Sometimes, the smallest things lead to the biggest changes.
Then, one afternoon, Jasper Steinmetz, a recent Indiana University graduate, walked past him and stopped. The red Indiana University athletic backpack was hard to miss. He had no idea that this homeless man was once a football star. They had a conversation that set off a chain of events and pulled James back from the edge.
In 2019, he arrived at Indiana University as a freshman running back, exactly where he was supposed to be. James left Indiana University in 2023 without finishing his degree. The conversation revealed more than a shared college.
Jasper Steinmetz told CBS News. That’s when he spotted an unmistakable Indiana University athletic backpack. Steinmetz had recently graduated from IU himself. But the backpack was out of place. So, he decided to stop and ask the man carrying it about IU. “I saw the Indiana University athletic backpack, and since I had just graduated from Indiana, we had that commonality. And I figured, you know, why not talk to him? Steinmetz learned that the homeless man was Sampson James. He had the same Hoosier roots, the same starting point. James shared that he had been homeless for eight months. After returning home, Steinmetz searched James’s name online. That’s when he learned just how far the fall had been. Sampson James had been a standout athlete, recruited as one of the best in his class. He discovered that James was a four-star recruit out of Avon High School in Indiana. He had the talent scouts wanted, the grades that impressed coaches, and the kind of future that small-town kids dream about. But football can sometimes be unforgiving. He suffered a serious knee injury that derailed his athletic career. When James thought the worst was over, he got another diagnosis: bipolar disorder. The combination was too much. And all his football dreams vanished with it.
Jasper Steinmetz was walking along a path in Austin earlier this year.
