TWO NIGERIANS HELP CREATE AN NAIA TRACK AND FIELD POWERHOUSE : Azusa Pacific Tries to Import a Third Title

The men’s track and field program at Azusa Pacific University wasn’t exactly struggling before Nigerians Innocent Egbunike and Christian Okoye came along.

Then again, the Cougars weren’t exactly NAIA national powers, either.

Before their arrival, Azusa Pacific won its share of district titles but that’s about where the success stopped.

That started changing when Egbunike, a sprinter, enrolled in the fall of 1981. It changed some more when Okoye, a weightman, joined him the following year.

The Cougars have been a national power ever since. They finished second in the NAIA in 1982, then won national titles in 1983 and 1984.

What’s more, Azusa Pacific is among the leading contenders in this year’s national NAIA meet being held this weekend at Hillsdale College in Michigan.

Terry Franson, coach at Azusa Pacific the last five years, does not downplay the importance of the Nigerians.

“They’ve been absolutely vital to our team,” he said. “Last year alone (Egbunike and Okoye) scored 48 of our points (in the national meet) and that’s not to mention the value of Innocent in the relays.”

That’s pretty impressive, considering that the rest of the team scored 45 points. The previous year, Egbunike and Okoye combined for 44 of their team’s 94 points in the championship meet.

The numbers figure to be about the same this year.

How did the Nigerian athletes wind up at tiny Azusa Pacific, a Christian liberal arts school with only 1,450 students, in the first place?

“I was interested in coming to the U.S. to go to school (in 1981), so I applied to a lot of bigger schools like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Kansas,” said Egbunike, 23, a senior.

“I come from a Christian family and after I talked to my parents, they were concerned about me going to a school with a Christian background. So I talked to a local pastor (from Enugu, Nigeria) and he gave me the address of Azusa Pacific and I wrote them. I enrolled here in September of 1981.”

Egbunike said he had been homesick at first but he remedied that by having Franson recruit another sprinter from Enugu, Blackman Ihem, who arrived at Azusa Pacific in the spring of 1982. Ihem, now a senior, runs on Azusa Pacific’s 400-meter relay team.

When Azusa Pacific’s top weight thrower, Doug Barnett, graduated after the 1982 season, Egbunike suggested that Franson recruit Okoye, another friend from Enugu who was just starting to develop in the discus throw and shotput.

“Coach Franson liked me and told me to come over,” said Okoye, a 23-year-old junior. “I finally came here in September of 1982.”

Franson said Egbunike and Okoye were a little raw at first, because of poor training, but that they improved significantly after reaching Azusa Pacific.

Egbunike made a big impression on Franson in his first meet in the United States at Cal Poly Pomona in 1982. “He did a 10.2 (seconds) hand-timed in the 100 meters and I knew he was real good,” Franson said.

Egbunike, who won a bronze medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics as the anchor runner on Nigeria’s 1,600-meter relay team, has top times of 10.15 seconds in the 100, 20.74 in the 200 and 45.14 in the 400. He is ranked No. 4 in the United States in the 400 after winning his race in the Pepsi Invitational at UCLA last week and is two-time defending NAIA champion in the 100 and 200.

Okoye, 6-3 and 254 pounds, came to Azusa Pacific with a best of 191-0 in the discus and has been a bigger surprise to Franson.

“His development here has just been incredible,” Franson said. “He can squat (lift) close to 800 pounds, which is close to what some Olympic lifters can do, and he runs a 4.4-second 40 (yards).”

Okoye, defending NAIA champion in the discus and hammer, is listed at No. 5 in the United States in the discus this year with a top throw of 212-4 at the Mt. San Antonio Relays in April.

Azusa Pacific also has two outstanding decathletes, Dave Johnson and Doug Loisel, and another top hammer thrower, Phil Mann. Johnson, a senior, is ranked No. 3 in the United States with a best of 7,948 points.

All figure to score high this weekend, but Franson realizes that Egbunike and Okoye have made his team a powerhouse. “There’s no way we would have been national champions without them,” he said.

The presence of the Nigerians also explains how Azusa Pacific beat Stanford, an NCAA Division I school, and Cal State Bakersfield, an NCAA Division II power, in dual meets earlier this season.

“I don’t think Stanford was real happy about the fact that we beat them,” Franson said. “I don’t think we’ll be invited back next year.

“But we have those kind of athletes who could score well in the NCAA Division I meet. I think we could score 20 or 30 points in that meet and we might finish in the top 10.”