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Daring to Dream

By USC Athletics Black History Month

March 1^st, 2016

by Sarah Bergstrom

If I told you the story of Oluwole Betiku, you wouldn’t believe me.

To be fair, the freshman defensive lineman doesn’t completely believe it either.

“Sometimes I look at myself and I feel like I’m dreaming,” Betiku said shaking his head. “Like I need to pinch myself. I still think I’m going to wake up one of these days and find myself back in Nigeria. And I’ll just think, ‘Man, what an amazing dream.’”

But what now feels like a dream didn’t start that way. To appreciate the entirety of Betiku’s story - all 7,705 miles of transformation from a soccer-playing boy in western Nigeria to a 5-star student-athlete at USC - you must start at page one.

Born and raised in Lagos, the nation’s largest state, Betiku has a difficult time painting a picture of his childhood for anyone he meets in America. As far as finances go, his family was “average”. But in a third world country, middle class means something much different than it does in the United States, considering 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, only 60 percent of the population is defined as literate and Nigeria’s HIV/AIDS death rate is the highest in the world*.

The youngest of three kids, Betiku spent his childhood in the same place as nearly all of his peers: outside. With unreliable and often non-existent electricity, the boy who was always bigger than everyone else his age took to sports quickly as a means of entertainment. His parents worked hard from early in the morning until late at night – his father a mechanic, his mother a teacher – so Betiku had endless hours to roam free.

In Nigeria, however, sports are hardly viewed as a viable option for success. With little to no training or instruction, and very few organized outlets, kids rarely dedicate the time to sports that their American counterparts do. But Betiku loved them, and while friends and neighbors questioned why he poured so much into something that would likely never pan out, he kept working. When his family’s financial situation worsened, he began to look at sports as his way out.

“Things were getting tough at home,” explained Betiku. “It got to a point where my mom lost her job and we had to move to a different area. We had to change schools and I didn’t like the one I had to go to. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to find a better life for myself.”

An opportunity, albeit a small one, arrived in the form of a massive basketball camp annually hosted by Nigerian basketball player Ejike Ugboaja. Held 11 hours from Betiku’s hometown, the camp included over 500 boys hoping to impress the visiting coaches enough to earn scholarships or find placement with host families in America. According to Betiku, each year around 50-70 kids are fortunate enough to secure that chance.

“It’s like the NFL Draft,” Betiku laughed.

Upon hearing about the camp, the 15-year-old knew he had to go. So he and two friends boarded a bus for the half-day’s journey, intent on being three of the select few to get a shot at a better life. They weren’t alone.

“I remember the hotel room,” Betiku laughed. “We all stayed in one room. There were like 10 or 11 of us in there with people sleeping all over the floor. You’d get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and couldn’t make it without stepping on someone.”

On the morning of the first day, the eager boys gathered before the staff. By chance, several football coaches were in attendance that year, and in what would be a defining moment in Betiku’s life, announced to the group that they had a choice.

“They said, ‘If you want to play football, come to this side,’” remembered Betiku. “I had to make a decision right there.”

He quickly made several observations. For one, he wasn’t that tall. He was large for his age in muscle mass and size, but could not compete with the 6-foot-9 NBA hopefuls in attendance in height or talent. Plus, nearly 400 kids stepped to that side of the line, pitting the odds even further against him. Only around 150 of the group chose football, and while he had never played the sport (Madden, the video game, was as close as he’d come), he felt he had a better shot.

As the group moved toward the dusty field where they would play padless football over the next seven days, they were told only five or six of them would get the chance to go to America. It was much harder to pick up the new game, they explained, and it was more difficult to find opportunities for them to play.

Over the next week, Betiku worked harder than he’d ever worked in his life. From sun up to sun down, they ran. With few water breaks and only one goal on their minds, the eager boys soaked in as much as possible from their coaches, learning formations and positions and completing whatever tasks were assigned to them.

“The workouts were so bad I couldn’t even sit down to use the restroom, but you don’t want to give up. In Nigeria, anything goes. We’re just trying to make it out,” Betiku explained. “If they tell you to put your head in the fire to make it out, you’re going to put your head in the fire to make it out. At that point, I didn’t care what they asked me to do. I just wanted to make a better life for myself and my family.”

After the first day, he wanted to quit. But when he called his mom, his voice of reason, she told him to have faith. Day by day things came just a little bit easier to the developing defensive lineman and by the end of the week, he’d secured an invaluable promise. One of the coaches took down his phone number and promised he would find a host family for him in America. Betiku was officially a football player.

Several months later, in the late fall of 2013, the Betiku family received a phone call. A host family had been found in Maryland for their youngest son and they could receive him immediately. So at 16, he obtained his visa, thanked his aunt for his international flight, and boarded a plane for the first time.

“I was scared,” he said of his first flight. “I thought I was going to die. I kept thinking I should have just stayed in Nigeria.”

Having left everything he knew behind, Betiku arrived in the Washington D.C. area to find that the climate would be his first adjustment. He had never been this cold before in his life, but he found a warm home under the roof of former NFL linebacker Lavar Arrington and his family. Much too late to join the football team that fall, the sophomore spent the first six months in America learning about a new culture, new school and still very new sport.

In 2014, less than a year after he had arrived, he moved again, turning the page on his time in Maryland and heading to Los Angeles after Arrington accepted a job at the NFL Network. Already an expert in adapting, Betiku embraced the change as best as he could, enrolling at Serra High, a school renowned for producing top athletes.

At Serra, Betiku was introduced to the defensive line right away. Despite studying the game on his own, the junior was still miles behind his teammates who had learned at the youth level how to read blocks, understand schemes and make plays. Far from home and continually frustrated by his progress, a familiar voice encouraged him along the way.

“It was just hard. The first two or three games, I was always looking for the play and the play never came,” remembered Betiku. “After my fourth game, it got to a point where I was going to quit. But I talked to my mom and she told me, ‘You’ve come this far, you can’t quit now.’”

Slowly, he did learn. From Arrington, from his coaches and from anything he could get his hands on.

“I kept my TV on the NFL Network from morning to night, just watching replays, watching anything,” Betiku said.

His remarkable combination of size and athleticism coupled with an insatiable work ethic afforded him a stunning football transformation from frustrated newcomer to one of the sport’s top recruits.

As Betiku developed, it became increasingly apparent that football was becoming more than just his way out. It was now his way up, a realization that grew bigger with every recruiting letter crammed into his mailbox. Overwhelmed with a decision that even just two years prior he never thought he’d have the opportunity to make, Betiku first committed to UCLA. As the weeks went by in his final season, the senior realized he had to make the decision that felt right for him.

“I had to do what was going to make me happy,” he explained. “I came a long way and I had to do what was best for me. After thinking over all these schools, looking at their history – who does it better than USC? No one. If I’m coming from Nigeria to be the best, I need to go to the best school that’s going to equip me with those tools.”

Betiku enrolled early at USC, starting classes as a freshman in January 2016. His primary goal is to earn his degree. Once he does, he is confident that he’ll be secure for the rest of his life.

While Betiku is soaking up the energy of a vibrant college campus, he has a hard time communicating what he sees back to his family. It’s been more than two years since he’s seen his parents, and while he aims to talk to them twice a week, he’s had to be creative with how he makes his Hollywood experience come to life in the third world.

Recently, the freshman sent his parents a custom “How-To” manual on USC football – including a historical look at the program, a team roster and more. A brief look at the roster gave Betiku’s father something he could understand, as Nigerian names like Olajuwon, Chuma Edoga and Imatorbhebhe leapt off the page. Just like that, father and son could share a common bond despite the foreign language of football that the elder Betiku’s are trying their hardest to learn.

“My dad is really happy about it. He told me he read every page in the book,” laughed Betiku. “Now we have something to talk about in my life here. He wants to learn about it.”

As for his own connections, Betiku is comforted in the small pieces of home he’s found at his new school, including his new position coach, Kenechi Udeze, who shares the same Nigerian heritage.

“To have people who understand my culture, even if they didn’t grow up there, I think it’s awesome.”

While the first 18 years of Betiku’s life contain enough drama and adventure to fill the pages of an entire book, his story is still just getting started. As he looks ahead, he is certain that he wants to bring his family to America, get drafted in the first round, play football for as long as his body will allow, and one day, win the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. For now, the defensive lineman is looking forward to making the leap into college football in what promises to be an equally challenging and exciting new chapter this fall.

“I know it’s not going to be easy,” Betiku said. “I look around and see guys who are bigger than me and stronger than me, but it’s just another thing to adjust to. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ and I have four years to get myself ready for what’s next. I want to build a good foundation now so that one day I can build a really big skyscraper on top.”

When he calls home, his sister tells him he’s become a big deal in his hometown. In church, at the school he went to and on the streets, kids tell his journey as legend, using Oluwole as a reason they can chase their dreams. The freshman loves that his story, while still being written, is helping to encourage the next generation of Nigerian kids. In their eyes, if Wole can make it, so can they.

*Statistics via CIA World Factbook

Footnotes

USC Athletics thanks the USC Black Alumni Association (usc.edu/baa) for its support.

Button Label

FootNotes

USC Athletics thanks the USC Black Alumni Association (usc.edu/baa) for its support.

Family Legacy

Daring to Dream

FootNotes

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