TAMPA, Fla. – Nelson Agholor's first foray into athletics came as a prepubescent 10-year-old playing basketball on the hardwood courts of Tampa.
Within a year, he was a star in the making on the local AAU circuit, routinely playing up against kids two or three years older.
Nelson Agholor has proven that he's a threat atmultiple positions on the football field — and inmultiple sports.
File photo by Margaret Bowles
"I learned how to play defense from (AAU basketball)," Agholor recalls. "It mainly was defense because my body wasn't as big to be a good offensive threat at the time, so you learn how to be scrappy and stuff like that. Defense really shows the competitor, your competitive nature."
When
Berkeley Prep (Tampa, Fla.) boys basketball coach Bobby Reinhart caught his first glimpse of Agholor on the school's basketball court, he saw a scrawny ninth-grader unpolished on the offensive end but driven to shut down the opposition on defense.
"We'd play him on the top of zones, on the back of zones, just all over the place on defense and utilize his athleticism," said Reinhart, who also serves as Berkeley Prep's athletic director. "His athleticism, his will to compete on the defensive end, he showed that the most early and he loves that. He's a competitor.
"He doesn't want his guy to score and he wants to score."
That statement also best explains Agholor's mentality on the gridiron.
A 6-foot-2, 185-pound dynamo for a Berkeley Prep (9-0) football team that is a strong contender for the Florida Class 3A state title, Agholor does a bit of everything for the Buccaneers, positioning himself as not only the most versatile athlete in the Tampa Bay region but quite possibly the entire country.
Agholor is the
No. 2 rated athlete for the Class of 2012 –
No. 22 recruit overall – by MaxPreps-CBS recruiting analyst Tom Lemming.
During his prep career, Agholor's greatest impact has come at running back. As a sophomore, he rushed for 970 yards and 14 touchdowns. His breakout season came a year later when he gained 1,287 yards and scored 18 touchdowns on the ground and helped Berkeley Prep advance to the Florida Class A regional final. This season, Agholor has already surpassed the 1,000-yard threshold (1,105 yards through his first eight games) and has rushed for 19 touchdowns. (Stats from his most current game have not yet been uploaded)
But he's also proven a capable receiver, catching two touchdown passes. He's a lockdown cornerback, with two interceptions and two caused fumbles to his credit. And on punt returns, he averages 37 yards a touch and has scored twice.
Agholor and Berkeley Prep are off to a fantastic 9-0start this season.
File photo by Margaret Bowles
All of which explains why Agholor holds college scholarship offers from nearly every major Division I program in the country. And also why those schools have yet to reach a consensus on where to play him.
"Right now I'm being recruited as an athlete, some receiver, some tailback, some defensive back," said Agholor, who took his first and only official visit to Notre Dame on Oct. 7, but has yet to narrow down his choices. "But you know, we'll worry about that later. Each day you just do what you can do."
Agholor was a relative late arrival to football, picking up the sport around age 12. Basketball was his first love, but after a successful season quarterbacking his little league team as an eighth-grader, Agholor began to focus more of his attention toward the gridiron.
He entered Berkeley Prep a year later as a raw but gifted athlete. Berkeley Prep head football coach Dominick Ciao and his staff were responsible for developing Agholor's talent and allowing it to flourish.
"When I got (to Berkeley Prep) as a freshman, our coaching staff really did a lot with me," Agholor said. "Dominick Ciao is probably one of the greatest men and greatest coaches I've ever met. The thing about him, he teaches all these young men here how to be men, to understand life and understand how life and football go together. A lot of people say that about their coaches, but I truly mean it. The main thing that he did that I never really felt before was the way he speaks, you can feel how genuine he's talking. You can feel that what he's saying is gold. His word is gold."
Basketball is now secondary to football for Agholor, although he admits his competitive fire has him thinking about possibly playing both sports in college.
"I think I want to go and end up playing football in college, but if the opportunity showed itself, I don't think I would shy away from playing both sports," he said. "Just like how I was when I was younger, just wanting to be a competitor is No. 1 for me in life."
Reinhart has no doubts that Agholor, who led Berkeley Prep in scoring (12.5 ppg) and assists (3.2 apg) last season, could be a Division I player on the basketball court as well.
"He's a very good high school point guard," Reinhart said. "If it wasn't for his football abilities, he'd be looked at to play basketball at the collegiate level, maybe not quite the level of his football ability, but certainly up there. He's one of Hillsborough County's top players. He's just a great athlete. He's a very good basketball player. He's a better football player.
"He's the guy you want on your team, no matter what sport you're playing."
He's also the guy every college in the country wants, no matter where he lines up on the football field.
"I think a lot of people see my competitive nature, but that's something I've known through four years of football and something I've kept in the back of my mind to understand that each day you're out there you have a goal to compete, and it's to compete to win. Nobody wants to lose," Agholor said. "You're playing to win, so therefore you do whatever you can and everything in your power to win."
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