Michigan linebacker Ernest Hausmann’s journey started hundreds of miles from Ann Arbor, in Uganda. As a baby, he confronted the tough actuality of being positioned for adoption.
His start dad and mom, battling extreme sickness and deep poverty, made the tough alternative that in the end modified the course of his life. That call carried a backdrop of hardship and early trauma.
The Troubled Childhood Behind Michigan Linebacker Ernest Hausmann’s Adoption
Michigan Wolverines linebacker Ernest Hausmann has carried a narrative of displacement, looking out, and resilience all through his younger life. Born in Uganda as one in every of 23 siblings, his childhood was marked by sickness and loss.
His dad and mom, each battling AIDS, confronted deteriorating well being that in the end pressured them to position him for adoption. At simply 5 years outdated, he left the one house he had ever identified and traveled greater than 9,000 miles to Nebraska. The transfer introduced security and alternative, but it surely additionally left scars of isolation and unanswered questions.
For almost twenty years, Hausmann wrestled with emotions of abandonment and anger towards each his start and adoptive households. He typically questioned why he had been despatched so distant to dwell in a world with out acquainted voices or faces.
The lengthy silence was damaged solely when he finally reconnected along with his mom and made the journey again to Africa, looking for readability about his previous.
Michigan LB Ernest Hausmann was born in Uganda as one in every of 23 siblings. When his dad and mom contracted AIDS, they have been pressured to place him up for adoption.
After almost twenty years of dwelling almost midway world wide, Hausmann had the prospect to journey again to Africa and… pic.twitter.com/KkkC9V9uIx
— Faculty GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) September 6, 2025
Though adoption offered him with a brand new life, the transition was removed from easy. He was adopted at age two however didn’t arrive in america till three years later. The delay left a spot in his childhood reminiscences that he nonetheless carries.
“Not a complete lot, I keep in mind,” Hausmann stated. “My mind’s form of blocked off a number of the occasions that form of occurred earlier than I used to be adopted. I feel God actually did that for a purpose… A few of these occasions have been traumatic and may need slowed me down from reaching my full potential.”
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Whereas a lot of his early childhood is misplaced to reminiscence, one expertise stays sharp.
“I keep in mind vividly the flight coming to America. My dad and I simply doodling, he’s making an attempt to show me the alphabet, learn how to write my identify. As quickly as I obtained off the airplane, I’m strolling to the airport and see an outdated household. That caught with me. Something earlier than that, my mind simply blocks off.”
That second marked the start of his new life, one he has approached with gratitude regardless of the ache that preceded it.
Right this moment, when Hausmann steps onto the soccer discipline, he brings with him greater than a helmet and playbook. He carries a strong story rooted in resilience, religion, and goal that connects his previous in Uganda to his current at Michigan. Off the sphere, he has even devoted himself to offering wells to impoverished villages worldwide.
