Another experiment for Dobie

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/09/2020 (1936 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s fair to say Dolapo Egunjobi’s athletic resumé was pretty limited when he immigrated to Winnipeg with his family nine years ago.

He was a big kid — oversized for his age — but had little experience in organized sports except for a familiarity with basketball, one of the most popular pastimes in his native Nigeria.

By Grade 10 at Fort Richmond Collegiate when Egunjobi tried out for the school’s junior varsity team, he failed to make the cut.

Centurians varsity hoops coach Ogo Okwumabua spotted the towering 14-year-old in the gym one day and made a mental note: “We’re not going to let a kid like that not do any sport,” he told himself.

Okwumabua, believing Egunjobi was not yet ready to play, said he would keep him on the roster as a red shirt (practising but not playing). The tutoring continued into Grade 11 before Egunjobi was finally considered ready for active duty in Grade 12 when he became a regular contributer on one of Manitoba’s top-ranked squads.

Despite a basketball season curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Okwumabua had been thinking ahead. He made a call to University of Manitoba Bisons football head coach Brian Dobie, touting the athletic ability and work ethic the towering Egunjobi had shown in high school.

Soon, Okwumabua came back to Egunjobi with a proposal to combine an education and sports.

“He came to me and he’s like, ‘OK, there’s this football opportunity’ and he says, ‘I think it would be a really good fit for football,’” says Egunjobi, who won’t turn 18 until Dec. 28. “‘So, I would like to take you to talk with coach Dobie and see if we can work something out.’

“The (basketball) season just ended and I was basically ready to just jump at anything because I’m really into competitive sports in general and stuff that keeps me busy.”

Dobie, who had overseen the development of Israel Idonijie and David Onyemata into NFL prospects in recent years, was intrigued by Egunjobi’s size and potential.

The Nigerian connection — Idonijie and Onyemata were also born in Africa — cemented his curiosity and it didn’t hurt that Okwumabua, a former U of M basketball star, is Idonije’s brother-in-law (married to Izzy’s sister, Praise).

“I said, ‘He’s a really hard worker and I wouldn’t be recommending him (otherwise), but to be completely honest he’s very raw,’” says Okwumabua. “‘He’s never played football before, but in terms of physical size and any other attributes you’d be looking for in an athlete for that sport, he’s got it.’”

Dobie gave offensive line coach Ryan Karhut a hint of what was coming before spring workouts. Egunjobi was 6-5 and 250 pounds but made errors like the greenhorn he was.

“The first time I saw him play I thought there was something there,” says Karhut. “At first you try to not make any preconceived judgments on guys just based on height, weight or the way they look because too many times in football, you see guys that look the part can’t play the part and you see guys that don’t look the part that can really play.

“The first time I saw him play, in the way he can move from a biomechanical aspect and how athletic he was to recover when he made mistakes physically, I was like, ‘Oh there’s something there for sure.’”

There is no mistaking what Egunjobi has accomplished in terms of his fitness and strength in the past four months. He enrolled at Recruit Ready Football with trainer Brad Black in the spring and has since added more than 40 pounds as the Bisons began two-a-week practices earlier this week.

His gains in the weight room have been eye-popping: his squat lift has gone from 315 pounds to 340, his deadlift has improved from 405 pounds to 430 and his bench press has soared to 295 pounds from 205.

Despite tipping the scales at almost 300 pounds, Egunjobi appears to carry no excess weight. With a powerfully built lower body and a 7-6 wingspan, the Bisons coaching staff immediately slotted him in at left tackle.

“Yeah, he’s a giant human being,” says Karhut. “There’s no denying that. I mean, physically, if you made him on Madden (video game) that’s what he’d look like. He looks the part for sure, it’s just getting the playing ability there.”

And it’s there that Egunjobi and the Bisons have time. In a non-pandemic year, he would be far down the depth chart while the coaching staff prepared their team for the Canada West regular season. Conversely, a cancelled season will give him more than a calender year to absorb the nuances, language and tactics of the game.

“The (basketball) season just ended and I was basically ready to just jump at anything because I’m really into competitive sports in general and stuff that keeps me busy.”
– Dolapo Egunjobi

Early on, he’s been leaning on fellow O-linemen Matt Stokman and Mark Rauhaus for guidance.

“It seems like a miracle, to be honest,” says Egunjobi. “There’s a lot of time to just get better, to get accustomed to the game and learn as much as I possibly can. And it’s very exciting coming to every practice and doing something different every day.”

 

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14