Thou Shalt Not Pass

5 minute read
Sean Gregory

Nnamdi Asomugha–pronounced Ah-sum-wah–believes there are two keys to his profession, which is to prevent some of the swiftest, surest-handed athletes on the planet from catching our national oblong obsession, the football. The first, says the All-Pro cornerback for the Philadelphia Eagles, is patience. When defending a receiver, if you lean in too early–whoosh!–he is blowing by you, cradling the quarterback’s spiral and chest-bumping his teammates in the end zone. You, meanwhile, are alone, toast, the target of taunts from Philadelphia’s famously ill-tempered fans.

The second? “You have to be able to dance,” Asomugha says during an early-September interview at a New York City trattoria while his fellow Eagles are enjoying an off day. He’s wearing black jeans and a Beastie Boys T-shirt. “You’re shuffling, you’re spinning, you’re doing a lot of stuff that your feet have to be great at.” He has quizzed cornerbacks around the NFL, Can you cut a rug? The good ones brag about their skills; bad ones lament their lack of rhythm. “I may be crazy, but I believe it,” he says. So when a photo of him dancing past 1 a.m. shows up on the Internet, don’t fret, Philly. It’s just late-night practice.

There’s also a third aspect to his game: Asomugha leads the NFL in philanthropy. The former Oakland Raider has a lot to give. He was the prize free agent of this condensed NFL off-season–after the lockout ended in late July, football-starved fans anticipated his signing decision as if he were LeBron James. Asomugha signed a five-year, $60 million contract with Philadelphia, which also splashed for defensive end Jason Babin and quarterback Vince Young. The Birds are a popular pick to make it to the Super Bowl (though they have started the season 1-1).

Asomugha is a no-fly zone. According to the statistics site Football Outsiders, in 2010 opposing quarterbacks tossed just 31 passes, or 7.9% of their total throws, in his direction. The next best corner faced 54 passes–75% more. “He’s taking the position to a new level,” says Rob Ryan, defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys, who coached Asomugha in Oakland. “If I had to put my life on the line and pick one guy to cover someone, I’d go with Nnamdi Asomugha.”

The son of Nigerian immigrants–his dad, who died in 1994, was a petroleum engineer; his mom is a pharmacist–Asomugha, 30, grew up in a strict household in Los Angeles. He missed out on classroom chatter; Asomugha’s parents made him read rather than watch the latest sitcoms. “It was a little struggle,” he says. Asomugha, more so than his three siblings, who’ve all earned graduate degrees, wanted a TV. He finally got one, but when his mom caught him watching the cheesy ’80s movie Mannequin, she took it away. Nudity–plastic or otherwise–was unacceptable.

The Asomughas would regularly visit homeless shelters and lead food drives. So even before 2009, when he signed for $28 million in guaranteed money with the Raiders, Asomugha had a habit of giving back. Today, he chairs two philanthropic programs. One supports vocational-skills training, business loans and health care for orphans and widows in Nigeria. The other takes a select group of inner-city students on spring tours of colleges like Harvard, Howard, Georgetown and NYU.

The NFL, whose reputation has been sacked by arrests of star players, wishes it had more Asomughas. In 2010, he won the Jefferson Award for Public Service, often dubbed the Nobel Prize of community service. The Obama Administration is considering him for a spot on the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability. Since 2009, Asomugha has spoken at three of Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative meetings. He laughs about Clinton’s habit, when Asomugha is in the room, of putting global crises in football terms. “I don’t know if he thinks I’m not following,” Asomugha says.

Nine years ago, after his senior season at the University of California, Berkeley, few could have imagined him yukking it up with Clinton and signing a $60 million deal. He wasn’t a golden pro prospect. However, before the 2003 draft, he trained with Alonzo Carter, an Oakland high school football and track coach and former backup dancer for rapper MC Hammer. Carter put Asomugha through a spartan weight-training regimen that his younger brother had learned in prison. The lifting, plus what Carter calls the “poor man’s diet”–peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, plus a glass of milk before bed–helped Asomugha put on almost 20 lb. (9 kg) of lean muscle. The Raiders took him in the first round, but after Oakland moved him from safety, his position in college, to corner, he struggled. “I was still being a knucklehead,” he says.

But once he worked hard on the art of pass coverage–once he started to really dance–his game stepped up. To stay on top, Asomugha follows high school dance crazes. For example, he nailed the Dougie a few years back. He and new teammate Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie have frequent locker-room dance-offs. Famed mover Hammer, who has become friendly with Asomugha, cheers his methods. “Hike, da da da, knock the ball down, play over,” Hammer says. “Hike, da da da, I intercept it, boom. That rhythm goes into a cornerback’s mind. That’s the dance!” Hammer’s biggest hit could be the anthem for all the receivers who line up against Asomugha: Can’t touch this.

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Write to Sean Gregory at sean.gregory@time.com