‘Competitive fervor’ with a soft spot: NC football recruit all about teamwork, family

South Garner High’s football team played a one-score contest last week until Fuquay-Varina tallied a third-quarter touchdown. As the defense trotted off the field, a Titans assistant coach confronted one of his players.

The critique irked the athlete. He walked away throwing up his arms. He sulked.

Now what?

Well, the biggest, most talented player on South Garner’s roster with 22 scholarship offers in his back pocket — in other words, the guy whose future is least impacted by a Friday night win or loss — approached his teammate. He put a comforting arm around his shoulder pads.

That was Ekene Ogboko (pronounced ECK-uh-nee OGG-bo-ko), a 6-foot-6, 290-pound junior two-way lineman.

Ogboko walked his teammate down the sideline, offering encouragement. Then, following South Garner’s kickoff return, Ogboko supportively tapped his teammate on the helmet. He returned to the field and took up his position at offensive left tackle.

Now jump ahead to Monday following practice.

For an interview in the bleachers of South Garner’s gym, the 4-star recruit took a seat in the first row. The initial questions he has heard plenty as the “little brother” — an oxymoron — of Georgia true freshman defensive lineman Nnamdi Ogboko (6-4, 340).

He leaned back, his torso seemingly stretched halfway up the stands, while politely answering the questions.

What was it like following in Nnamdi’s footsteps?

“We’re brothers. We try to make each other better.”

Is he going to follow his brother to Georgia?

“It’s not a given I’ll go to Georgia. It would be nice to play with him again — we’re brothers — but I’ll weigh all of my options. I’ll see what other offers I get.”

But then a question prompted him to sit up. He was asked to comment on Friday night’s game when he took the time to support a frustrated teammate. He spoke with feeling. He made a point while extending his wingspan — one of his genetic advantages blocking pass rushers. His right arm seemingly reached halfcourt and his left to the gym’s wall.

“We can’t win any games unless we play as a team. If a teammate is frustrated, I don’t want him to stay frustrated so he’s not giving 100 percent anymore. I told him, ‘You’re good. Keep working.’ I wanted to lift his spirits back up to get him back in the game. I also helped him with what he was seeing in the game.”

At another point late in Friday’s contest, a scuffle at the line of scrimmage developed between a South Garner player and one from Fuquay-Varina. Ogboko quickly stepped between them and directed his teammate back to the huddle.

“He’s also the type of player who will hold guys accountable,” South Garner coach Greg Greene said. “He’ll get on them. But if sees somebody is getting the rough end of the stick from a coach, he can be the soft place to land.”

Ogboko, though, also is his toughest critic.

“He’s a coachable kid,” Greene said. “He’s competitive. So, if he feels he didn’t execute what we wanted, it comes out of a competitive nature. He doesn’t want to let anybody down. He wants to be the guy who makes a play. He has that competitive fervor.”

Ogboko’s scholarship offers, which along with Georgia includes NC State and Duke, range far and wide. Among them are Alabama, Penn State, Notre Dame and two West Coast schools, USC and Stanford.

But now that he’s ranked a national recruit with Name, Image and Likeness money on the horizon, how has he resisted entitlement? After all, it’s an infectious ailment in these transactional times for elite athletes.

His theory has to do with being big for his age. He always played “up” with brother and other older kids. He learned from their example of encouraging him.

But credit also belongs with two older sisters who gave their brothers an academic standard both followed with grade point averages in the 3.7 to 3.9 range.

Ugonna Ogboko, the oldest sibling, recently graduated from Salem College, a women’s school in Winston-Salem. She’s applying for medical school.

Precious Ogboko is a student at North Carolina. She was a 6-2 basketball star at Durham School of Arts, but she turned down lower division college offers. She preferred to focus on a prestigious degree from UNC’s Chapel Hill campus.

But most of all Ekene’s precociousness may stem from respect for his mother, Chindeu Akamelu. The four siblings are American-born to divorced Nigerian parents. Their father has returned to Nigeria, while their mother works as a special education teacher in the Durham Public Schools.

Imagine such a single-mom shopping and budgeting to feed two man-sized boys.

“My brother and I always fought over food,” Ekene said with a fond laugh. “If he took more slices of pizza than me, I’d make him split the last piece in half. But my mom always made sure she had food on the table for us. Even if it meant she’d go hungry, she had enough food for us because she loved us.”

Ah, so that’s how he grew up learning to keep an eye out for others.

This story was originally published October 31, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "‘Competitive fervor’ with a soft spot: NC football recruit all about teamwork, family."