Eastern Michigan Athletics
The Story of EMU Football's International Core
9/17/2018 3:39:00 PM | Football
Six Eagles from five different countries share their journies to Ypsilanti
Watch the Video.
YPSILANTI, Mich. (EMUEagles.com) — Six different players with six unique paths to find one common destination: Ypsilanti, Michigan and the Eastern Michigan University football team.
Eastern's 2018-19 roster includes six players from five international destinations: sophomore Jake Julien (Barrie, Ontario-North Collegiate) and freshman Sidy Sow (Bromont, Quebec-J-H Leclerc-Champlain Lennoxville) from Canada, senior Ville Valasti (Helsinki, Finland-Itakeskuksen Iukio-Diablo Valley College) from Finland, freshman Yannik Rohrschneider (Hilden, Germany-Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Gymnasium) from Germany, junior Thomas Odukoya (Almere, Netherlands-West Hills-Garden City C.C.) from the Netherlands, and junior Steve Nielsen (Dragoer, Denmark-La Lumiere (Ind.) School) from Denmark. These athletes bring Eastern's brand of football an international flare rarely seen in the NCAA-and their paths to the Eagles' has brought challenges as unique as their homelands.
In 2016, Sow and 40 teammates boarded a bus from Quebec, Canada and traveled around the US for two weeks, competing each day in football camps to gain the exposure needed to receive NCAA Division I offers.
"One day, I went to a Hawaii state camp, and Coach [Chris] Creighton was there," Sow noted. "He saw me, the way I practiced, and offered me right there. After that, the official recruiting process went on, and I got here [to Ypsilanti] as fast as I could. It was my dream since I was 16. All I wanted to do was play college football, and to know that I had an offer, that fully paid for school, was one of the best moments of my life."
Julien took a similar path, visiting the United States in high school to participate in Kohl's Football Kicking camp, and was quickly noticed by Assistant Coach Jay Nunez. Even with the great exposure he got from the camps, getting the call from Eastern Michigan football was surprise.
"It was pretty crazy," Julien recalled. I was planning on going to school in Canada, and just [participating in] college football there, and I got the call out of the blue, packed all my stuff, and came [to Ypsi]".
Sow and Julien discussed their recruiting journey as one of forging paths where ones had never been paved before. "It was pretty difficult to get my name out there", noted Julien. "No one has the answers, you just have to go out there and do it yourself. Going through it all, it's a lot of hard work and you have to just figure it out."
Both Valasti and Odukaya found their way to Eastern through play at the junior college level, as Valasti attended Diablo Valley College in California for a year on his way to Ypsilanti, and Odukaya spent a year as a member of the Garden City Community College football team.
"Pretty much after my first practice, I told my mom 'Hey, this is the coolest thing I've ever done,'" said Valasti. "I knew I wanted to do something big, so my goal became to go to the United States and play college football. It didn't have to be Division 1 football, I just wanted to experience the high quality of everything they were doing out here. It turned out to be the best case scenario, and I got to come out here and play Division I football at EMU."
Nielsen's dream of playing college football led him to leave his family as a 16-year old to attend boarding school in Indiana.
"It might have been a little bit easier for me [to make his way to Ypsi] since I was in America and playing football at the high school level", recalled Nielsen. But the sacrifice to leave his family behind at just 16 years old shows the true desires Nielsen had to play on the collegiate stage.
"I was on the national team back home, and I knew I wanted to play college football, so my best opportunity to do that was to move to America and go to high school here", Nielsen added. "[The transition] was hard at the beginning, but I was lucky enough to have a guy from my team back home come with me."
Rohrschneider path to become an Eagle came by way of recruiting emails, a tactic used by many American players. But as Rohrschneider notes, getting responses from a football coach are one in a thousand.
"I sent an email to a lot of colleges in America, and Coach Meadows was pretty much the only one to answer me back, and [offer] me [a chance] to come visit", Rohrschneider recounted.
After unique and difficult journeys, all six international players have found a bit of home in Ypsilanti, Michigan, as members of the Eastern Michigan football team. Learn a little bit more about Eastern's multinational core as they talk about adjusting to life in the United States, how they deal with homesickness, and their favorite things about EMU in the video above.
YPSILANTI, Mich. (EMUEagles.com) — Six different players with six unique paths to find one common destination: Ypsilanti, Michigan and the Eastern Michigan University football team.
Eastern's 2018-19 roster includes six players from five international destinations: sophomore Jake Julien (Barrie, Ontario-North Collegiate) and freshman Sidy Sow (Bromont, Quebec-J-H Leclerc-Champlain Lennoxville) from Canada, senior Ville Valasti (Helsinki, Finland-Itakeskuksen Iukio-Diablo Valley College) from Finland, freshman Yannik Rohrschneider (Hilden, Germany-Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Gymnasium) from Germany, junior Thomas Odukoya (Almere, Netherlands-West Hills-Garden City C.C.) from the Netherlands, and junior Steve Nielsen (Dragoer, Denmark-La Lumiere (Ind.) School) from Denmark. These athletes bring Eastern's brand of football an international flare rarely seen in the NCAA-and their paths to the Eagles' has brought challenges as unique as their homelands.
In 2016, Sow and 40 teammates boarded a bus from Quebec, Canada and traveled around the US for two weeks, competing each day in football camps to gain the exposure needed to receive NCAA Division I offers.
"One day, I went to a Hawaii state camp, and Coach [Chris] Creighton was there," Sow noted. "He saw me, the way I practiced, and offered me right there. After that, the official recruiting process went on, and I got here [to Ypsilanti] as fast as I could. It was my dream since I was 16. All I wanted to do was play college football, and to know that I had an offer, that fully paid for school, was one of the best moments of my life."
Julien took a similar path, visiting the United States in high school to participate in Kohl's Football Kicking camp, and was quickly noticed by Assistant Coach Jay Nunez. Even with the great exposure he got from the camps, getting the call from Eastern Michigan football was surprise.
"It was pretty crazy," Julien recalled. I was planning on going to school in Canada, and just [participating in] college football there, and I got the call out of the blue, packed all my stuff, and came [to Ypsi]".
Sow and Julien discussed their recruiting journey as one of forging paths where ones had never been paved before. "It was pretty difficult to get my name out there", noted Julien. "No one has the answers, you just have to go out there and do it yourself. Going through it all, it's a lot of hard work and you have to just figure it out."
Both Valasti and Odukaya found their way to Eastern through play at the junior college level, as Valasti attended Diablo Valley College in California for a year on his way to Ypsilanti, and Odukaya spent a year as a member of the Garden City Community College football team.
"Pretty much after my first practice, I told my mom 'Hey, this is the coolest thing I've ever done,'" said Valasti. "I knew I wanted to do something big, so my goal became to go to the United States and play college football. It didn't have to be Division 1 football, I just wanted to experience the high quality of everything they were doing out here. It turned out to be the best case scenario, and I got to come out here and play Division I football at EMU."
Nielsen's dream of playing college football led him to leave his family as a 16-year old to attend boarding school in Indiana.
"It might have been a little bit easier for me [to make his way to Ypsi] since I was in America and playing football at the high school level", recalled Nielsen. But the sacrifice to leave his family behind at just 16 years old shows the true desires Nielsen had to play on the collegiate stage.
"I was on the national team back home, and I knew I wanted to play college football, so my best opportunity to do that was to move to America and go to high school here", Nielsen added. "[The transition] was hard at the beginning, but I was lucky enough to have a guy from my team back home come with me."
Rohrschneider path to become an Eagle came by way of recruiting emails, a tactic used by many American players. But as Rohrschneider notes, getting responses from a football coach are one in a thousand.
"I sent an email to a lot of colleges in America, and Coach Meadows was pretty much the only one to answer me back, and [offer] me [a chance] to come visit", Rohrschneider recounted.
After unique and difficult journeys, all six international players have found a bit of home in Ypsilanti, Michigan, as members of the Eastern Michigan football team. Learn a little bit more about Eastern's multinational core as they talk about adjusting to life in the United States, how they deal with homesickness, and their favorite things about EMU in the video above.
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