The NFL Academy: Agent of Expansion, Part II
DAZN Exclusive.
The NFL Academy and the International Player Pathway (IPP) do not exist without young men walking away from what they know their lives to be. They expose themselves as “new, in a game of fierce competition, with hopes of fulfilling commitments made to themselves, families, teammates, and coaches." There are more American football fans and opportunities to play the game than ever because citizens of the world are watching young men from their neighborhoods, proverbially, go for it.
Efe Obada’s journey- in life, not football - is the blueprint for many students at the NFL Academy. He was born in Lagos, Nigeria and moved to Europe in his youth. First to the Netherlands and then to the UK. Obada was raised in foster care in London, eventually picking up American football in adulthood at age 21. This is a late start for a football career in the United States, but he had the drive he knew would raise his acumen to the level of his competition saying, “the only thing that allowed me to close the gap, and have the career I’ve had, was my work ethic.”
Obada has watched friends with his story try to become football players, as he did. Some failed and struggled adapting to life without the game and he honors them as the NFL Academy’s ambassador at the Europe-Africa campus. Obada organizes conversations for the players to pick his brain about football, but also to provide feedback on the program they don't want to share with coaches or staff. “I see them as my little brothers,” said Obada. He is unwavering in championing the players, while bringing them down to earth. He highlighted the humility required to climb the social ladder as a football player saying, “(I tell them) if your aim is to make the NFL, you’ve got to stay grounded.”
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Dan Akinkunmi, an alumnus of the NFL Academy and now an Oklahoma Sooner, exemplifies the focus and dedication Obada was speaking to. Akinkunmi is from London and traveled two hours each way to get to school and practice to join the NFL Academy initially. According to Lamonte Winston, Akinkunmi had 40 college football offers he created on his own when Winston started as head of the program in 2023. The self owned recruitment process can be found throughout the group in Loughborough now. Winston recalls walking through the academy locker room recently and seeing kids with spreadsheets, of granular detail, showing which schools they were targeting and the coaches they had relationships with.
In the name, image and likeness (NIL) era of NCAA athletics, five-star recruits are offered lucrative compensation by way of endorsements to play Division-I football. Along with the NFL Academy’s staff, its students own the task of marketing themselves as players, and people, to NCAA football programs less the recruiting services found in America. “They just want a chance to play,” said Winston. He added his staff’s goal is to “help these young people play tackle football as long as they can” and stressed the lifelong impact of a college education- University for those in the UK - in the United States.
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Sunday Samuel and his family understand the gravity of Winston’s stance. Samuel, a former NFL Academy man- the title head coach Steve Hagen bestows on his players- now plays football for Loughborough University. His pilgrimage just to earn a chance at a better education and an opportunity to play American football is staggering. Samuel took to hitchhiking and working odd jobs to make his way to an NFL Academy recruiting combine in Nigeria. He used traffic cones on African highways to create a safe sleeping space on his route, having to stop and find work to save money for travel and food.
Patrick Long in the NFL’s league office commented on Samuel’s story saying, “its intense, its admirable, its impactful.” Long played football at Wake Forest University and could relate to Samuel through a football lense saying, “I was a walk-on” and referred to what it takes in Division-I football as “bringing that mindset in that you have to earn it on a daily basis.” Sunday Samuel undoubtedly brought “it” on his voyage to Lagos, and proved he has common ground with those who work in Commissioner Goodell's office.
Making the NFL Academy roster as a student-athlete requires standing out in what Lamonte Winston calls a “robust” recruiting process. The academy turns over about 30 students a year, making the available spots at rock-bottom, sought after. Recruitment is facilitated primarily through talent identification combines in different areas of the globe including Finland, Germany, England, Canada, and Mexico. The academy pairs its European combines with its Spring games in the region to not only display its football proficiency, but infuse American football culturally.
Kris Durham, the program’s Head of Football, describes the strategy as necessary to building relationships with recruits, stating: “We need to get in front of them and their families, and they need to get in front of us.” Both Durham and coach Hagen describe the dynamic as “an investment on both sides.” Very few of the academy’s players are on full scholarship, making the acceptance of a roster spot demanding financially, but more so personally when considering an international relocation. Be that as it may, these global combines yield phenomenal football talent and spark excitement around American pigskin.
Emmanuel Okoye, now a defensive end at the University of Tennessee, is an example of that talent and then some. Osi Umenyiora recalls his first time seeing Okoye “vividly” in a video that was sent to him. Umenyiora said “he didn’t even have shoes on, he was wearing socks” and added “he was running (in socks), but you could spot it. And we're like, 'man, that's a great athlete.'” Okoye is six-foot-five, 243 pounds with a 45.5 inch vertical jump and a wing span over seven feet. He played only three games for the NFL Academy before being offered a spot in the SEC- America’s premier football conference.
As an NFL global ambassador, Umenyiora travels to different parts of the world and sees American football’s reach. One of his more alluring observations is how much the game is being played without anyone knowing it. When discussing American football in England he said “almost every University has an American football team” and went on to describe requests for visits in the Ivory Coast and Senegal. The requests come with videos of people playing the game in Africa and Umneyiora narrates his reaction by saying, “You're like, how is this even happening?” The NFL Academy and IPP are now a part of the answer.
The academy announced its second location last Fall, which is located on the Gold Coast of Australia at A.B. Patterson College. The new location will be led by Will Bryce, a longtime figure in the NFL’s international community. Patrick Long said “there's no denying the level of talent and concentration of talent in the APAC (Asia-Pacific) region.” Jordan Mailata is a testament to Long's statement. He is from Australia, a product of the IPP, and earned second-team All-Pro honors in the NFL last season at left tackle- a premier position. He was integral in the Philadelphia Eagles’ win in Super Bowl LIX last February and is a mentor at the academy’s new APAC campus.
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American football is no longer an American sport. It's a vehicle of both opportunity and cultural exchange. Efe Obada has gone from foster care in the UK, to the NFL, to hosting King Charles III at an event at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium earlier this year. He was asked to throw a football by His Majesty and the admittedly nervous Obada hit his target. Not bad for a defensive end- the pressure of playing on Sundays for a decade certainly helped.
Osi Umenyiora looks at the NFL and imagines what the world would be like if it operated with some of the league’s parameters, like a salary cap and equally distributed revenue. He said, “all 32 teams have the same amount of money to spend” and “the worst team has the best (draft) pick the following year.” He was speaking to the equity he sees. Do the student-athletes of the NFL Academy build value for a $23 Billion brand? Absolutely. But they do so with their teammates, sharing the aspirations of teenage athletes everywhere- which are to make it.
Aden Durde, a symbol of making it as the NFL’s first international coach said, “it's an exciting time to be a young guy outside of America that has the ambition to play in the NFL.” Durde concluded with, “if you are going to expand the sport, the kids have got to be able to dream.”
This is Part II of a two-part series. Click here for Part I.
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