{"id":3572,"date":"2024-08-23T00:16:52","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T00:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/louis-rees-zammit-kansas-city-chiefs-players-inspiring-phone-call-and-a-chance-furniture-shop-meeting-the-uks-nfl-hopefuls\/"},"modified":"2024-08-23T00:16:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T00:16:52","slug":"louis-rees-zammit-kansas-city-chiefs-players-inspiring-phone-call-and-a-chance-furniture-shop-meeting-the-uks-nfl-hopefuls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/louis-rees-zammit-kansas-city-chiefs-players-inspiring-phone-call-and-a-chance-furniture-shop-meeting-the-uks-nfl-hopefuls\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Rees-Zammit: Kansas City Chiefs player’s inspiring phone call and a chance furniture shop meeting – the UK’s NFL hopefuls"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Most aspiring athletes begin their journeys on the pitch, track, field, court or in the pool, depending on their sport – but for one young Londoner it began with a chance meeting.<\/b><\/p>\n

“I was in a furniture shop in Orpington, south London, and the defensive line coach at the time approached me,” said Nana Agyemang.<\/p>\n

“He liked my frame and thought I had potential to play the sport.” <\/p>\n

The sport in question was American football, something Agyemang had never even played before.<\/p>\n

The coach was from the NFL Academy,<\/a> based in Loughborough, which scouts talent from all over Europe and Africa with a view to producing a generation of NFL stars from outside North America.<\/p>\n

“At the time I was too young to apply for the academy, so he gave my mum his card and when I was 16 I came to the academy, applied to the trials, and then got in through that,” he said.<\/p>\n

Now 18, Agyemang is in his final year with the academy and has established himself as a defensive lineman.<\/p>\n

He has grown to a height of 6ft 4in and gone from weighing 13st 3lb (185lb, 84kg) to 16st 11lb (235lb, 107kg) – and he hopes to increase that to 17st 11lb-18st 5lb (250-260lb, 113-117kg).<\/p>\n

If all goes to plan, the next step on his journey will be securing a place at a college or university in the United States next year.<\/p>\n

After that, the best players become eligible for a spot in the NFL draft and a chance to join one of the biggest franchises in the country.<\/p>\n

“Football’s football, as long as I’m still playing I’m still chasing the dream,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most aspiring athletes begin their journeys on the pitch, track, field, court or in the pool, depending on their sport – but for one young Londoner it began with a chance meeting. “I was in a furniture shop in Orpington, south London, and the defensive line coach at the time approached me,” said Nana Agyemang. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3574,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions\/3574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}