When two-time Super Bowl champion Osi Umenyiora sent scouts to Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana on a quest to find the next wave of African talent for the NFL, knowing anything about football of the American kind was not a prerequisite for his recruits.
Umenyiora sought only to find the best young athletes in Africa and convince anyone who would listen, even momentarily, to drop soccer, basketball, rugby -- or whatever else they were busy with -- and give his beloved sport a shot.
Thankfully, the standard of the best players at his Uprise camps was high enough to convince the NFL to bring Umenyiora and 49 prospects to their own camp, held at Ghana's Right to Dream Academy on June 22 and 23, with a view to selecting the best for their International Player Pathway (IPP) programme.