Nathan Kapongo sits in the Portland High weight room before heading out for practice a few days before the 2017 Thanksgiving game against Deering. Kapongo came to the United States from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald
Nathan Kapongo knows it won’t be easy to achieve his pro football dream.
Kapongo, 24, who lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo until he was 15, knows he’s a long shot to make an NFL team.
Of course, the first time he put on pads and a helmet as a 16-year-old sophomore at Portland High he couldn’t have imagined playing in front of 102,011 fans at Ohio State’s iconic “Horseshoe.” He did that on Aug. 31, 2024, as a graduate student at the University of Akron.
Three weeks later, the 6-foot-4, 292-pound interior defensive lineman made five tackles and recovered a fumble in front of 78,704 fans at the University of South Carolina.
By that point Kapongo had reason to believe he belonged. After five years of learning the game at the University of New Hampshire, where he played in 22 games and graduated with a degree in communications, the multilingual Kapongo transferred to Akron to test himself against top-tier programs and increase his national exposure.
“I believe I have the talent and I put in a lot of hours of work,” he said. “I partially tore the triceps in my right arm against Ohio State. I played the whole rest of the game. South Carolina proved I can play at that level.”
Kapongo did not miss a game in his one season at Akron, in 2024, finishing with 17 solo tackles, 20 assists, six tackles for loss, a sack and two fumble recoveries as the Zips went 4-8 overall and 3-5 in the Mid-American Conference.
On Wednesday, Kapongo will get the opportunity to impress NFL scouts when Akron holds its pro day.
For the last two months, Kapongo has focused his life around training for this opportunity.
Although he has not yet retained an agent, Kapongo said he’s worked with a trainer who’s prepared athletes for NFL pro days.
Kapongo declined to say what his stats are — 40-yard dash time, bench press, vertical jump, for example — but added he’s in good shape.
Nathan Kapongo of Portland will participate in an NFL pro day Wednesday in Akron, Ohio. Steve Craig/Portland Press Herald
“My numbers are very good at the moment so that’s what gives me confidence,” Kapongo said eight days before the pro day. “I’ve compared them to some of the guys who were at the (NFL) Combine and my numbers are better than a lot of them as well.
“My strategy is to just go out and dominate and showcase my talent of what I can really do. That’s all I have left. To just showcase and prove to them that I’m one of them.”
Kapongo is trying to join a small group of Congolese players to reach the NFL.
The most well known is running back Tshimanga “Tim” Biakabutuka, a 1996 first-round pick of the Carolina Panthers. Biakabutuka, who starred at the University of Michigan, played 50 games during six seasons in Carolina.
Former University of Maine linebacker Christophe Mulumba-Tshimanga, who was born in Zaire (the former name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and grew up in Montreal, is among about 10 DRC natives who played in the Canadian Football League.
Most of those players immigrated to Canada when they were young, giving them an opportunity to learn about football and organized sports much sooner than Kapongo.
Kapongo’s introduction to football came as a Portland High sophomore in 2016. It had been one year since Kapongo, the youngest of 12 children, immigrated with his parents and several siblings from Kinshasa, the capital city of the war-torn country and home to roughly 12 million people. Kapongo didn’t know anything about football other than it looked like fun and fit his 6-foot-4, 240-pound 16-year-old body.
“When I first started in high school, I couldn’t even understand English,” Kapongo said. “I had one player in high school who could speak French. People were willing to help and they understood I didn’t know much about the sport.”
While Kapongo was attending UNH, his family moved to Westbrook. His father, Pierre Muamba, died from cancer in June 2022. As a means of honoring him, Kapongo is now using his full name, Nathan Muamba Kapongo, on his social media sites. His mother and a brother live in Lewiston.
Kapongo has long been reluctant to discuss why his family immigrated to the United States in 2015. The DRC was then, and still is, beset with political violence and human rights atrocities.
Nathan Kapongo heads out to Fitzpatrick Field for football practice a few days before the 2017 Thanksgiving game against Deering. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald
“It was a bad situation that had to do with politics and stuff, so it was not a good situation for us to stay in the country anymore,” Kapongo said. “I mean, it did shape who I am. Looking back, it was a very hard situation to deal with it, but again, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
HOPING TO INSPIRE OTHER IMMIGRANTS
He does hope his story can inspire others, especially immigrants struggling with living in a new country.
“You don’t have hopes. You don’t even know English. But if you really put in the effort and the work, you can achieve anything and everything,” Kapongo said.
Kapongo said he was fortunate that his then-Portland football coach Jim Hartman and his staff had patience. They understood he had little football knowledge, was still learning English, let alone football parlance, and Kapongo’s family responsibilities, especially his father’s failing health, at times made it difficult to get to and from practice.
“There’s a lot of challenges that a lot of us immigrants have to deal with. … It’s a lot more challenging than just the game of sports,” Kapongo said.
When Hartman resigned as Portland’s football coach in November 2018, successor Jason McLeod and assistant coach Mike Rutherford took over helping Kapongo navigate the college recruiting trail.
McLeod, like Hartman and other mentors and teachers, have stayed in touch. McLeod enjoys telling the story of how he turned on the TV to watch Ohio State’s 2024 opener and “first series of the game, it’s ‘No. 99, Nate Kapongo.’ I’m texting him and saying, ‘I know you’re playing right now but this is awesome.'”
McLeod, now an assistant coach at Cheverus, said he wouldn’t discount Kapongo’s chances of playing professional football.
“First and foremost, any sort of challenge imposed on him in his life, whether he was younger or older, he’s worked hard to overcome those challenges,” McLeod said. “He has a plan. He’s going to work his tail off and not give up until he achieves. Between his size and more important, the person he is. Put it this way, there’s 32 teams in the NFL and all he needs is one to give him a chance.”
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