How a 19-day hospital stint helped Josh Hubbard emerge as a young star for Mississippi State
Mississippi State guard Josh Hubbard is already a household name and looks like one of the best freshmen in the country. But you probably don’t know the mountains he had to climb to get to this point.
One day in September of 2014 when he was in fifth grade, Josh woke up not feeling well. His parents thought it was just allergies, but took him to a pediatrician to be safe. The pediatrician said Josh needed to be rushed to the hospital.
“He had temperatures of 103 F, 104 F and went up to 106 F in a day,” Josh’s mother Betty Hubbard said.
Doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. At one point 11 of them were in the same room trying to figure it out. He had dry eye, suffered from dehydration, conjunctivitis, a sinus infection and pneumonia. Josh was in the hospital for more than 10 days at this point and the Hubbards still had no real answer.
“It was going the other way. From a father’s perspective, your child at this level is in a bed with tubes in his nose and IVs in his arms. It was unpredictable,” Josh’s father Jason said.
“It was tough, nothing but negative energy at first and it was my first time going through tough adversity,” Josh said. “I thought ‘Will I be able to go back to school? Can I play my favorite sports and with my favorite toys again?'”
Towards the end of a 19-day hospital stint, the Hubbard’s had an answer. Josh suffered from Kawasaki disease, A condition that causes inflammation in the walls of some blood vessels in the body. After almost a month in the hospital, Josh was released.
“When I say a miracle, God performed a miracle,” Jason said.
After he was released, he wasn’t the same Josh.
“He was so humble. Many things didn’t bother him. If turbulence happened he knew not to worry and that things would be OK,” Jason said.
“Once you go through something, it doesn’t mean it won’t end up the way you want it to. There’s a positive in every situation, which is what I got through it. Just keep going through adversity and don’t hang your head,” Josh said.
Hubbard went on to break the Mississippi high school boys basketball all-time scoring record while at Madison-Ridgeland Academy. And as a freshman at Mississippi State, he plays a huge role in Chris Jans’ rotation. The struggles he faced nearly a decade ago helped him get to this point and created an even stronger mindset for the guard.
“When you’re in a situation and it seems like you won’t get through it, just talk to yourself and be a positive person at the end of the day to yourself. Don’t let negative comments bring you down,” Josh said.
“His afflictions caused him to be where he is today,” Jason said.
