time shot for him. He is very motivated.”
Joseph found his groove on the field as well, earning a starting spot at defensive end, picking up five tackles and 2.0 sacks in his N.C. State debut against Wake Forest last weekend.
That’s a bright spot for the Wolfpack at a position where they were young and Gibson was looking for an older guy to bring in.
So far it’s worked out for both parties involved. One more step closer to Joseph’s goal. It has to work out, for his sake, because there is no backup plan.
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "NC State football isn’t his first stop but here’s how Daniel Joseph landed in Raleigh."
