How former Butler standout athlete Braylon Littlejohn ‘really found myself’ in year away from sports
Braylon Littlejohn heard the whispers. He understood how they started and why people were curious.
The Butler standout football and basketball player, who graduated high school in 2024, originally headed to Miami (Ohio) to play football. Having realized he was more passionate about basketball, he returned home after a handful of summer practices and considered joining Slippery Rock University’s men’s hoops program.
He didn’t play sports for a year after graduating from Butler. During his longest absence from organized competition since he was 5 years old, rumors popped up about whether he was done with sports.
“I had a lot of people reach out to me, text me, tell me, ‘You need to stick with it,’” Littlejohn said. “Then also just walking around everywhere around here, everyone (was) coming up to me asking me, ‘What’s the next step? Is there a next step?’”
Littlejohn understood that reaction as people likely expected to see him either on the field at Miami or on the court at Slippery Rock, but he never doubted he would return to college to play. The only questions were where he’d end up and what he’d end up playing when he got there.
He’d been pigeonholed as an athlete for as long as he could remember, recalling people telling him he was Butler’s next big thing before he was even through with elementary school.
The time away gave him a chance to look inward.
“Honestly, I feel like everyone knows me only as an athlete,” he said. “I feel like nobody really knows actually the true me. … I feel like my whole life, my personality has been based off sports.”
“I think a lot of times, when you have athletes come up … the community perspective gets hung up on the athletic abilities and just the athletic performance,” said Rock men’s basketball coach Ian Grady, whose program Littlejohn chose over playing football for the RedHawks. “Which, obviously, Braylon’s resume speaks for itself. He’s a very accomplished athlete at the high school level.
“He’s more than an athlete.”
Miami left the door open after he departed. Grady and SRU were also ready to welcome him. Littlejohn was on the fence for a month, and, as he weighed his options, he found that he lacked motivation. He needed to find something to bring it back.
“That was when I really found myself,” Littlejohn said. “I was definitely trying new things. I’d never meditated. I really rarely went to church.”
Eventually, he started doing things of that nature, and soon found himself in the gym every day. He joined The Rock during the spring semester, redshirting and getting a taste of college courses. He said his GPA hovered around a 3.20 while attending practices. Recently, he declared a major in safety management but might switch to marketing.
Littlejohn also learned how to be steadfast in his choices. Some cheered his decision, which was influenced in large part by wanting to stay close to his younger sisters, Kamella Davis, 5, and Maliyah Davis, 1. Others felt he was making the wrong choice.
Littlejohn credits making that decision to finally feeling like he could do what he wants to do despite what others might think, and step outside of his comfort zone, in part by relying on his faith in God.
He meditates and stretches almost daily — something he admitted he didn’t worry about before — and finds peace outdoors, frequenting the trails at McConnell’s Mill and Moraine State Park. He described his process as opening his body, breathing and thinking of “good memories, good things, good vibes.”
“Any athlete in any sport, I think it’s crucial for them to have that mindset and have peace with what they’re doing,” Grady said. “So anything that Braylon or any player is doing on their own to mentally prepare themselves … I think that’s a huge part of it. You hear the old cliché, ‘The game’s 90% mental, 10% physical.’
“I think there’s a lot of truth to that. … I think a lot of that’s overlooked.”
A clear mind has yielded the best version of Littlejohn, especially as a basketball player, he said. Grady believes his year off will wind up being a benefit and Littlejohn hopes to be in the Rock’s rotation next season.
The motivation he needed to find was there the whole time, it just needed some room to grow.
