Go Phe!

“LeBron was the old phenom, maybe I’m the new one,” Okoye says. “We’re going to go from King James to Phe.”

Now that’s chutzpah. After all, folks from Huntsville don’t often go around wearing t-shirts proclaiming their “essence” (in this case, invictus, which means “unconquered”) or proudly claiming the moniker “Phe” (short for phenom). But then again, most of us aren’t 19-years-old, 6’2”, 302 lbs and can break 5 seconds in the 40.

But Amobi Okoye is and can and that accounts for him being the 10th overall pick in the recent NFL draft and a future Dallas Texan. Okoye became the youngest player ever drafted in the NFL, and when he plays his first down this fall, he’ll become the youngest ever to play in the league.

But Okoye’s prodigious feats go back a few years when he first arrived in Huntsville from Nigeria. Back then, Okoye was a brainy and very large soccer goalie whose father had designs on him attending Harvard. He tested into high school at age 12 where a Lee High School coach spotted the diamond-in-the-rough, invited him to the weight room, and gave him a copy of Madden NFL and told him to hit the Playstation to learn the fundamentals of the game.

By age 15, Okoye was an All-State lineman and signed a football scholarship with Bobby Petrino’s Louisville Cardinals. Petrino initially had some reservations about having a 16-year-old on the field, but Okoye’s drive and outstanding play convinced him otherwise (much to the chagrin of many upperclassmen who shunned him). But Okoye endured the harsh treatment of his teammates, continued to play well while tutoring his teammates in various subjects off the field, and by age 19 was elected captain where he finished his collegiate career as a second-team All American.

I watched an interview with Okoye the other day in which he talked at length about his plans for coming back to Alabama and sponsoring some football camps for inner city youth. I’m sure the amount of money that he’ll be making is mind-boggling to a 19 year-old like him, but he seemed more animated about his future camp than he did about his future paycheck. It was nice seeing a prodigious prodigy like Okoye talk like that.

I grew up rooting for a different phenom: Steve Prefontaine, as in “Go Pre!” If Amobe Okoye continues along his present arc toward excellence, don’t be surprised if “Go Phe!” becomes the cry of a new generation, and, of course, the opening message on the front of a very popular t-shirt.