Emmanuel Okoye First Watched Football at 17, Now He's Ready to Wreak Havoc at Cal
The Nigeria native went from a basketball court to an NFL Academy camp to Berkeley, and he's only getting started.
Cal outside linebacker Emmanuel Okoye didn’t grow up watching football. The first time he saw the game was 2022, when a camp came to Nigeria and changed everything.
“I was playing basketball at the time in Nigeria and OC came to Nigeria and had a camp, the first camp in Nigeria. I made it to the NFL Africa camp which was in Ghana. I was fortunate to earn a scholarship to play at the NFL Academy and study at Loughborough College.”
He was 17 years old. His entire frame of reference for the sport was a single highlight.
“The only thing I knew about football was Odell Beckham Jr. He had the one hand catch I’d see on posters and stuff, and on ads on TV. That was all I knew.”
The NFL Academy gave him the basics and the freedom to find himself as a player.
“I had one of the best coaches to help me grasp the basics of football. I was just a raw athlete, didn’t know too much about the game. They let me run free, let me enjoy being on the field. I was able to have great relationships with my teammates and rack up a couple of scholarships to study and play football out here in the States.”
Since then, everything has changed. He’s gone from 209 pounds to 243, and his understanding of the game has grown just as fast.
“My game has grown a lot in the last three to four years. Right from where I started at the NFL Academy with the coaches giving me the basics, getting to college gave me a good foundation. Right here with these great coaches, I feel like this is a great opportunity to use all I’ve learned so far, with my skill set and athleticism, to have a great impact on this team for a while.”
He chose edge because of what it lets him do.
“I’m an athlete. I could do whatever on the field, but I chose to play this because it gives me a lot of freedom to just go out there and wreck havoc. It just lets me loose.”
The athleticism is something else. His best vertical is 45.5 inches, his best broad jump 11-feet-6, and he’s matter-of-fact about both.
“It comes out in times where even I myself don’t expect it. Sometimes you just change directions, get off the ball, make plays, and do things that regular folk won’t be able to do.”
Traveling the world before arriving in Berkeley has shaped more than his body. Okoye credits those experiences for how he connects with teammates from all different backgrounds.
“I’ve been to different places and different parts of the world. I’ve been able to experience people from different spaces all over the world and it’s given me a glimpse of how you should get to people, because everyone is different. Just me having these experiences has made it a lot easier for me to reach out to people and get to them the best way possible.”