Uwaezuoke to Walk On With Purpose : Prep football: Nigerian receiver-defensive back from Harvard High vows to earn a scholarship at Cal.

Nobody wanted to throw the football to Iheanyi Uwaezuoke, the new kid from Nigeria who was always the last pick in the not-so-friendly game of football played in South-Central Los Angeles.

Yet, during this pickup game nearly a decade ago, he was wide open, left uncovered perhaps because he had dropped similar passes in the past. But he grabbed this one and found himself clutching the ball and sprinting toward the sideline. At last, he thought, he was part of the gang.

Boom! He was slammed into a parked car, the victim of a vicious tackle.

“It was supposed to be touch, but if you were by the curb, you could tackle them because there was grass nearby,” Uwaezuoke said. “But they’d slam you into cars or whatever was there. That was a rough neighborhood.”

The family has since moved to Inglewood, but the road to a budding athletic career remained hard for the young immigrant who arrived in Los Angeles as an 8-year-old in 1980. Not only did he have trouble mastering the new game, but he had trouble persuading his parents that the game was worth the effort.

Education is a top priority in the Uwaezuoke household. Both parents earned master’s degrees and they enrolled Iheanyi at Harvard High, a prestigious private school in North Hollywood recognized for academic excellence.

When his parents feared that Uwaezuoke’s athletic endeavors were detrimental to his studies, they nearly put a stop to it.

Yet Uwaezuoke today is determined to earn a scholarship as a walk-on wide receiver at Cal this fall. An All-Southern Section Division VII player at Harvard last season, Uwaezuoke will represent the East in the 12th Daily News all-star game at 7:30 tonight at Birmingham High.

Those days as an uncoordinated 8-year-old learning the game on the streets are behind him.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “Kids tend to be real cruel, and they weren’t very understanding that I had never seen the game of football before. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

No doubt, Uwaezuoke inherited his drive to succeed from his father. Jude Uwaezuoke was born into the Igbo tribe in eastern Nigeria and, in keeping with tribal custom, as the fourth son he was given the responsibility of providing for his entire extended family.

In order to better provide for his family, he arrived in California in 1978 in search of an American education. Within two years, he had earned a degree in marketing from Cal State Dominguez Hills and a master’s in business administration from West Coast University. He is now an administrator for a car-rental company.

“The responsibilities are a lot of burden, but it also brings tremendous pleasure,” Jude said. “The Igbo tribe has been around several hundred years and my people are known for their sense of responsibility.”

The rest of his family--wife, Beatrice, Iheanyi and daughter, Kelechi--moved to Los Angeles in 1980 and crammed into a tiny apartment in South-Central Los Angeles. Jude worked full time at a rental-car agency and was a full-time student. Beatrice also earned an MBA and now works as a grade-school teacher at a private school in Inglewood.

“I wouldn’t say it was difficult, because I knew what I was out to do and I was doing it,” Jude said.

Iheanyi directed his determined efforts at academics and athletics. He entered Harvard as a seventh-grader and was playing varsity football as a sophomore.

In his first game, he caught four passes during the final two minutes of Harvard’s come-from-behind victory over South Pasadena.

“I hadn’t had a very good summer before my sophomore year and there were a lot of nonbelievers,” he said. “I was kind of the odd man out, but that game was a tremendous boost for me.”

Although Iheanyi’s determination sometimes approached stubbornness, it was the key to his success, according to Harvard Coach Gary Thran.

“He’s the kind of kid who just doesn’t ever want to be second,” Thran said. “It’s like, ‘There might be somebody better than I am, but I’m not going to let it stay that way.’ ”

That is where Iheanyi stands today. He is bitter because he has received no college scholarship offers, a surprise considering his high school accomplishments.

A three-sport athlete, Iheanyi (6-foot-2, 183 pounds) was selected to The Times’ All-Valley football team last fall after leading Harvard to the San Fernando League title. He caught 23 passes for 427 yards and three touchdowns and was an all-league selection as a wide receiver and defensive back.

He averaged 10.2 points for the basketball team as a senior and had a personal best of 45 feet 2 inches in the triple jump.

He also ran on the 400-meter relay team that placed first in the 1-A Division meet last spring. He has thrown the shotput 45 feet and run the 100 meters in 11.1 seconds.

With only four years of organized football under his helmet, Iheanyi is determined to prove that recruiters made a mistake.

“I compare myself with the guys who got scholarships and I can’t stop asking myself why they got them,” he said. “God, I just don’t understand. I try to put it behind me, but I also use it as fuel.”

Also, perhaps with Igbo pride, Iheanyi feels the need to earn an athletic scholarship that will help his middle-class family pay for an education that will cost around $12,000 each year.

Yet his family, which wasn’t always supportive of Iheanyi’s involvement with athletics, still is reluctant to support Iheanyi’s desires to play football at Cal.

“I don’t tell him what to do, but I want him to realize that education has been the key to our family,” Jude said. “If his time playing football is not going to hurt his academics, then I support it. I realize that if he earns a scholarship, it will help pay for an education.

“But even if it means I have to sell myself to pay for his education, I will do it,” Jude added. “Because I know it will pay off in the long run. As much as I want him to be a successful football player, I don’t want that to be a priority over education.”

Iheanyi appreciates his father’s sentiments, but still feels a desire to prove he belongs on the football field at Cal.

“As much as I value (my father’s) position, I deserve a scholarship and that’s what I’m going for,” he said. “The bottom line is that I’m going to get it.”