Polish big man gets shot with Vikings
EDEN PRAIRIE , MINN. Babatunde Aiyegbusi’s T-shirt declares “I’m kind of a big deal,” as if anyone in this coffee shop wouldn’t have noticed.
The Minnesota Vikings roster lists the massive Polish tackle at 6-9 and 351 pounds, and — weeks after he became one of the most improbable prospects to sign an NFL contract — his American dream is outsized to match.
“What surprised Ryan (Monnens, the Vikings’ director of pro scouting): I wasn’t jumping around, like big, happy of signing it,” Aiyegbusi recalled recently between sips of a remarkably tiny-looking iced tea. “He was like, ‘Are you not happy?’ I said, ‘I will be happy when I put (Houston Texans star) J.J. Watt to the ground.’ (Monnens) started laughing.”
Aiyegbusi, whose name is pronounced bah-BUH-tune-day ah-YEG-boo-see, gets a giant chuckle out of the story himself. He’s a hit stateside already, with his own website (BabsFootball.com), more than a half-million views on his online highlight reel and an upcoming turn on Jimmy Kimmel
Live! But he doesn’t view his shot to crack the Vikings roster — and perhaps change the game in his homeland — as any sort of joke.
Sure, he never played college football, turns 27 next month and, as of December, was content taking a step back as an athlete to take a step forward in his career as a security manager with a job in Warsaw (and a spot on the capital city’s Polish American Football League team).
Vikings scout Mike Sholiton saw enough in Aiyegbusi’s workout last month at the University of Texas-San Antonio to recommend him to Monnens, who called the next day to set up a tryout. Two days after that, Aiyegbusi was signing a deal instead of taking his scheduled flight home.
“Now, I sit in the hotel, I put the TV on — football everywhere!” Aiyegbusi said. “I just come, get my food, get my playbook in front of me and be like” — he exhaled — “‘Oh, man. I’m so hungry for football.’ ”
GETTING NOTICED It’s referred to as an exotic sport in Poland, said Aiyegbusi, who is the fifth Polish-born player (and second non-kicker) in NFL history, the Vikings say.
He knew little about the game until, at age 18, a stranger on the street suggested he show up to practice.
According to Anna Mytko, spokeswoman for the Polish ministry of sport and tourism, 78 teams are playing American football across five leagues this season, and the national team — which Aiyegbusi joined in 2012 — is expected to compete in the World Games in 2017 in Wroclaw.
“Certainly, Aiyegbusi’s story will convince many young people that American football can be successfully practiced also in Poland,” Mytko wrote in an email, “as the move to the NFL from our country, although demanding time and effort, is definitely possible.”
The son of a Nigerian gynecologist and a Polish head nurse, Aiyegbusi was raised in the southwestern town of Oleśnica. He played basketball on the jun- ior level in high school and could dunk. But coaches had to calm him down because he kept pushing people under the basket and fouling out.
That wasn’t an issue on the football field, where he immediately felt at home with a team known as The Crew Wroclaw — later rebranded the Wroclaw Giants — and discovered he had natural instincts for the game.
“My impression when I saw him on film was, ‘My God, he can move,’ ” said Mott Gaymon, an American who played against Aiyegbusi and later coached him in the Polish league. “He’s a big body, but he moves as well as some skill-position guys over in the league over in Poland.”
Aiyegbusi said he dropped out of a physical education college because the school wouldn’t give him days off for games. But he didn’t take football seriously until he returned in 2010 from a 1½year stint in the United Kingdom, where he focused solely on the security business.
He rejoined Wroclaw in 2011, helped the team win two Polish Bowl titles in three seasons and then signed with the Dresden Monarchs in the prestigious German league — a transformative stint that technically made Aiyegbusi a professional and ineligible to play American college football.
“It was like 500 euros (roughly $531 American) a month, which we got for our spendings,” Aiyegbusi said. “And we all did our jobs back in Poland. After work, we’d get in the car, travel 200 miles to practice, coming back at 7 o’clock in the morning.”
JOINING THE NFL An upcoming trip to Cologne, Germany, to work out for a scout from Texas Tech was scuttled once the eligibility issue came to light.
But one of the school’s assistants, West German-born former NFL defensive back Kevin Curtis, sent Aiyegbusi’s YouTube clip to Curtis’ agent.
The agent, Jeff Griffin, soon had gotten Aiyegbusi a visa and a spot at Texas-San Antonio’s March 23 pro day, where 17 NFL teams were slated to attend. A de- layed connection at Newark and a rear seat so small Aiyegbusi spent part of one flight sitting on the plane’s floor had him jet-lagged on arrival.
There also was the matter of learning drills Aiyegbusi only had seen while watching the NFL scouting combine on the Internet. But he made enough of an impression to get a longer look from the Vikings, who eventually gave him a straight rookie deal: three years, $1.575 million, none of it guaranteed.
“The one thing you can’t teach anybody is to be 6-9, 350 pounds and be able to run,” Gaymon said. “But you can teach them the proper techniques. And the one thing about Babs that I know personally (is that) he does take an interest (in) learning the proper technique.”
Aiyegbusi’s crash course begins Monday, when the Vikings start their offseason workout program. The plan is for him to work at right tackle behind Phil Loadholt — the first player Aiyegbusi met in the locker room and one of the few who can look him in the eye.
MAKING A STATEMENT The impact of Aiyegbusi’s opportunity has been felt at home as the season kicked off last weekend, said Mark Philmore, a former Northwestern star who went to training camp with the Chicago Bears in 2006 and was the Polish League MVP in 2011 with The Crew.
“They ran out of beer before the first game,” said Philmore, now a coach. “We had our largest opening crowd. We had to turn bodies away.
“I assume it’s all because of the buzz with Babs. It’s just a ripple effect throughout the whole entire country.”
Philmore said he was in disbelief at how fast the decade-old Polish league has grown since his arrival in 2010. That growth is largely attributable to an influx of American players and coaches who can teach the game. Having a homegrown star make it in the NFL could draw the eyes of more scouts to the region.
Aiyegbusi is conscious of the impact — “All Poland is supporting me,” he said — but insists he hasn’t reflected on it. He’ll wait to explore America until he makes the team and his football-loving wife, Luiza, and 2½-year-old son, Babatunji, can get the documents needed to join him.
“I’m a realist. But I’m about to bring my best to the table,” Aiyegbusi said. “It ain’t going to be easy for either of us to go against each other. And maybe there will be some lack of technique. But they’ll get (an) aggressive, big guy trying to get the gap and go to the second level.
“If they ain’t going to bring all they got, they’re going to be pushed backward.”