Oller: Former Ohio State sprinter Praise Olatoke attempting unorthodox entry into NFL
If you can fly, the NFL will find you.
At his fastest, Praise Olatoke’s feet do not touch the ground. Look closely at a freeze frame of the 23-year-old in mid-stride and at just the right moment there is air between shoe and earth. The Nigerian-born, Scotland-bred former Ohio State sprinter has run the 40-yard dash in 4.36 seconds, which clocks in at about 18.5 mph.
Drive into a telephone pole at that speed and the car crash calculator reads: “This collision may cause severe injury or death.”
Run into an NFL linebacker at that speed and “This collision may not even make a highlight reel.” Olatoke has yet to take such a hit. But fingers crossed he will.
A participant in the NFL’s International Player Pathway (IPP) program, which allows all 32 NFL teams to create an extra roster spot for one elite international athlete, Olatoke has a decent chance of signing as a free agent with any team looking for a speedy wide receiver who can play on special teams. After training the past 10 weeks at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, he hopes to soon begin hearing from interested general managers.
The NFL found him. Or, maybe, he found the NFL.
Praise Olatoke sprints across 3 continents
Lagos, Nigeria, has 16.4 million people. Twenty years ago, Olatoke was one of them, before his mother moved him and his younger brother to Glasgow, Scotland, where his father worked.
In both Nigeria and Scotland, the sport of choice is soccer, or as it is known most everywhere in the world – football/futbol. American football was something different altogether, a violent sport played by guys named Mahomes, Bosa and Garrett.
Yet for whatever reason, Olatoke was drawn to helmets and shoulder pads. Even as his track career took off, the NFL took up residence inside his head as something that looked cool to try.
“There was this really big pull on me, from high school on,” Olatoke said. "I thought it looked sick, catching touchdowns and the crowd going crazy. At age 15 I told myself I’m going to play American football. I’m going to put myself in position to do it.”
Quite the ambitious plan, considering Olatoke knew next to nothing about football, having never played it. Rugby was his high school sport, so he knew he could take a beating, but football appeared more complicated. Slant routes? Dig routes? Illegal procedure? Offsides? Compared to that, rugby was basic and track and field was a breeze; run as fast as you can and keep veering left.
Track turned into Olatoke’s meal ticket to a college scholarship. A friend suggested he enroll at Trinity Western University in British Columbia, and he spent two years winning races across Canada, all the while keeping an eye on football.
Ohio State became interested in the 6-foot-2, 200-pound sprinter in the summer of 2019, when he returned to the UK and qualified for the under-20 European Championships. Olatoke visited Columbus, loved OSU and opted to follow in the footsteps of Jesse Owens, even if another Owens, Terrell, was more in line with his career aspirations.
“I already had football on my radar, and Ohio State being about football, just by proximity I thought I might get a chance to play,” he said.
And play he did, though not for the Buckeyes.
Praise Olatoke's football start was better late than never
James Grega liked what he saw. How could he not? As coach of the Ohio State Football Club – full-contact, 11-on-11 football played by OSU students – Grega saw Olatoke run and immediately knew he had a dangerous, if inexperienced, offensive weapon at his disposal.
“You see the athlete this kid is and say, ‘Yeah, that could be an NFL receiver,’ ” said Grega, whose teams won national club championships in 2019 and 2021. “It was, ‘OK, I have to have him on the field’, if nothing else as a decoy.”
Olatoke exhausted his collegiate track and field eligibility in the spring of 2021 – he competed only one full indoor-outdoor season for the Buckeyes after tearing an Achilles tendon in 2020 – and joined Grega’s club team that summer. The extent of his football experience amounted to “chucking a football about” on the turf fields outside Ohio Stadium.
“I knew nothing,” he said. “I was given a playbook, so to learn the (wide receiver) position I would speak into a voice recorder, then put on headphones and walk around trying to listen and learn. But you really need to start to understand by doing it.”
NFL history is dotted with world-class track and field sprinters and hurdlers who traded their spikes for cleats, including Bob Hayes, Willie Gault and Renaldo Nehemiah, but all played football in college or high school. They understood the rules and terminology. Olatoke was a total newbie when he joined the OSU club team.
“He had been in the weight program as an Ohio State sprinter, so it was just a matter of teaching him the game,” Grega said. "It was completely foreign to him. But you saw him run around on air, and the footwork was there.”
Grega wishes he would have had more time with Olatoke to get him up to speed, because “if we had had him in spring ball he could have been one of the best receivers in the country.”
Instead, Olatoke graduated with a sports business degree in December 2022 and went to work as operations manager at Esporta Fitness Gym at Polaris. He briefly considered trying to make Ryan Day’s varsity squad as a walk-on, but that would have meant enrolling in graduate school, and he wanted to pursue other opportunities.
For Olatoke, life is about enjoying different experiences. Even if he signs with an NFL team, there are more mountains to climb.
“One of the main reasons I want to write this chapter (in the NFL) is I want the book of my life to be filled with as many adventures and stories as possible,” he said. “This won’t be the capstone of my life. Just one chapter. I want to buy a business, grow it and sell it. I want to work with young kids, maybe coach or teach them. I want to travel. I want to experience as much as I can.”
First things first. The NFL is calling. Or might be calling, depending how much a team values Olatoke’s ability to make an impact. He feels fortunate, knowing he faced long odds making it this far already. But he also had a feeling things would work out.
“My whole life I feel I’ve gotten a little favor,” he said. “Things eventually swing my way.”
They definitely did with this NFL opportunity.
NFL connections always help
After completing the OSU club team season in 2022, Olatoke began watching YouTube videos of previous IPP participants, 18 of whom have made NFL rosters since the program began in 2017. He reached out to “every Brit and Nigerian who had been through the program” and also emailed the NFL Academy, a program for UK athletes aged 16-19 that combines education with training in American football.
It’s who you know, right? The NFL Academy sent Olatoke’s information to the IPP, and the gears began turning with help from a personal connection with a scout inside the program.
In August, Olatoke received a call from the scout to fly to England to try out for the program. A month later, he learned he made the cut. It was goodbye Columbus, hello training in Florida, where for 10 weeks the NFL housed and fed the 10 enrolled position players and five kickers.
“Most, if not everyone, had never played football,” he said. “Australians, Brits, Nigerians, Europeans all training together to make an NFL team.”
The experience cemented Olatoke’s love for the game, and for those who play it.
“I know way more than I did before, and that makes me enjoy it more and hungrier to play it,” he said, explaining that former NFL coaches and players served as program instructors. “And I love the camaraderie, the brotherhood. Everybody is forged by fire when you play football. You have someone to lean on. Track is so individual.”
OK, but what about the hitting? Just because a human rocket clocks a 4.36 time in the 40, as Olatoke did at the IPP pro day March 20 in Florida, doesn't mean he can play football. Crashing into a linebacker on a crossing route requires a different mental makeup.
“Actually, I think the hitting is easier in football than (rugby),” he said. “I got hit a couple times on the club team but never that bad.”
It’s hard to hit what you can’t touch.
“You just have to believe,” Olatoke said of making it onto an NFL roster or practice squad. “I’ve already got this far. Why not believe some more? You have to want it more than anyone else, and be willing to put in more hours. Nobody can do it for you. I know I can do it.”
Here’s hoping he makes a believer out of us all.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State football club player Praise Olatoke aims for NFL career
