Former Kenya Simbas rugby player Joshua Weru.
Joshua Weru landed in Kenya from the United States on Tuesday afternoon, barely 24 hours after he was named as one of the 13 prospects for the National Football League’s International Player Pathway (IPP) programme class for 2026.
Established in 2017, the NFL’s IPP programme is designed to identify talented athletes from diverse sporting backgrounds who can improve and develop their skills to earn a spot on the roster of a top American football team.
Weru, 22, weighing 103kg and standing six feet four inches tall in his socks, enters the programme from rugby, a sport that has been around him all his life. Weru’s father, Ken “KT” Thimba, is a former rugby player who featured for Kenya and Kenya Harlequin. He later coached both teams, with little Weru, never far from the vicinity.
“I was always at Quins watching rugby matches. Seeing players like Collins Injera and Willy Imbaka regularly can get into your head a bit, and you start seeing yourself there one day,” Weru told Nation Sport yesterday via a Zoom call, reflecting on his introduction to a sport he will soon leave behind.
Yet, there are many other sports that Weru left behind. He was a sporty kid at Pembroke House School, where he switched sports as terms changed.
“I played every sport,” he says. “I played cricket, hockey, and rugby. I was also in athletics. I did cross country and swimming, even though I was not that good at either,” says Weru with a smile.
Rugby matches
When he turned 14, he left Kenya to continue his high school studies in the United Kingdom. The UK welcomed him with two sports that “I liked the same” – cricket and rugby. However, it was his performances for his school’s rugby team that earned him a slot in the Northampton Saints Academy.
Yet, beyond playing rugby, Weru maintained an inquisitiveness that drew him to rugby pitches in England. He watched many rugby matches, but there is one that he has never forgotten.
If his joining the NFL’s IPP programme for 2026 is the result of a domino effect, then the blocks started falling on that day.
“It was a Wasps game. I watched Christian Wade play, and he was impressive. I kept tabs on his career after that, and when he joined the IPP Class for 2019, I said to myself, ‘it would be cool if I could do this’”.
In a separate interview, Weru’s father said: “Joshua became aware of the NFL’s IPP programme through exposure to high-performance sporting environments and athlete networks abroad. The programme scouts internationally for athletes with transferable traits such as speed, power, coordination, and game intelligence. The move is not a sudden switch but a continuation of his athletic development, building on foundations from rugby and sprint training.”
Joshua Weru (second right) during a Kenya Simbas training session at Pembrooke House School ahead of the 2023 Rugby World Cup Africa qualifying tournament.
As far as exposure to high-performance sporting environments goes, Weru heads into the IPP programme with experience gained from years of competing and training in high-pressure environments in England, France, Kenya, and South Africa. Most importantly, he reckons his experience playing for Kenya Simbas in 2022 will be instrumental in shaping his progress at the IPP programme.
“That experience allowed me to interact with senior Kenya Simbas players. They shared knowledge about how they got there, and over time, that has shaped my maturity and emotional intelligence,” says Weru.
The IPP programme starts on January 17 and runs for 10 weeks, concluding with an event known as “NFL Pro Day” on March 31.
On that day, Weru will get an opportunity to showcase his skills to NFL scouts and hopefully get picked into the American football’s top league.
Weru will be training as a defensive lineman -- whose role is to foil attacks. “That position suits me because of my size and the skills that I can transfer from rugby,” he says.
Since the programme’s inception, 70 international athletes have signed with NFL teams. The league teams are allowed to have as many as 90 players, of whom only 53 can be named in the main squad. Out of those 53 players, only 11 can be on the field at any given time. Statistically, foreign-born players account for three to five per cent of players in the league in a given season.
Stiff competition
Weru is aware of those figures as well as stiff competition for a spot on an NFL roster, and he has set achievable targets for himself. “American football is a new sport to me,” he says. “I plan to use this opportunity to learn everything I can. I know I have a knowledge gap to close and a skills gap to reduce,” he adds.
Weru has had to pause his studies at Arizona State University, where he is a Global Management student. “Studies are important, but this programme requires my full availability at the moment,” he says.
Should he sign for an NFL team, Weru will become only the second Kenyan to do so, following in the footsteps of Daniel Adongo, another former rugby player, who signed for the Indianapolis Colts in 2012.
“Signing an NFL contract will be a blessing. There is no pretending about the financial benefits of playing this sport professionally. The NFL has the highest revenue and most valuable teams in the world,” Weru says. “I do not have a particular team in mind. I believe in the mantra ‘the best team for you to be is where you are wanted,” he adds.
Weru is the first Kenyan to be selected for the IPP programme.
Weru hopes more Kenyans will follow his footsteps. “This is a big opportunity, and it has made me think about the impact I can make. Kenya has many talented athletes, and I wish to show that playing in the NFL is possible for them, too. At times, all it needs is one person to make a move, and then the floodgates open,” he says
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