Sam Orji is not the first American football prospect from Lagos in the NFL International Player Pathway Program (IPPP), but it was his talent that paved the way for New York Giants great Osi Umenyiora to actively recruit in the city.
Orji's training video was the first which Lagos-based independent coaching program Educational Basketball submitted to Umenyiora in 2021 to convince him that their players were worthy of attention.
Afterwards, Kenneth Odumegwu (Green Bay Packers), Jason Chukwuebuka Godrick (Kansas City Chiefs) and David Agoha (Las Vegas Raiders) were all allocated to NFL teams via the IPPP, having started at Educational Basketball.