NFL Scot hits the big time Stateside
A young Scot who didn’t play American football until he was 17 has been signed by one of NFL’S top teams.
David Ojabo, who moved from Nigeria to Scotland when he was seven, has been selected to play for two-time Super Bowl champions the Baltimore Ravens.
The move is likely to make him one of Scotland’s highest earning and most watched sports stars. Ojabo,
21, who plays as a linebacker, had moved to America on a sports scholarship in his teens, and initially played basketball at a New Jersey boarding school.
He was encouraged to try American football at 17 and a year later was playing for the University of Michigan’s team, the Wolverines.
Obajo, who is 6ft 5in tall, had been seen as one of the rising stars of college football and was a certainty to be picked by a professional team.
But in March he tore an Achilles tendon while training in front of scouts, and will have to spend months on the sidelines. Despite the injury he was picked to play for the Ravens at the NFL draft on Friday night, the dramatic annual process when the National Football League teams pick the best the up and coming college players.
Obajo said: “It means the world. That’s what I was working towards before the unfortunate injury and to have my family and friends beside me. It’s all part of the story, it’s like a dream.”
He will now work on rehabilitation with the Ravens, with a view to playing for them by the end of the year.
Speaking of his hopes for his recovery, Obajo said: “I’m definitely hopeful. But I can’t predict the future. So, I’m just day by day, do as I’m told and hope for the best. It’s a bump in the road. Just another obstacle that I’m going to conquer.”
Ojabo’s parents, Victor and Ngor, from Westhill, Aberdeenshire, were there to see him being picked, after they were flown out from Aberdeen to surprise him.
Ravens general manager Eric Decostatold told the
team’s website: “We rely on our doctors and trainers.
“They haven’t seen him since the re-checks and all those things in Indy, but they’re optimistic that at some point this year he’ll have a chance to play.
“For us, there might be a delay, but we think he’ll come back with a vengeance and play outstanding football.”