The first day of practice for Bayside High School’s football Commodores came on a rainy Saturday afternoon. But this wasn’t a typical summer thunderstorm; it didn’t pass through quickly and it wasn’t followed by rainbows and sunshine.
Instead, this was a driving rain – the kind that comes in sideways and stings your face while puddles accumulate at your feet. And it was in this weather that right guard Tyrell Okoro took three buses to practice.
The MTA recently discontinued the Q31 bus on weekends, forcing Okoro and other Commodores to make multiple stops on the way to Bayside’s athletic field on the south side of the Clearview Expressway.
“It’s a sacrifice, but I’m used to it by now,” said the 6’5”, 285 lb. Okoro. “I sacrificed my entire summer training for this season and for college. I went to camps and did weight training on my own and with coaches.”
Okoro, 16, graduates from Bayside this year and is already being courted by numerous area colleges. He’s not leaning one way or the other in terms of which college he’ll attend come next fall, but he knows that no matter where he ends up, the expectations will follow him.
The football star scored a 1700 on his SATs – an impressive grade by any standards – but he knows that college can be entirely different when it comes to the level of work and performance needed to make the grade.
“Colleges require good grades in order to play,” he said. “I expect to do well, but I’ll look to the coaching staff and teachers in order to help keep my grades up.”
Living with his mother in South Jamaica, the big man also isn’t too big to lean on his parents for support and the push to succeed.
“My mom is always on top of me to get my work done,” he said. “She always reminds me that even if I have football, I still need my education.”
Okoro plans for sports to follow him into the classroom once he enrolls in college. He wants to major in communications and possibly minor in sports management; it’s the next step toward running an entire athletic program, something he’s always wanted to do.
Coach Jason Levitt has watched Okoro mature and knows that he has the potential to go far on the field and beyond. Levitt saw fit to make Okoro the captain of the team last season – a title that he’ll have to earn again this year.
“He’s very dedicated to the game,” said Levitt, who’s coached the Commodores since 2007. “He was the captain last year, but he has to earn it again. If he comes everyday and works hard, he just might.”
The coach believes that Okoro understands what is expected of him come game day on Saturday, September 11. Levitt said that if Okoro wants to be captain on that day, he has to remember the goals lay out before him.
“There are three types of goals: individual, group and team,” said Levitt. “Team goals come first and our goal is to win a championship.”
Being captain is an honor that Okoro took pride in last year and it’s something that he wants again. He knows about the responsibilities and wants to be the team’s “go-to guy” and the one that all the others look to for leadership.
“I’ve got the fire in my mind and in my eyes,” he said. “Being the captain is one of the small goals that I want to accomplish on the way to one large goal.”
And that large goal, for Okoro, is to win a championship with Bayside. It is why he takes three buses to practice and pushes himself to the brink of exhaustion – be that in soaking rains or any other weather.
“[A championship] is the ultimate goal. Nothing less than a championship will satisfy me,” he said. “In order to achieve that, I think of what I have to do, and I do it to perfection. I’m aggressive on the field and I’m always better than the person in front of me.”
Whether he pummels the guy in front of him or misses a block, Okoro won’t let success or failure dictate how he handles the next play or the next stage in life.
“Football is a game where you need to have amnesia,” he said. “Forget about what happened and move on to the next play.”
