Amobi and Chace: Football friendship is strong medicine
December 28th, 2006
By Kevin Hyde
Chace Recktenwald and his friend Amobi Okoye.
Chace Recktenwald was having a tough time.
It was September 2005 and, just four days earlier, the Louisville 6-year-old had undergone surgery at Kosair Children’s Hospital to correct an abnormality of his brain stem known as Chiari Malformation. The operation was a success, but Chace was struggling with pain and the general gloominess of a long hospital stay.
That was about to change.
His father, Mike Recktenwald, had met University of Louisville defensive end Amobi Okoye the previous summer. He and his wife, Shannon, thought a visit from the football star might lift their son’s spirits—Chace being a huge fan of all things UofL.
“I couldn’t finish asking [Okoye] before he cut me off and said it would be his pleasure to come see him,” Recktenwald said.
Okoye not only showed up at the hospital, but he brought along Travis Leffew and Chad Rimpsey, both seniors on last year’s team.
“The look of excitement on my son’s face was indescribable,” Recktenwald recalled. “He was not feeling well that day, but all of a sudden he was up in his bed with a never-ending smile.”
A similar smile creeps across the face of Okoye when you mention Chace more than a year later. The two have since become buddies.
“He calls me before our games and wishes me good luck,” said the senior who will cap off his Cardinal football career on Jan. 2 in the FedEx Orange Bowl. “He tells me to get lots of sacks and tackles • and to score a touchdown for him.”
This past fall, Okoye got a chance to switch roles with his young friend when he went to see Chace play for his second-grade flag football team. And shortly before Christmas, the two went toe-to-toe in the Play Station 2 football video game “Madden ’07.” Chace apparently whipped Okoye 13–3.
“Amobi always seems to pull through,” said Kelley Hughes, Chace’s aunt. “Whether it’s coming to see him while he was in Kosair or taking time on a Sunday to see Chace’s football team at Mother of Good Counsel, Amobi continues to be such a wonderful support to Chace and his recovery.
“What athlete before and after a game answers the phone to talk to an 8-year-old?”
Since the day Okoye first set his two large feet on the UofL campus, he has been no ordinary athlete. The strong and surprisingly quick lineman was only 15 when he signed with the Cardinals.
Just three years earlier his family had immigrated to Huntsville, Ala., from Nigeria. Okoye wanted to go to school with his older siblings, so he tested into the ninth grade of Lee High School as a 12-year-old. One year later he took up football, knowing next to nothing about the game.
You could say he took to it pretty well.
That season, just 13-years-old, he started 13 games on the defensive line. He played both defense and offense as a junior, earning honorable mention All-State honors. In his senior year, he racked up 60 tackles and nine sacks and earned first-team All-State honors on both sides of the ball.
That remarkable improvement continued at UofL. Since bursting onto the scene as the youngest player in NCAA football at 16, Okoye has gotten better each season, developing into a potent run-stopper and a top NFL prospect.
Okoye recently was named a second team All-American by the Associated Press for his play this season in which he recorded 49 tackles and six sacks. He is a first team All-Big East selection.
But his success on the football field has not diminished Okoye’s devotion to young people. He’s still just a 19-year-old himself, and he’s got a particularly close bond with his 6-year-old sister, Chinwe Okoye.
“She’s my world,” he said.
When he first came to UofL, Okoye majored in biology because he wanted to become a pediatrician. But the demands of football made a pre-med education too strenuous. He graduated in December, one semester early of course, with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He’s now interested in pharmaceutical sales.
But that will have to wait.
Pro football is in his immediate future. And in his even more immediate future is the Cardinal’s Orange Bowl showdown against Wake Forest on Tuesday.
Chace will be there. And he’ll probably give his buddy Amobi a quick call before the game—just wishing him good luck and “LOTS of sacks!”
