![From club football to the NFL: Praise Olatoke is Ohio State’s most unlikely NFL product| Keynote USA From club football to the NFL: Praise Olatoke is Ohio State’s most unlikely NFL product| Keynote USA](https://i0.wp.com/a2.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0627%2Fr1351162_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&w=1200&resize=1200,0&ssl=1)
Going from Ohio State University to the NFL is nothing out of the ordinary, but former Buckeyes athlete Praise Olatoke, whose initial introduction to football came through club football in college, was assigned to Los Angeles Chargers via NFL International Player. The Pathway Program (IPPP) was the stuff of wildest dreams.
Olatoke was born in Lagos, Nigeria, but spent most of his formative years in Scotland, moving at the age of 5. He immersed himself in rugby and sprinting, earned a scholarship to Canada’s Trinity Western and then moved to Ohio State in 2021, where he spent two seasons on the Buckeyes track team, although a torn tendon Achilles ruined one.
Olatoke participated in Ohio State club football, initially having difficulty even putting on the equipment, but showed promise in his second game when he caught a 65-yard touchdown pass against Michigan State. He never looked back from there, but it was a long road to the top. After all, this was club football, far from the bright lights of the Buckeyes’ NCAA team.
“I never played NCAA football, but the difference is that I think NCAA football is a quasi-professional football, just for college athletes,” Olatoke said at a news conference Tuesday. “There’s the coaching. Basically, the NCAA has money; that’s it. The NCAA has billions of dollars every year that are funneled into it to make a show, to make a production.
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“Club soccer is just a sport where players get together to play soccer and enjoy a Saturday morning. That’s it. There might be 15 or 20 people in a crowd. There might be 50. Who knows? Basically, the difference is that the NCAA has money, and with money comes talent, notoriety, attention and all that. People who play club soccer do it for the love of the game. That’s the difference.”
Olatoke was a huge basketball fan and his journey might have been different if he had grown taller than 6 feet 2 inches. However, since height was not on his side, he opted for soccer over hoops. By his own admission, his rapid rise in football through the NFL’s IPPP at IMG Academy involved a lot of luck.
“I’m not going to deny that I was lucky to be in this situation,” he said. “So many different dominoes had to fall my way. I think the statistic is that one in every 300,000 or 400,000 high school kids in the U.S. makes it to the league. I wasn’t even in high school (in the country), so I can’t deny that I was lucky; but if you want it bad enough, I think you can always make things go your way. Basically, you can make your own luck.
According to the Ohio State College of Public Health, the chances of a high school player going pro are 0.023% based on 2016 data.
Lucky as he was, Olatoke had to overcome disappointment on his way through the IPPP. He coached for the Philadelphia Eagles, but was unsuccessful in his efforts to convince them to hire him. However, the Chargers didn’t need much persuasion once they saw his electric pace and willingness to work and learn.
“After the IPP and all that, there were a couple of teams that reached out,” he said. “One of them, obviously, was the Eagles. I went to their rookie minicamp, but it didn’t work out. A few weeks later, the Chargers reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, we’d be interested in bringing you.'” to our minicamp.” Before the Chargers approached, he was beginning to fear that football wasn’t for him after all.
“At first I wasn’t sure what was going on, because they only sent me a one-way ticket. The second to last day I asked them, ‘Hey, am I coming home?’ No one could give me a straight answer.
“On the last day, which was a Thursday, one of the staff members said, ‘Hey, you have a meeting with the general manager.’ I walked in and saw the general manager. There were a couple other people there and they basically said, ‘We We think we’re going to take a chance on you, so if you’re willing to work, we’ll hire you.’
“At that point, about an hour and a half, they offered me a contract and I’m a Charger.”
The Chargers went 5-12 last season, but have two of the IPPP’s best products, both Nigerian-born, in CJ Okoye and Olatoke.
Olatoke and his friend, Louis Rees-Zammit, a former Welsh rugby star, are likely to add electrifying pace to the league. It remains to be seen if they will have the wherewithal to outwit the experienced D-line players at the top of the game.
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