Student athletes may experience an identity crisis after graduating and grieve their connection to the story. E. Josiah Kenty, former football player and Murray State alum, wrote a book to guide young adults on how to maintain value aside from their passions.
Kenty released “Overtime: How to Win a Championship in Life.” In the book, he uses sports as a metaphor to explain life’s different transitions and how he adjusted to each stage.
Kenty was heavily recruited by numerous universities during his high school career until he tore his MCL. Countless scholarships were withdrawn from offers, until Murray State came into the picture.
“They liked what they saw on film and my senior year so they gave me a scholarship,” he said. “I went on my visit and I was supposed to go to another school actually, but I decided to go to Murray State because I had never been to Kentucky before. I liked everything I saw and ended up going to Murray in 2016.”
Kenty played as a defensive back for the University and during his first fall camp he endured more injuries– ACL, LCL and a partial meniscus tear. From there he faced two decisions, either to recover and try again in the spring or go home. Kenty said it wasn’t in his nature to give up that quickly.
From there he decided to recover and push on, the next fall he started traveling with the team to away games. The following spring his injury became a growing tear, but he didn’t let that keep him down.
“I worked through it and I knew I had to show them what I could do,” he said. “I ended up having the best spring game of my life– I had two interceptions, one touchdown, two pass breakups and three tackles.”
After coaching changes and Kenty’s college career continued, Kenty’s scholarship was no longer on the table. He was also unsure if he would ever return to playing football, so he wrote a love letter.
“Even though I was talking about separating from my journey with football… I talked about football (in the love letter) like it was a 21 year relationship,” he said. “I wrote at the top of Roy Stewart Stadium the day they told me I wasn’t going to be on scholarship anymore. I just started writing and I sat on it. I recorded it in case I ended up losing the paper, then I realized I needed to write down the stories of my journey with football and everything I had been involved in.”
Luckily, he had previously networked off the football field and was able to participate in other activities at the University. Kenty said the basis of his book is finding value off the field.
“I chartered a nonprofit organization on campus called RANSOM, which stands for Radical Athlete and Student Oasis Ministry,” he said. “That grew exponentially, the first meeting had six people then the last meeting spring 2017 we had 42 people show. The following year we got kicked out of the Mississippi room (in the Curris Center) due to a fire hazard because it only fit around 50 people. We had people standing in the hallway, at that time there were about 78 people.”
RANSOM started in 2011 at Samford University where students and student athletes came together for bible studies. Kenty said his chapter brought a culture together.
“We partnered with different organizations in the community… athletes like Quincy Williams, he was my teammate, he was behind it. Ja Morant came to a couple events and a couple of Bible studies as well,” he said. “When my scholarship was no longer on the table, I met with the athletic director and the Board of Regents. They said, ‘Hey, we understand the value that you have on campus and we want to do everything we can to make sure you stay on campus.’ They said if I dedicated a lot of time to the sports department, I could keep my scholarship and stay here. I had to make a decision whether I would still pursue football at the time and at another university or just stay at Murray State.”
Kenty said he ultimately decided to stay since he began the RANSOM chapter on campus. Kenty eventually became involved in the Student Government Association (SGA) with the judicial board and saw the value he held at Murray State.
Kenty majored in criminal justice and minored in organizational communication. His original goal after college was to bridge the gap between police officers and special needs individuals. He interned with the U.S. Postal Inspector’s Service, a law enforcement agency that protects the mail system in the country. After some intense training, he discovered it wasn’t something he wanted to do.
“After doing a (shoot, don’t shoot simulation) and learning about how special agents work, I decided it wasn’t for me,” he said. “I stayed on campus for a year and a half where I worked as a graduate assistant for the Racer Oral Communication Center. Then I got a call from someone in Paducah about a potential job offer.”
A shoot, don’t shoot simulation is a training tool that teaches people how to make split second decisions in dangerous situations. This simulation is used widely among law enforcement officials, the military and numerous other careers.
Kenty taught Step, a historical form of communication and storytelling, in Paducah during the summer of 2021 and was later offered a job in special education from the superintendent of the school system. During his first year teaching, Kenty was awarded Teacher of the Year. In 2022, he was awarded Outstanding Middle School Educator of the Year from Murray State. Kenty continued his career as an educator in Birmingham, Alabama as a world history teacher in special education and later moved to teach financial literacy in Birmingham.
Between phases of life that Kenty had experienced, he learned he constantly utilized a sports mindset.
“I had to make sure that I took football with me because football is about angles and perspectives if you really think about it,” he said. “Every situation in my life, I had to put an athletic component there because I had been playing football since I was five years old. To tell an athlete, ‘Hey, make a Plan B’ is the same as telling them to forget about something they had a consistent relationship with while growing up.”
From Kenty’s experiences of dealing with compartmentalization of emotions and finding value in other aspects of life, this is the basis of his book. Through his passion for football, he compares the stages of life to the phases of the sport.
“I made it into a concept where first down is setting the tone, whatever you do you have to set the tone,” he said. “In order to set the tone, you have to plan, you have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Inside of my book, every single chapter is titled after that Hard Four concept.”
Each chapter in Kenty’s book starts off with a story and a timeline of experience in his life. His first chapter is titled “First Down”, where he dives into his little league experience. The chapter titled “Overtime” is about the remaining stages of life.
“Overtime literally means that you did enough to stay in the game but not enough to win,” he said. “Overtime has different perspectives, because if you reach overtime and you come from behind then you have another chance to win… I know every athlete is not in the same position, but whatever position you are in, how well did you transition from that touchdown?”
Kenty’s book is available for purchase on Amazon.com. For any other inquiries, visit Kenty’s website ejosiah.com.
