Adogwa has been a spark plug in the Duke offense for the past two seasons, and this senior from Trinidad is not afraid to admit that he measures success in goals. The speedy forward learned to play soccer on prep school and club teams in Trinidad after moving from Nigeria and has excelled as a Blue Devil.
On Oct. 10, 2003, 200 people had the privilege of seeing Nigi Adogwa come of age.
While the rest of the school enjoyed Fall Break, the men’s soccer team hosted the N.C. State Wolfpack needing a win to reverse a nine game winless streak—a period over which the Blue Devils failed to score more than two goals in any game.
Duke rippled the net three times that day. All three goals were scored by Nigi Adogwa.
The team responded to the senior’s electrifying performance with an equally impressive run, winning five of its next six games and finishing the regular season with an 8-10-1 record. Adogwa went on to score 11 goals that season, and as he enters his senior year, Duke head coach John Rennie expects his star forward to lead his squad with similar displays of excellence.
“He leads by example,” Rennie said. “He works very, very hard. When he’s out there working hard defensively and challenging for head balls in the penalty area, he adds a kind of adrenaline to the team and gets the other players excited, and the other players respond to Nigi and work harder as a result. He’s more a leader in that manner than a verbal leader.”
As is often the case with Duke athletes, Adogwa’s road to Durham was a long and eventful one. The path began in his birthplace of Nigeria, where he developed his soccer skills at an early age.
“In Nigeria, soccer isn’t very organized,” Adogwa said. “You don’t have the best facilities and you don’t have the best equipment. When I was six, I used to go out with my cousins—I had a pretty big family—and just did stuff... it was just like the way [Americans] play basketball.”
At the age of 10, Nigi’s family moved to Trinidad, a tiny island off the coast of South America. Although the move was primarily motivated by the desire of Andrew Oche, Nigi’s father, to expand his medical practice, it also allowed the budding soccer prodigy to refine his play at various preparatory schools including St. Mary’s and St. George’s, and on his club team, Malta Carib Alcons.
At first, Nigi’s passion was met with a bit of disdain.
“My mother did not approve of it,” Adogwa said. “My dad didn’t really care, but mother came around very slowly.”
When American coaches started to take notice of Adogwa’s play, however, it became clear just how far playing soccer could take him. Rennie’s interest in the young forward was first piqued by Alvin Corneal, a long-time friend, who had represented his native Trinidad both as a player and coach.
According to Rennie, recruiting Adogwa was a straightforward process once he had received Corneal’s recommendation. In Adogwa’s version of the story, his first contact with the Duke soccer program occurred under much more serendipitous circumstances.
“There were some coaches in Trinidad—Connecticut and Wake Forest—that had come down to see me. Coach Rennie had come looking for a defender,” he said.
“So he’s at my club, and I wasn’t even supposed to play that day. I had nothing to do though, so I just showed up, put on my cleats, and fooled around.... After the game my coach tells me, ‘Hey the coach at Duke is interested in you.’ And I say, ‘Well, okay, what does that mean?’ I spoke to him in more detail the following day and he tells me his interest, which I took a lot more seriously from those from the other schools. Eventually everything worked out.”
Adogwa improved very slowly, and only earned time starting at forward halfway into his sophomore year, during which he scored eight total goals.
“Freshman year was a rough time, because, and this is a bad thing to say, I don’t evaluate myself based on how much I pass the ball,” Adogwa said. “The only skill I judge myself on is how many goals I score. So sophomore year was a little better, [but] I still wasn’t content.
“The starts helped because being a forward is all about streaks. You’re not consistent for 20 games. You go six games where you score three goals in each game, and then you might not score for the rest of the year. So having those starts and knowing the coaches had confidence in me allowed me to have confidence in myself. So when you get that scoring chance you just put it away—it becomes second nature.”
Adogwa will be forced to rely on that innate scoring ability to lead a team that often found it difficult to score crucial game-tying and game-winning goals. This year the senior is apparently unfazed by his team’s shooting woes in 2003.
“To be honest, we haven’t even spoken about it once. Last year was last year. We had very good players last year. It just so happened that when the game went into overtime, we’d lose the game, and we’d lose our focus the last 10, 5 minutes of the game.
“This year, there is no extra pressure.... Maybe for me there is, because you’re always nervous two times in your life: when you start something and when you finish something. You always want to graduate with a bang and you want to leave your mark.... Extra pressure? No, I’m just having a good time. It’s going to be sad because it’s my last season at Duke—I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can.”
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