Junior Colson committed to Michigan on Sunday.

The 2010 Haiti earthquake left more than 250,000 people dead and drastically changed the lives of many in statistically the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Growing up in Haiti can be rough. Growing up in an orphanage in the midst of a historic natural disaster, well, that can be too much for a lot of kids to handle. Colson, however, was just happy he was a heavy sleeper.

“I remember the earthquake, but I was actually asleep,” Colson said. “When I woke up, I saw the disaster. I wasn’t really scared because I slept through it, but I just remember thinking, ‘wow, I can’t believe this happened.’ I was a little happy I slept through it because I’m sure I would have been scared. Luckily, I was on the second floor, so I was safe.”

Colson doesn’t recall much about his time in Haiti. His father passed away before the earthquake. He entered the orphanage soon after and spent a lot of his days playing soccer in muddy fields or swimming in the community pool.

After the earthquake, life became more introspective. The pool was drained. Colson described his days as ‘hot and sweaty’ without much to do.

Getting adopted was at the top of his mind.

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Colson is just a few days out from the biggest day of his life, and his older sister, Amanda, won’t let him take photos without straightening his hair and fixing his collar.

Amanda has always had that big sister mentality from the day Junior walked into the Colson home in the suburbs of Nashville. Junior isn’t having it, though. He’s ready to pose for pictures and flash the ‘M’ hand sign for the University of Michigan, something he had no clue existed but now means everything to him.

May 24 marks the eight-year anniversary of his official entry date as a U.S. citizen. It also happens to be the day he makes his decision on where he’s going to spend the next four years of his life.

One of the most sought after college football recruits in America, Junior, who is ranked the No. 83 prospect nationally, per Rivals.com, is down to a final five of LSU, Michigan, Ole Miss, Oregon and Tennessee.

Rewind to May 24, 2012, and this situation would have seemed unfathomable. Junior had never seen a football and was trying to avoid the barking dog that greeted him when he arrived at his new home.

“When I first came here, I was terrified,” Colson said. “I walked through the door and saw a big, ole dog (laughs). That scared me a bit. But over time, I got accustomed to it. I’ve enjoyed my time here. I’ve enjoyed my family. We’ve all gotten closer together.”

Before adopting Junior, Steve and Melanie Colson fostered 11 children over the course of four years. All were from the state of Tennessee and only lived with the Colson family on a temporary basis.

It wasn’t until after Amanda and Josh, Junior’s older brother, started to ask about permanently adopting that Steve and Melanie began to explore adoption. The system in the U.S. can prove to be difficult, so they looked into foreign adoption.

After a lot of thought and prayer around Christmas time, Steve and Melanie decided Haiti would be the place they would find their future child. However, it didn’t look likely that it would be Junior.

“Our church offered up a mission trip,” Melanie said. “We actually met Junior on that trip, but he was already being adopted by another family.”

Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was just chance. Either way, Steve and Melanie got a call that would change their — and Junior’s — lives forever.

“We got a call from the orphanage director, and the family had said that they knew they would lose the money they paid for the adoption, but they believed with all their hearts that Junior was not their son,” Melanie said. “They were willing to risk losing all of that because he wasn’t theirs. When we were there, we said we were willing to adopt older children. We said yes. We are very grateful to the family that said Junior wasn’t their son.”

Just a little more than two years after the destructive earthquake rocked Haiti, Junior was home.

“We didn’t really know him until after the earthquake, but learning a little bit about his story and the fact that he went through it, that was obviously heartbreaking that he had to endure it,” Steve said. “But we were glad that he was safe in the orphanage and that we had the opportunity to adopt him.”

Junior is and always will be their son.

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There is no Rosetta Stone for Creole.

That’s the language Junior spoke in Haiti. He knew no English upon his arrival in the United States. In preparation for an obvious language barrier, Melanie perused Amazon for books and workbooks for the family.

Melanie, Steve, Amanda and Josh all studied Creole at their own pace and learned enough to communicate with Junior during his first few months.

“It was interesting because he is kind of shy and then there was a language barrier,” Melanie said. “We did learn some Creole, but we couldn’t be fluent. It’s not an easy language to learn because it’s very slang. We got there, though.”

Junior started to pick up on English fairly quickly. He enrolled at a local elementary school in August and really began to learn more of the language. It didn’t take him long to thrive in the classroom.

Life became easier at home, too. Pretty soon, conversations in English started to become more commonplace.

“We spoke in Creole for a while,” Junior said. “I got accustomed to English and slowly built up on it. I went to school right when the year started. It was hard because in Haiti, we didn’t have much school. It wasn’t really mandatory, so it was different. I was like ‘what is this?’ But over time, I’ve come to enjoy school.”

Sometimes, siblings don’t exactly get along. For Amanda and Josh, though, Junior was immediately accepted as their little brother.

“Being the oldest I took on a lot of wanting to be there for my siblings,” Amanda said. “It was exciting to have another sibling and watch him grow and develop. I always told him to keep God first and keep your family up there too. I told him to make the right choices and stay true to himself.”

Josh shared a room with Junior, and naturally, the two became close.

“My reaction when Junior arrived was full of love,” Josh said. “I was excited because I had a little brother. It was a real joyful feeling, knowing that I was going to have an impact on someone’s life, especially knowing that he came from a really unfortunate situation.”

Even before the turn of the calendar year, it became apparent that Junior was home.

“It was a connection with Junior,” Steve said. “We were just relieved that the process was finally over with, and he was actually home. He was a really good kid — really quiet and just wanted to please everybody. He was very helpful. With him, it was just pretty easy, really.”

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Junior wanted to play soccer. He pleaded with his parents to let him get on the pitch and start making goals.

Unfortunately — or fortunately depending on how you look at it — soccer season was almost over with. Melanie and Steve were football fans, and Josh played wide receiver at Centennial High in Franklin, Tennessee.

Naturally, football became Junior’s sport of choice.

“We did have discussions about soccer, but it wasn’t soccer season,” Melanie said. “But we told him as soon as a sport comes open, we’ll put you in that sport. He’s a boy, and he’s active. We also knew sports would help him learn more English, so we put him in summer camp for rec football.”

Junior is known for having a high football IQ. It’s a strength when it comes to his game. He commands a stout defense for Brentwood (Tenn.) Ravenwood and often helps put his teammates in the right situations to make plays.

But during his first year of football, Junior, well, couldn’t really understand his coaches. Due to the language barrier and his unfamiliarity with the game in general, Junior had a hard time picking up plays and learning assignments.

That is until mom intervened.

“He was successful from the very beginning,” Melanie said. “His coaches came to me and said he was really good, but he’s a little slow to catch on. I told them ‘remember, he doesn’t speak English.’ I told them to show him the play and show him what he needed to do. He’s very smart. They were like ‘that’s why he doesn’t respond.’ They would just get a blank stare. They had to show him pictures and run the play. You saw it start clicking. It wasn’t just the athleticism. It was also the sport intellect.”

Junior starred at running back and became a focal point of the offense. The pictures definitely helped as did his natural instincts, athleticism and intelligence. For a kid learning an entirely new sport, it didn’t take Junior long to pick up on schemes and the intricacies of the game.

“I didn’t really know anything about football,” Colson said. “Football was going on at the time, so it was more like ‘ok, let’s do football.’ I didn’t really know what a football was. It was kind of weird to me at first because I wasn’t supposed to kick it. I didn’t know any English, so they held up pictures for me. Sports come easy to me. If you tell me once, I’ll be able to do it. I don’t even remember how my first year went. It went by in a blur.”

Junior stuck with football and helped lead his youth team to a championship a few years later. As a reward, the team earned tickets to the 2013 Music City Bowl, which featured Georgia Tech and Ole Miss. It was his first college football experience.

After the game, a coach asked him how he liked football now. Junior’s response: ‘I’m glad my mom didn’t make me play soccer!’

Melanie laughs because, of course, it was Junior that wanted to play soccer in the first place.

Junior never did play in an organized soccer game. Football became his passion.

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When Junior was still in elementary school, he used to run hills and workout with Josh. Being the best at football became his top goal.

At the time, Junior built his style of play around speed. He used to race Josh every single day but could never beat him. Junior used to ask himself before each race ‘is this the day?’ It never came.

But that only added more fuel to the fire. Josh never took it easy on Junior and always reminded him that he was going to turn him into a monster one day.

“He wanted to play soccer, and I was like ‘we’re going to do this football thing’” Josh said. “I told him ‘I’m going to make you a monster.’ Football can teach you a lot about life. I wanted him to grow up and be a man of integrity, intellect and have a high moral character.”

Junior dreamed of being that monster that Josh talked about. But he didn’t really buy into it at first. Junior, after all, was always the small kid. It wasn’t until he got a little older that he hit a growth spurt.

Junior grew up playing running back and spent his freshman year at wide receiver. As a sophomore, he transitioned over to linebacker. It was a position switch that he never thought would be in the cards.

In fact, Junior briefly played some safety in youth league, but the experiment was short-lived. Junior was terrified of making contact.

“I hated hitting,” Colson said. “My first two years, I made sure I avoided hitting. My second year playing, I got trucked by one of my good friends. I don’t even know why I was playing safety, but I made sure to go around the player, so I could chase him. But I never got too close to where I had to make the tackle (laughs).”

Junior went into his sophomore season fifth on the depth chart at linebacker. He began to embrace punishing ball carriers and, well, hitting people. By the time the season came around, Junior earned a starting spot on varsity.

Junior notched 34 tackles that year and exploded onto the recruiting scene. Last season, Junior officially arrived, recording an eye-popping 175 tackles, including 30 for loss, and 14 sacks.

Yes, that’s monster status.

Josh still laughs when he remembers running up those hills and seeing Junior start to gain confidence on the football field as he rose through the ranks.

“He started doing well, and everyone called him The Haitian King,” Josh said. “He used to yell ‘I’m a king!’ I told him he needed to humble himself. But yeah, he is The Haitian King (laughs).”

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Junior earned his first offer shortly after his sophomore season.

The scholarship came on an unofficial visit to Kentucky. Soon after, schools caught wind of this Haitian King from Nashville. Texas A&M offered a week later. Next was Louisville. Then Tennessee. Then South Carolina. Then Kansas and Arkansas.

It was a full snowball effect. Junior was quickly becoming a premier prospect on the recruiting trail.

“It was amazing,” Junior said. “Me and my mom went down to Kentucky to look around and all that stuff. They offered me on the field, and my mom started crying. It was just a great moment. That reiterated my skills. It was like ‘yeah Junior, you’re good for this level, and you can make it.’

“After that first one came, it was like two or three a day. This school offered then this school. It was like ‘woah.’ There were schools that I didn’t think would ever offer me that offered me. It was really real. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I thought I was only going to get four or five offers then it skyrocketed.”

Despite the newfound attention, Colson had yet to hear from his mother’s favorite school — Michigan. There was zero interest from Jim Harbaugh and company. He wasn’t even on the radar.

But that didn’t deter Melanie. She grew up in Saugatuck, Michigan, a town of fewer than 1,000 people. Her family loved Michigan State. Melanie was different. She bled maize and blue.

“My personality is that I’m going to root for the underdog,” Melanie said. “My family was wearing green and white, and I felt bad for the blue team. That’s how I became a fan (laughs). I’m a bit of a rebel, so it could be those two things together.”

Melanie packed Junior up that summer and drove him to Ann Arbor for a summer camp. It didn’t take very long for Michigan defensive coordinator Don Brown to ask himself ‘who the hell is that kid?’

“After the first 10 or 15 minutes, Coach Brown took me to the side and did a 1-on-1 workout with me,” Colson said. “I was very excited. I was like ‘mom, mom!’ and I saw her pointing at me. It was just a really fun experience.”

After the workout, a camp assistant had a special message for Melanie and Junior.

Harbaugh wanted to see them in his office.

“I’m a long-time Michigan fan, and I’m a Harbaugh fan,” Melanie said. “I was almost speechless. I noticed Coach Harbaugh was looking at my son during the camp, and I texted my husband and said ‘I think they are really interested.’ When we got the invite to his office, I wasn’t expecting him to offer. It was exciting when he did.”

Junior added:

“That was a dream come true,” Junior said. “I didn’t know they were going to offer me. I kind of had a feeling since I felt like I was doing really good. They pulled me into the office and talked to me a bit. They offered, and it felt amazing.”

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‘Where is the Oregon hat?’

Melanie is frantically looking for a green hat with a yellow ‘O’ on it. Junior doesn’t seem to care. He’s not going out to the Pacific Northwest. But Melanie gives her son a quick scolding.

“We’re not going to leave them out of the picture. They’ve been great to our family,” she says.

Junior eventually borrows an Oregon hat from another local player. He has LSU, Michigan, Ole Miss and Tennessee hats at the table, too. But only one matters — Michigan.

On this very special day, Junior has found yet another new home. He has committed to play for Harbaugh and the Wolverines for the next four years of his life. Michigan is, and maybe always was, the pick.

“I believe Michigan was the best fit for me and family,” Junior said. “Being able to come in and play early, having great academics because football ends at some point in life and cultural fit made it the best option for me.”

Junior’s decision to pick Michigan was his own. Yes, his mother grew up a fan of the program. But the family showed no bias during the recruiting process.

Harbaugh, Brown and new linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary, who is also of Haitian descent, made Junior feel like part of their family. And family is something that means everything to Junior, especially given his background.

“It’s surreal even to this moment,” Melanie said. “He made this decision on his own. It was organic. We couldn’t have painted a better recruiting picture for him or ourselves. He’s such an amazing kid with a great future ahead of him. He made this sound decision based on relationships, the program and what fit for him. Yes, we are Michigan fans, but most importantly, it fits for him, and that’s what feels the best.”

Junior is expected to play the ‘Viper’ position at Michigan. He’s a tackling machine, but he’s also a plus in pass coverage. His versatile skillset will allow him to thrive in Brown’s attacking defensive scheme.

Junior is also a star in the classroom. He plans to major in business at Michigan and attend the prestigious Ross School of Business. Michigan’s unique blend of elite athletics and academics made it the perfect fit for him and his family.

Still, Junior admits he had some doubts. In fact, Junior gave Michigan a silent commitment about a month before he publicly announced. But he continued to keep in contact with other schools. At one point, Tennessee became very, very intriguing.

But Junior stuck with his gut.

“It was really close,” Colson said. “I started second guessing myself. The jitters were there. I kept asking ‘am I making the wrong decision?’ This isn’t a four-year decision. Like a lot of folks say, this is a 40-year decision. It will shape your future. I had to really think about it. I decided Michigan was the best fit for me.”

From an orphanage in a third world country to culture shock to learning a new language and sport to top recruit to future Wolverine.

Michigan, a king is born. The Haitian King.

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