Meade High School track star Anya Uzoh (left), a DigitalSports Applause Scholarship winner, holds state championship trophies with his coach, Nigel Holder. Uzoh will compete next year at Penn State.
At the Penn Relays in April, Uzoh joined teammates Justin Murdock, Matthew Brinkley and Dahmar Smiles to run the third fastest 1,600-meter relay time.
High school student athletes are constantly presented with situations where they have to make decisions. How to arrange your daily schedule, which college to attend, which sport to focus on and for
Meade High School track & field standout Anya Uzoh, which event to participate in.
The reserved 17-year-old is a steady thinker who likes to weigh his options. When it came to which track & field event to commit to, the aspiring college decathlete had only one decision: he wanted to do all of them.
For overcoming some tough decisions in high school and living up to high standards at home -- Uzoh is the youngest of six children -- he is the Anne Arundel County male winner of the DigitalSports Applause Scholarship for the winter.
The DigitalSports Applause Scholarship is awarded in the amount of $500 toward the college education of an outstanding senior student-athlete who has exhibited great courage in overcoming adversity in order to make a positive contribution to his or her team.
In 2007-2008, DigitalSports has named 22 Applause Scholarship winners
in the Baltimore area, representing more than $11,000 in scholarship
awards. Winners have come from Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard
counties, as well as Baltimore City, the MIAA and the IAAM.
"At first, his parents really didn't buy into him running track," said Mustangs' coach Nigel Holder, who has led the boys track team to back-to-back outdoor state titles and an indoor title this past winter.
"They were used to him playing football and basketball maybe a couple times a week. With track, it was a 365-day commitment. It was tough for him because every so often, he would have to go back to Nigeria for religious or personal obligations. But he was committed. For young people like him to make those kind of sacrifices is a huge accomplishment and it shows he has a bright future ahead of him."
When Uzoh started high school, he thought basketball was his ticket, then came football. It was during his junior year when he realized that his talent in track could take him places. He convinced his parents on the idea and after a stellar prep career, he will run next year at Penn State University on a partial athletic scholarship.
The Laurel resident maintained a 3.7 grade-point average, was a Minds In Motion award winner and credited his athletic and academic achievements to a strict daily schedule.
"Seeing everyone else in my family go to college really motivated me," Uzoh said. "With sports, you have to focus on your grades. Without the grades, you can't run. My routine was go home, eat and with any time I have left, study."
It didn't end there.
"He almost gave up the decathlon training because he couldn't get over the bar in pole vault," Holder said.
"We found him a trainer for it and he would work out with him at night. His parents had tough work schedules so it was a big commitment for them to get him to the workouts. It was after school, after track practice, after dinner, then he would go there for about an hour. There's only so many hours in a day to be Anya Uzoh."
The extra practice paid off. During the winter season, Uzoh competed in the long jump, high jump, triple jump, and the 800- and 1600-meter relays. But at the Class 3A East Region indoor meet, he picked up a pole vault pole for the first time at a competitive meet and cleared 12 feet, good enough for second.
Was he holding back the whole time?
"Yeah, something like that," Uzoh snickered.
During his junior season of indoor track, Uzoh returned to Nigeria to help his father celebrate his retirement. In his family, it's customary to go to back to Africa and take a vacation for the event.
"I went back there and took a little long of a vacation," Uzoh said.
The four-week layoff hindered his progress in the sport and he said he had to start all over when he got back. The points he single-handedly produced for the Mustangs took a hit and that may be responsible for the team's third-place finish at the state meet.
"Ideally, I wish I could enter him in every event," Holder said.
This past spring, he joined teammates Justin Murdock, Matthew Brinkley and Dahmar Smiles to run the 1,600-meter relay in 3 minutes, 14.68 seconds at the prestigious Penn Relays at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It was third fastest time at that meet, which included teams from across America, Canada and the Caribbean.
Uzoh, who had made several appearances at the Penn Relays, attracted Division I college interests because of his performance there and it also sparked his interest in Penn State.
"If you look at the decathlon results at Penn Relays the last couple years, Penn State has swept them all," said Uzoh, who gives a slight edge to the 400-meter run as his favorite event. "When I saw that, I was like 'Wow' and I had a good visit there, too."
So Uzoh is looking forward to joining other athletes who can't make a decision on which event to focus on. He also wants to pursue a degree in physical therapy -- a decision he came to quickly.
"I have to get my master's for that, which means more college," he said with a slight grin.