Arden Zwelling
CFL.ca
He didn’t even realize it at the time, but Chima Ihekwoaba made one of the biggest steps you can make in professional football this year.
In November he was playing for the Laurier Golden Hawks, taking on the Western Mustangs in the OUA semifinals. A mere five months later, he was in Michigan, playing with the NFL’s Detroit Lions.
“You know what — honestly I didn’t realize it until I left [Detroit],” Ihekwoaba said of his jump from the Canadian amateur ranks to the biggest professional football league in the world.
“I just thought of it as football and that’s what I’m out here to do — play football. I wasn’t really looking at the numbers or the names on the backs of the jerseys.”
Ihekwoaba spent the better part of six months training with the Lions, immersed in the life of an everyday NFLer.
He was running through drills on the practice field two times a day, watching film and participating in team activities in between training sessions and spending his nights studying countless pages of notes and playbooks.
Ihekwoaba literally became a student of the game — diving head first into football to an extent that he had never experienced at Laurier.
“Everywhere I went, I had a pencil, paper and a highlighter. I was always taking notes, just trying to absorb everything that I could,” Ihekwoaba said. “Football now is almost broken down to a science for me.”
Of course, practicing everyday with NFL players didn’t hurt his physical abilities either. And getting into the Lions’ preseason games — “playing packed stadiums was insane” — gave Ihekwoaba the kind of experience that few other football players fresh out of the CIS can even dream of.
Ihekwoaba would have loved to crack an NFL roster like former Concordia linebacker Cory Greenwood did with the Kansas City Chiefs, but the odds were always stacked against him.
The Lions added just two rookie defensive linemen to their roster this year — Willie Young, a standout from the NCAA’s North Carolina State, and Ndamukong Suh, who they selected with the second overall pick of the 2010 NFL Draft.
That’s why it didn’t come as a huge surprise when Ihekwoaba got the dreaded call into the coach’s office on the final day of training camp to be told he was being let go.
“It was tough. That’s obviously the last thing you want to hear,” Ihekwoaba said. “Especially after making it so deep into camp. […] It’s something that, as a professional, is part of the game. It’s part of the job.”
But — as if often the case in professional football — one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
The Montreal Alouettes, who drafted Ihekwoaba in the second round, 14th overall, of the 2010 CFL Entry Draft were suddenly the beneficiaries of a talented, experienced and, maybe most importantly, well rested defensive lineman.
“These guys are midway through the season so there are a lot of nicks and bumps and bruises and stuff like that,” Ihekwoaba said. “Hopefully I can be a fresh body with fresh legs on the field. Hopefully it’s contagious.”
Of course, Ihekwoaba will still have a steep hill to climb with the Alouettes. He’s coming into a team that is already halfway through their season and has a host of new systems and playbooks to learn.
Perhaps even more crucial is that he has missed out on the chemistry and cohesiveness that a team builds from spending three months in close confinement on the practice field, in team meetings and on the bus during road trips.
Coming into the team halfway through the year presents a unique challenge.
“It’s a little bit of an adjustment, definitely. But it’s all part of the game,” Ihekwoaba said of joining the Alouettes mid-season. “It’s a transition, just like anything. Being a professional athlete, that’s something you have to be prepared for. You just kind of take it in stride. It’s like your first day of work all over again.”
Work, it seems, is all Ihekwoaba knows how to do.
He worked his way deep into the Lions training camp against all odds, being a Canadian and picking up the game later in life than most of his American competition.
In Detroit —much like in Montreal with the Alouettes — everyone is big. Everyone is fast. Everyone has moves.
No longer could Ihekwoaba rely on his unique combination of size — he tends to stand out at 6-foot-5, 255 lbs — and speed to separate him from the pack like he did at the CFL’s Evaluation Camp in March where his shuttle run of 4.24 seconds was better than most defensive backs and receivers.
“It’s paying attention to detail. That’s what separates people in the pros,” Ihekwoaba said. “You can’t rely on your talent all the time. You have to use your head. You have to be thinking. It’s all the little intricacies. That’s something that I can bring [to Montreal.]”
He also worked his tail off at Laurier where he played his CIS football, so much so that he was ranked as high as seventh on the CFL Scouting Bureau’s top 15 prospects list in September 2009.
Ihekwoaba helped the Golden Hawks to a 25-7 record over his four seasons at Laurier, racking up 37 tackles and four sacks. He was part of a solid 2009 Golden Hawks defence that also included Calgary Stampeders rookie Taurean Allen and defensive back Courtney Stephen who left for the NCAA’s Northern Illinois University in the offseason.
Laurier has clearly missed that group. This year, without the trio anchoring the defence, the Golden Hawks are 2-2 and allowed a whopping 46 points in their season opener against Western.
“Some of my best friends are still on that team. The program is really family oriented. That’s what drives football there,” Ihekwoaba said of the Golden Hawks.
And what of his former team’s struggles early in the 2010 CIS season?
“Hey, it’s still September — don’t forget that. We’re the Golden Hawks — we’re coming.”
