Junior Colson

Junior Colson was born in Haiti, and he entered an orphanage after his father passed away. He was adopted by Steve and Melanie Colson after the Colsons spent time in Haiti helping rebuild after the devasting 2010 earthquake. Colson said it was his father's dying wish to live a better life, and he's lived up to that both in high school and in college. “I’m just so proud of him and the choices he’s made,” Melaine Colson told The Tennessean. “You can’t be a typical high school or kid, going to dances or proms, when you want to play at the next level. He was working out or studying film, and if he wasn’t doing that he was doing homework. He has reached every goal he set for himself.” Colson was a top-10 linebacker recruit and the second-best prospect in Tennessee coming out of Brentwood's Ravenwood High School in the Class of 2021. At Michigan, he was a two-time All-Big Ten selection and in 2023 he won the Lott IMPACT Award (Integrity, Maturity, Performance, Academics, Community, Tenacity), named after College and Pro Football Hall of Fame DB Ronnie Lott.