Junior Saint Juste Knows All About Overcoming Adversity

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South Carolina soccer’s Junior Saint Juste had to grow up quickly. He may be 22, but the native of Haiti has made more difficult life decisions than many people twice his age.

“It’s hard. I took a lot of risks,” Saint Juste said. “I told myself; this is what you want. Nothing is going to come easy. Whatever opportunity you have, don’t take it for granted. Keep getting better as a person. Keep striving for what you want in life.”

Now in his fourth year at South Carolina, his life was rocked by a devastating earthquake as a young boy growing up in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, which resulted in the deaths of nearly a quarter of a million people.

“I feel like my life started after the earthquakes in 2010,” Saint Juste said. “At that time, I was living with my godmother. After the earthquakes, I had to come back home. We didn’t have a house. Everything had fallen down. We lived for a while in something like a tent. We lived there for like six months.”

His father was never really a part of his life, so it was up to his mom, Julienne Josil, and four siblings to figure out how to take care of themselves in the poverty-stricken country.

Soccer was a way out. At 11, he chose to leave his family to play and live at the best soccer academy in Haiti 30 miles away. Just as things were looking up, there was another tragedy as one of his brothers, Lionel, was shot and killed while being robbed of his motorcycle.

“That’s when I thought I needed to step up and take some stuff off my mom’s shoulders. That’s the reason I left home to chase my  dream and be able to help my mom.”

Saint Juste excelled and later was called up to the U15 and U18 National Teams which played in the United States. He wisely kept his own passport, unbeknownst to the soccer federation’s officials who routinely kept all of their players’ documents to keep them from leaving the country on their own. His mom arranged for him to visit his godmother who was then living in Florida.

Then 15, Saint Juste did not speak English but made his way to the U.S. A friend who was living in Atlanta contacted him about coming there to play for a good soccer program.

While playing for another team, Saint Juste lived with his coach along with several other players. He would eventually meet current South Carolina coach Tony Annan, who was coaching Atlanta United at the time. Annan became South Carolina’s head coach in 2021, and a year later he offered Saint Juste a chance to play and get an education. It was yet another opportunity he could not turn down.

“Being at South Carolina is the best time in my life,” Saint Juste said. “One thing that impresses me the most are the people that I have met here and how nice they are and how willing they are to support me.”

Saint Juste thrived on and off the pitch, but through all of this, he had not seen his mother in seven years before finally seeing her in May.

“I went and saw her and my little brother for two weeks,” Saint Juste said with a big smile. “It was a great moment. We had so much fun.”

He and his siblings regularly send their mother money so she can live, and he is thankful that he can earn money through Name, Image, and Likeness to send home.

“I just send it for her and for my little brother, too. If I have a hundred bucks, I keep 30 and send 70 for her because I can survive with the 30 bucks, but she won’t be able to survive with the 30 over there.”

Saint Juste suffered a setback last fall, tearing his ACL midway through the season, but he’s working his way back.

“I was shocked, and I asked ‘why?’ The first few weeks were hard mentally, but the people here helped me,” Saint Juste said. “Now, I’m feeling great. I know it will take a little bit to get myself fully back.

“God put me into this world to be able to go through everything I went through. I appreciate everything I am having and to be able to change other people’s lives, too. I am grateful for everything I went through because that made me who I am today.”