Small Colleges / Alan Drooz : Okoye Gets Chance in Senior Bowl

Christian Okoye’s chance to show he can play with the big boys will come Jan. 17 when he will be one of eight running backs competing in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala.

Okoye, the Azusa Pacific fifth-year senior who led all collegiate runners this season with a 186 yards-per-game average, was selected on the recommendation of National Football League scouts, who are intrigued by the Nigerian’s physical skills but are leery of Okoye’s inexperience and lack of testing against big-time athletes.

The Senior Bowl is funded, administered and coached by NFL personnel. Players will be evaluated by as many as 400 scouts.

Okoye, whose physical gifts are obvious--he’s 6-foot-3 and 255 pounds, runs 40 yards in 4.4, squats 700 pounds and is an African champion in hammer and discus events--has been scouted by every NFL team. But scouts are aware that less than three years ago he had never played in a football game, and what he accomplished was done against overmatched NAIA opponents.

“He makes their draft difficult,” Azusa Pacific Coach Jim Milhon said. “He’s a 25-year-old running back who has played at the NAIA level. I’m sure one of the reasons he was selected was that NFL scouts wanted to see him. This is an opportunity for him to play against people on the Division I level. His selection shows somebody thinks he can.”

Okoye’s ascension from NAIA to NFL would not be unprecedented. Defensive end Mark Gastineau of the New York Jets made the same jump after representing Northeast Oklahoma in the Senior Bowl.

Azusa Pacific sports publicist Gary Pine said Senior Bowl officials he contacted “were quite happy to have him. If he does well it’s a real feather in their cap as far as (finding) good personnel.”

Okoye, who originally attended Azusa Pacific on a track scholarship and took up football on a lark, said he will approach the game as a mission to prove he can compete. “For sure, by not having very much experience, people would like to know what I’ve got,” he said. “I feel I can do it. I’m really excited to go.”

Annie Kniss of UC Riverside was named Division II volleyball player of the year for leading the Highlanders to the national title, and school officials say she should receive consideration for a purple heart for her performance in the NCAA tournament finals. Kniss, a senior, severely sprained her ankle in the semifinals against North Dakota State and was on crutches before the championship game the next day. But she started and led both teams with 14 digs and 29 assists in a three-game sweep of rival Cal State Northridge to lead Riverside to its second title in five years.

The next day she was back on crutches. Doctors had given her the OK to play if she felt able.

Football Coach John Zinda of Claremont-Mudd, who led the Stags to an 8-1 record and the SCIAC championship, wasn’t in the country to hear he had been named one of five regional coaches of the year by the American Football Coaches Assn.

The 18-year veteran was in Japan attending that country’s national college football championship. Zinda, who is also athletic director at Claremont-Mudd and took a sabbatical in 1982 to serve on John Robinson’s USC staff, is a visiting professor of football in Japan and has conducted clinics for Japanese football coaches.

Small College Notes Paul Wekesa of Chapman and Edna Olivarez of Cal State Los Angeles, the West Coast representatives in the Rolex Small College Tennis Championships, each won matches but failed to win titles in Sanibel, Fla. Wekesa won two matches but lost to Mauricio Achondo of Cal State Hayward in the finals. Olivarez won her opener but suffered leg cramps and a bruised knee in losing to Berit Bjork of Arkansas Little Rock in the next round.