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UCLA wide receiver Landon Ellis grew up in a town of just over 5,000 people.
After high school, he traded in his hometown of Orange, Va., for Richmond, where he played his first two years of college football.
While moving to the state’s capital increased his community almost 50-fold, the Spiders’ campus was located just under a 90-minute drive from Orange.
And even after Ellis transferred to James Madison following his sophomore season, he moved 23 miles closer to home.
So when Ellis decided to make his third change in four years, moving more than 2,500 miles away from his family to the opposite side of the country, it was a life-altering decision.
“I was a little homesick at first because both of my two schools before this were just an hour away from home, so I pretty much went home, could see my family whenever I wanted,” Ellis said. “They were always at the games.”
But Ellis was not alone in his coast-to-coast move.
Ten James Madison transfers had to make big adjustments when they traded Harrisonburg for Westwood.
The Dukes-turned-Bruins hail from 10 different cities across eight states. None of their hometowns are closer than 2,199 miles from UCLA’s campus, with the farthest 3,010 miles away.
On Sunday, one more former JMU star committed to joining the Bruins. Trent Hendrick, the 2025 Sun Belt defensive player of the year who was undrafted and unsigned after attending NFL rookie camps, committed to join the UCLA program after a Louisiana injunction granted last week cleared a pathway for him to resume his college football career.
With 62 new players before Hendrick’s arrival and a substantial contingent unfamiliar with Los Angeles, UCLA returners and Southern California natives have become tour guides, showing their new teammates around, giving them recommendations and ultimately easing the transition to the West Coast.
Former James Madison linebacker Trent Hendrick, who went undrafted and unsigned after attending NFL minicamps, is reuniting with Bob Chesney at UCLA.
Senior quarterback Nico Iamaleava, a Long Beach native, has been instrumental in integrating to his new teammates into the area, including showing his lockermate, Ellis, where to go and where not to go.
