Sam and the city: Acho discovers Valley lifestyle
For a football player whose fibula failed him, Sam Acho sure smiles a lot. It didn’t happen right away. But after suffering a season-ending injury on Sept. 22, the Cardinals linebacker faced a crossroads: wallow in self-pity or seize an opportunity.
Acho, as he often does, chose a path of most assistance.
“You have your plans, you have your dreams,” he said. “No one expects a detour to come. This detour came. I didn’t want to just sit in my house all day and become a recluse.”
So the Texas-reared Acho decided to cement a relationship with an Arizona community he has grown to love. In addition to exploring unique businesses and places in the Valley while he is away from football, he periodically will celebrate the accomplishments of the area’s unsung heroes. 12 News and azcentral.com will chronicle Acho’s journey, and Acho blogs about his experiences on his website, samacho.com.
He already has written about Marion VanWinkle, a Tempe woman who is battling breast cancer yet remains committed to the Justa Center, a resource facility in Phoenix for older homeless adults.
He also took a trip to the Arizona State Fair, where he indulged in chocolatecovered bacon and other unique fair delicacies, an excursion that time-consuming football never permitted him to take.
“In my third year (in the NFL), I’ve fallen in love with this city more and more,” he said.
Considering Acho’s background, it is not surprising he has taken this route.
His parents, Sonny and Christie Acho, co-founded Dallas-based Living Hope Ministries. Every summer, the Acho family leads a collection of doctors, nurses and other volunteers to provide free medical care in remote Nigerian communities.
The experience has left Sam Acho with powerful perspective. He often thinks back to a boy he met there when he was 15.
“He looked very much like me, but he was really skinny,” he said. “I remember looking at this kid and thinking, ‘What’s wrong with him?’ and finding out later he was the same age as me.
“I remember saying, ‘Wow, that could have been me.’ I thought about how blessed I am to live where we do and have freedom, and I thought, ‘I’m never going to forget about that kid.’ ”
Even with those life experiences, it is challenging to not be consumed by one’s achievements. Acho was a star at every level of football he played, from highly regarded high school recruit to MVP of his Texas Longhorns team in 2010, the same year The Sporting News named him one of the 20 smartest athletes in sports, a list that included only one other college player.
He was rolling merrily along until he broke his leg against New Orleans. He was about to miss a game for the first time since he started playing football at 9.
He admits he broke down after hearing he was done for the year. He immediately reached out to rookie lineman Jonathan Cooper, who suffered a near identical injury during an exhibition game a month earlier, to ask what he should expect.
“I don’t think it’s an accident that we both got the exact same injury,” Acho said. “It’s not a common injury.”
Now the two and their matching knee scooters spend a lot of time together, from watching Cardinals games to seeing movies to attending team Bible studies.
That’s when he is not trying to be more engaged with the community. He recently met with Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers, just because he wanted to learn more about what the job of a mayor entails.
He has spent time at St. Dominic Savio Academy, a Tempe school for autistic children. He plans to volunteer soon at Phoenix Children’s Hospital because of a passion for helping make life better for youth.
“I can’t consider what I’m going through as suffering, because I’ve seen suffering in Nigeria and I’ve seen suffering in the inner city of Phoenix,” he said. “But as I sit here with an unexpected detour, I want to make the most of it. So I guess it’s a little bit like suffering with the city, suffering with people who are hurting.”
To be clear, there is nothing about Acho that is self-promoting. He is taking this path and being public about it because he wants to give recognition to those who probably wouldn’t otherwise receive it.
“A lot of times things happen and we want to ask why,” he said. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t think it was my job to ask.” He’s right. And he was smiling when he said it.