No kicks coming
Mammoth rookie OT outgrew soccer, makes switch to U.S. football seem simple
In ninth grade, Chukwuma Okorafor begged his parents to change their mind.
This wasn’t the full-grown, 6foot-6, 320-pound rookie the Steelers know now. The smaller, skinnier version approached his mother, Emilia, and asked to play football. Of course, she thought. He had played the game before as a young boy — when he lived in three different countries in Africa. That was, however, before his move to the United States. Perhaps he was rekindling an old pastime.
But then she saw it. The hits. The impact. Authentic American football.
“What is this?” she remembered asking.
“This is football,” Okorafor replied.
“This isn’t football!” said his mother in response.
Emilia screamed when she first watched him play. It was fighting, she said. Years later, there would be more yelling — screams of excitement until 3 a.m. when the Steelers made Okorafor the No. 92 overall pick in the April draft, the first player selected from the state of Michigan. Before then, Okora for’s athletic journey was rooted on the soccer fields of Nigeria.
* * * Neither Emilia nor Okorafor could remember when he picked up soccer. He moved from Nigeria to South Africa and then finally Botswana before his parents got jobs in the United States, and Okorafor wouldn’t play the sport much after the age of 10.
“I grew a little bit too big,” the 20year-old joked recently.
The game, however, was embedded in his family’s background. Okorafor said the sport was always on television when he was young. All three of Okorafor’s brothers played soccer, Emilia said, and it followed Okorafor as he picked up the game of football.
At Western Michigan, Jake Moreland, who coached the Broncos offensive line in 2017, said whenever a soccer ball was around in practice, Okorafor would play with it. The two-time first-team AllMid-American Conference selection said he never did anything special — just juggle it with his feet 30 or 35 times.
Broncos head coach Tim Lester recalls a handful of times when he offered Okorafor a chance to kick in practice, after the linemen finished their drills. Okorafor said his longest field goal was 30 yards; Lester estimates maybe 35.
“He definitely didn’t look like a kicker doing it,” Lester said. “But he definitely did not struggle with the motion of being able to kick a ball.”
Okorafor’s main job, however, was to protect the quarterback. And despite his past playing away from contact — he was a defender in his soccer days and said he wasn’t the aggressive type — Moreland said Okorafor had an edge and could “turn it on” when he needed to.
For example, at one practice, Tanner Motz, a scout-team defensive end, was giving him trouble.
A couple of pushes after the whistle frustrated Okorafor.
“Don’t poke the bear now,” Lester said he thought. Then he looked to Okorafor, who looked back at him. The next whistle blew, and Lester said Okorafor picked Motz off the ground, drove him 12 yards and dropped him.
“You deserved that, Tanner,” Lester remembers saying. “I watched you be kind of a prick.”
Now, he laughed: “Poor Tanner just got buried.”
* * * Ten years after Okorafor previously played competitive soccer, he rarely thinks back to it.
“I really don’t care too much about it now,” he said.
But he notes there are two stages of his life — one dedicated to soccer; the next to football. The second reached its peak April 27 — Day 2 of the 2018 NFL draft.
Pickafter pick was announced on television in the family room in Southfield, Mich. Emilia couldn’t stop pacing, and none of the family nor friends gathered could calm her down.Okorafor’s phone buzzed.
“OK,” Emilia remembered Okorafor replied on the phone. “OK, yeah.” “Yes, Coach,” he said, then lowered the phone to his side.
Okorafor’s family was loud, but typically civil, Emilia said. But people shouted from around the room: “That’s the coach, that’s the coach.”
“What is going on?” Emilia pleaded.
“Mom,” Okorafor said. “Look at the screen.”
* * * Foot drills of the past long gone, Okorafor’s focus is turned squarely to football and meshing with a Steelers offensive line that had three Pro Bowlers in 2018. He practiced at both tackle spots in the offseason, and Steelers offensive line coach Mike Munchak said he hopes the team“won’t need him right away.”
Many believe Okorafor won’t be contained for long.
“The physical level is going up,” Munchak said. “He’s holding his own.”
In some ways, Okorafor has soccer to thank for that.
It was the first step in Okorafor’s journey to his athletic goals. He said his speed and footwork remain a strength, despite the adjustments he is making to the NFL — and football.
“I want to help the team win, and, if that means me playing one snap,” Okorafor said, “it doesn’t really matter to me.”