Hardship, hustle and a “lion’s heart”: Benson Jerry’s remarkable journey from Nigeria to the NFL Academy

“The day I became a man was the day I lost my dad,” Benson Jerry says candidly of the moment he learned his father had passed away.

Speaking to Olympics.com, from an empty classroom on a rainy autumnal day at the NFL Academy in Loughborough College in the United Kingdom, the affable Nigerian barely skips a beat as he recounts the day his life changed forever.

High on the energy of a dance rehearsal, Jerry was returning home to the compound when he noticed strange looks from people in the community. As he arrived home, he learned his father had been rushed to a hospital.

“I heard a shout from outside. Then I knew something was wrong,” he continues, remembering clearly his mother’s words as a call came confirming the news. “My dad, she said, my dad is gone: he has left us.”

Just 11 years old, Jerry found himself lost in a scene of grief and confusion: “I didn’t cry, but I was so sad."

Hours before, he had seen his father sick and lying on a couch. Are you fine? He had asked him, as he naively ate a meal given to his father that he had not touched.

Seeing him struggle, his two older brothers came to his side: “They're now telling me this is where the road to being a man starts from. This is where you have to be a man, now.”

Study by YouTube

The death of his father shook what had been a happy childhood.

Born and raised in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Jerry describes the world outside his family home as 'unruly and violent', with regular fighting and even killings as a result of cultism.

“You have choices to make,” he muses. “It depends on what you want in life. That’s just the mindset. But my parents trained us well.”

The discipline and positive values instilled in him by his upbringing would prove profoundly consequential as Jerry adjusted to his new set of circumstances. Now living with his brother, he had to shoulder responsibilities well beyond his years.

“When I lost my dad, I needed to hustle for myself because if I didn’t do it, nobody would be able to feed me,” he says plainly. "[My brother] said, 'You need to stand up and then do everything yourself because now that we've lost our dad, this is where the whole thing changes'."

Things then did indeed change.

In 2019, a school coach reached out to Jerry via text, encouraging him to take part in American football trials run by a talent scouting friend from the United States.

Jerry didn’t hesitate. With no idea what the sport was, but desperate not to let the opportunity go past, his bewilderment ballooned when he was handed a pair of cleats.

“Let me use the word ‘big shoe’,” he says, laughing, using his hands to scale out an enormous imaginary piece of footwear. “That’s how I saw it when I saw it for the first time.”

The trial ultimately didn’t lead to anything, but it did spark a curiosity in Jerry, who furiously turned to YouTube to begin studying more about this new sport.

He learned from his searches that there were multiple positions to play and certain drills and specific skills needed to be mastered.

Absorbing as much information as he could, he decided to try it all out, regularly hitting up an empty field outside his school. Taking out chairs, stones, and anything he could get a hold of, he built obstacles to run past. “There is a tree in Nigeria, where I’ve hit my head so many times,” he says, smiling fondly.

His makeshift setups and obvious passion soon caught the attention of passersby. And one day, while enacting a football move, someone came over to him, intrigued by what they saw.

They explained they were a cousin of then-Texas A&M offensive lineman Smart Chibuzo. The hungry teenager immediately seized his chance and began filming and sending videos of himself practising to Chibuzo, with the college player responding with advice.

“I was taking everything I watched to training. So, every day I started getting better, like one per cent daily, one per cent daily, one per cent daily.”

"I just had that belief"

A second serendipitous intervention by someone seeing Jerry hard at work led him to another gridiron discovery: the Abuja Mavericks flag football team.

Turning up eagerly after a long bus ride with his large cleats in hand, he was first tasked with running routes. “What are routes?” He asked, stumped.

Again, the aspiring Nigerian found himself thrown into the deep end, learning on the go. But his appetite for the two sports was now insatiable.

He continued his internet studies, this time focusing on Pittsburgh Steelers’ cornerback Jalen Ramsey for inspiration. To improve his tackle game, he joined the Green Giants and continued to adjust to life in pads and a helmet. The juking he was doing on the flag pitch was serving him well in the tackle game.

As he learned more about these two worlds, he continued filming himself but also began posting his efforts on social media, trying to gain attention.

His ingenuity eventually bore fruit when two-time Super Bowl champion Osi Umenyiora and the NFL's lead ambassador in Africa discovered one of his videos.

“He said, all these things I'm doing, like who's teaching me? I said nobody," Jerry recalls the conversation, "I just watch it, and then I put it into practice."

Quietly impressed by the teenager's work ethic, the former New York Giants pass rusher then asked him if he would teach others at a regional camp they would both be attending.

Having been invited twice before to the regional camps in Nigeria but never chosen to go beyond that, in 2023, Jerry's coaching was enough for Umeneyiora to select him for the NFL Africa programme in Nairobi, Kenya, where they would be staging a three-day NFL Combine-style event.

“That was the happiest day of my life. I knew I would be able to make it to Kenya, I just had that belief,” he says, leaving you with little doubt he means every word.

"You need to have a lion's heart to do what lions do”

“The Academy changed my life. They changed my life for good!” Jerry says, beaming when asked how the institution fits into his remarkable story.

An elite football performance program, the NFL Academy is a player pathway that takes in teenagers from across Europe, Africa and the Middle East and works to secure them football scholarships to US colleges.

For aspiring players like Jerry, it’s a golden ticket to the next stage of the journey that many hope might will end up at the NFL. More than that, it also provides athletes with an education and the opportunity to grow.

“How I see life is different now, Jerry says, painting a picture of life in the Academy with players from over 20 other countries. “Here, you're organised, you're disciplined. You know what you need to do. You need to do the right thing at the right time.”

For the Nigerian, all hopes are now focused on college football and persuading those around him of his talent and tenacity as he has done all his life.

Regardless of what might come next for the player, the trail he has blazed already will mean that whatever comes next, he is unlikely to be the last - and that is also something he is conscious of.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from,” he says, addressing those specifically who might see him on social media and be inspired by his journey. “The ‘who’ does not define you. The culture does not define you. You need to have a strong heart. You need a lion's heart.

“Every day I ask myself, so how can you make it a great day? How can you make it a great day? So, you wake up every day, you need to believe, believe that you can do it. You need to have a lion's heart to do what lions do.”

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