It was Okoye, a rookie last season, who rallied the group, believing it could do more good than the players individually. Others agreed.
We said, lets do this together and make a bigger splash, Ogunleye said in a phone interview.
In December, Okoyes older brother, Arinze, and a cousin, Okey Chidume (the three live together in the Houston area) began working on details of the trip. The fathers of Okoye and Ogunleye laid some groundwork with contacts in Nigeria and took part in the trip. So did Ogunleyes brother, Ranti.
The mission was called Athletes in the Diaspora: Community Interventions, and received plenty of news media attention in Nigeria. At the heart of their charity is the scholarship program, called Changing Africa Through Education. The contingent met with officials of the National Universities Commission, and plans to finance 20 scholarships at 10 Nigerian universities. The group hopes to increase the total yearly.
