By Jim Hague
She was born with the given name of Geneseret Joseph, but since she was a little girl, she’s always been known as Nessie.
Just don’t ask Nessie Joseph how she acquired the name.
“I really don’t know,” Joseph said. “I guess my mother gave it to me.”
One thing is for sure: Nessie Joseph is a name that won’t be forgotten at Rutgers-Newark any time soon.
Nessie Joseph came to Rutgers-Newark as basically a mistake. Assistant track and field coach Chris Happel went on a recruiting trip to southern New Jersey to a place called Williamstown to recruit one of Joseph’s teammates.
“She was basically an afterthought,” Rutgers-Newark head coach Juan Edney said. “We honestly didn’t want her.”
At the time, Joseph was basically an unknown, having transferred from Triton High School to Williamstown High School for her senior year.
However, once Happel saw Joseph run in the 200 and 400-meter dashes, he knew that she was something special.
“Coach Chris kept texting me, asking me to come,” Joseph said. “I knew nothing about Rutgers-Newark. I was supposed to go to Maryland-Eastern Shore. But Coach Chris persuaded me to go to Newark, just to take a look. And it felt like home. I felt so comfortable there.”
Nessie’s mother, Katina Joseph, also felt like it was a great place, especially after meeting with Edney.
“She felt like I was being taken care of,” Joseph said. “That’s how she felt. She felt like I needed to be cared for. That was the one main thing that stood out. It seemed as if everything just fit together. Everyone made me feel welcomed.”
Edney’s plan for his runners is to run cross country, regardless of whether you are a sprinter or a distance runner, so the idea of running cross country and six miles was foreign to Joseph.
“I never ran cross country before,” Joseph said. “Coach Edney made it seem like that’s how we train, but I was in shock at first. But I got used to it. For a sprinter, it was more of a mental challenge than anything. I was able to do it.”
But as Joseph’s freshman year was beginning, so were her problems.
“I got hurt my first day,” Joseph said. “I hurt my ankle, so that set me back.”
The sprained ankle was nothing compared to what then ensued.
“One day, I was just sitting in class and I got up and couldn’t even walk,” Joseph said. “I knew I was in trouble.”
Joseph was transported to a Newark hospital, but doctors could not properly diagnose her problems.
“They thought at first it was my appendix, so they were going to take that out, but they first had to wait for my mother to get there,” Joseph said. “It was really weird.”
“It was a huge scare,” Edney said. “The doctors wanted to try to do a lot of different surgeries on Nessie. She spent a lot of time in the hospital.”
Joseph was hospitalized for almost two weeks and incredibly, doctors could never pinpoint what exactly was wrong.
“They couldn’t put a diagnosis to it,” Joseph said.
But missing so much time as a freshman in terms of school work and running set Joseph back.
She thought about transferring. Most freshmen do leave school after such an emotional event.
“I thought about it (leaving R-N),” Joseph said. “I talked to my Mom about it. She said for me to pull myself back together. She said. ‘I didn’t raise any quitters.’ She told me to stick it out and finish the semester.”
Joseph managed to finish the first semester at R-N and maintained an excellent grade point average. But running track? That was another thing altogether.
“I was so out of shape,” Joseph said. “It was bad. One of the first things I remember is Coach Edney telling me that I had to work 10 times harder than anyone else because I missed so much.”
Edney didn’t know what to expect.
“She was very young and didn’t know what she was doing,” Edney said. “But she had potential. She has long legs. I love watching her run. She just has that knack that she looks so smooth. Once she got through this injury and that injury, she was fine.”
Surely and slowly, Joseph started to feel like herself again. By the time outdoor season rolled around, Joseph was ready to compete once again.
“I knew I had come so far,” Joseph said. “After I had gone through everything, I knew I wasn’t just another body on the team. I needed to prove to everyone wrong, that I was a good runner. I first messed up my ankle and then I got sick, but by the end of the year, I felt stronger and better.”
And during the summer months between her freshman and sophomore years, Joseph was a determined young lady.
“I worked out hard in weight room to get stronger with Coach Edney,” Joseph said. “I started to feel like myself.”
During the outdoor track season last year, Joseph made it all the way back. She earned three medals at the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) championships and qualified to compete in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) championships. She ran a time of 58 seconds in the 400-meter dash to set a new school record and took second overall in the NJAC.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Joseph said. “It was really a great accomplishment. Qualifying for the ECAC was a real emotional moment for me. That basically made me feel better about all the things I’ve been through.”
Joseph is now a junior and running faster, stronger and better than ever before. In the limited time in the indoor track season, Joseph has already carved four seconds off her fastest time.
“I’m already on the right track,” Joseph said. “I’m already where I wanted to be.”
Edney has developed a strong attachment to Joseph.
“She’s grown to be one of my favorites,” Edney said. “I think her and I becoming close helped a lot. She has so much potential. She doesn’t know what she can be.”
One thing Edney does notice about Joseph is her appearance.
“She likes to get made up and dressed up,” Edney said. “She’s a real diva.”
“I’ll take that title coming from him,” Joseph said. “I don’t mind being a diva.”
Joseph is majoring in criminal justice and taking pre-law classes with the hope of eventually getting into law school. She will graduate next year from Rutgers-Newark with her Master’s degree. One day, Joseph hopes to be a prosecutor. She’s maintaining an intense course load, carrying 20 credits this semester.
Competing in the dashes and in the relays, who’s going to deny Nessie Joseph? After all she’s been through, running fast is a piece of cake.
