this is an article about him the day before the West Va game...
http://www.al.com/search/index.ssf?....xml?huntsvilletimes?ssport&coll=1&thispage=1
More than okay - Okoye
Former Lee star from Nigeria is a potential Cardinal All-American
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
By MARK McCARTER
Times Sports Staff
[email protected]
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Put it all on a resum, nobody would believe it. It'd skid right across somebody's desk in human resources and into a wastebasket. Too preposterous. Too outrageous.
Check it out:
Amobi Okoye
Age: 19
Born: Lagos, Anambra, Nigeria
Currently: Captain of University of Louisville football team
Education: Senior at Louisville, will graduate in December after 31/2 years with degree in psychology; graduated Lee High School, class of '02
Career Goals: National championship, professional football career, becoming pediatrician
The resum is accompanied by references:
"Amobi, right now, is our number one emotional leader, our number one performance leader." - UofL head coach Bobby Petrino
Okoye is one of the best linemen in the country, an All-American candidate." - West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez
"He was such an overachiever. He always worked hard. He was just a natural leader, and he still is." - Former Lee High coach David O'Connor
"He's always been a very ambitious kid. People love him wherever he goes." - Augustine Okoye, Amobi's father
And, um, did we mention he's a mere 19 years of age?
A kid who signed a college football scholarship at age 15. Who had only a learner's permit as he drove to his senior prom. Who spent the first 12 years of his life in Nigeria, where American football was a foreign concept, literally and figuratively.
Huntsville's Amobi Okoye, a 300-pound, Nigerian-born, senior defensive tackle at Louisville, may be the most fascinating story in all of college football.
"He's unbelievable," Petrino says.
Just don't try to tell that to A.O., as his teammates call him.
"I'm trying to see this from the outside in, and I can see where people would be amazed," Okoye says.
"But one thing about me, I don't look at it that way. I look at it differently. I look at it that this is what I'm supposed to do, what I'm obligated to do."
Big game ahead
Amobi Okoye - pronounced a-moe-be a-coy-yea - is sitting in the players' lounge at Papa John Stadium, with comfy sofas and chairs, a foosball table and pool table.
The room overlooks the field where Thursday night the fifth-ranked Cardinals (7-0) host third-ranked West Virginia (7-0) in a nationally televised game that will likely decide the Big East championship and could determine a BCS national championship game participant.
Okoye is no typical 19-year-old. Nor, for that matter, was he a typical 21/2-year-old when he trundled off to work with his mom, Edna, a school principal in Nigeria. Or a typical 12-year-old when he earned his way into high school.
"When people say, age-wise, where I'm at, I feel like I should actually be ahead," he says. "Why, I don't know."
You suggest to Amobi that it's genetic, that the Okoye family has lived a bold life.
"I guess so," he says. "I've been brought up where you take a farther step than usual. It's how my parents are. My father always tried to teach us how to learn things a whole lot earlier than most."
Augustine Okoye earned a degree at
Texas Southern and was a businessman in Lagos, a booming city that was the center of commerce in Nigeria. But government corruption in the late 1990s led to a downturn in the economy.
His brother, Joe, lived in Huntsville, where he had attended Alabama A&M. He convinced Augustine to move his family - Edna, oldest daughter Chioma (now 22), sons Arinze (now 21) and Amobi - to America. There, a fourth child, daughter Chinwe (now 6) was born.
When they moved, Amobi was eighth-grade age. But he was well ahead academically. Augustine begged school officials to give Amobi a two-week trial period in the ninth grade. He passed muster easily.
My parents put more emphasis on academics than athletics," Amobi says.
In fact, Augustine instituted a rule: Maintain a 3.0 GPA, or no football.
Finding football
Okoye's parents recognized the importance of extracurricular activity to accompany the academics. They noticed that 12-year-old Amobi was, well...
"I wouldn't say I was fat. I was close," says Amobi.
"Getting too plump," says Augustine.
His appetite, then and now, "can destroy your pocket," Augustine laughs.
He first became involved in indoor track, then Lee coaches encouraged him to try out for football. Augustine was lukewarm over the idea but had some knowledge of the sport.
He watched football at Texas Southern - "I saw these people falling all over each other, dressed like Roman soldiers, and said 'What kind of game is this?' " he says - and knew of NFL running back Christian Okoye (no relation) from Nigeria.
Amobi's friend and classmate, Bradley Nall, used a deft bit of reverse psychology.
"Nah, you don't want to come out," Nall told him.
"He knew I was a competitor, and I said, 'I'll come out and show you,' " Amobi says.
He joined the team the spring of his freshman year, in time for offseason workouts. And showed 'em.
"It was pretty tough. My teammates joke on me about that to this day," Okoye says. "I had a hard time, huffing and puffing out there, but I never quit."
"Initially, he had no clue," remembers O'Connor, now coach of Giles County (Tenn.) High. "He didn't understand four downs, that it was first down, any of those things.
"But from the first time you watched him play, you knew he had a chance to be special. Physically as a 12-year-old, he was just incredible. As a 13-year-old (sophomore), he was starting at guard," O'Connor says.
On to Louisville
In those years, Lee attended a team football camp at Louisville. Okoye loved the place. He felt at home. Though several schools recruited him, others were understandably hesitant to sign him because of his age.
Another school wasn't the least bit hesitant. Harvard. But Amobi wasn't interested. Football wasn't big-time enough.
"Are you crazy?" Augustine told his son. "It's Harvard. You can get in anywhere in the world after Harvard."
Even if Augustine was initially leery of Louisville, it should be noted that a Louisville poster schedule dominates his office wall at Alabama Medical Supply. And he is wearing on this day a red Louisville golf shirt.
Conventional wisdom said Amobi would be a redshirt himself as a freshman. But he was too good to sit. By the second quarter of his first college game, A.O. was in the lineup. He was a starter as a sophomore, then fought through a back injury during his junior year to a dominant role this year. He's No. 2 on the team in tackles and leads in sacks and tackles for loss.
"In previous years, he's played well for them, but he always looked like a little bit of a young kid out there," says Louisville sports columnist Eric Crawford. "Now he doesn't. He's starting to come of age. It's scary how young he is now and how good he's going to get."
How far Amobi Okoye has come - and how much farther to go.
Perhaps even symbolized by his name, as chosen by Augustine.
Roughly, it translates into English as "you can't understand God's heart" or "you can't understand God's plans."
They're solid on ALL sides of the ball.
