Balancing academics and football is no easy feat, but rising football star Hakeem Onitolo has mastered the art.
The first-class graduate of Estate Management and Valuation, who also shined as the best in his faculty (Environmental Sciences) at the University of Lagos, has proven that discipline trumps motivation.
In this exclusive interview, Onitolo, who currently plays for Lagos-based side 9th Planet FC, on loan from Abuja outfit Gramaze FC, opens up about his journey from a defensive midfielder to a goal-scoring striker. He shares how unwavering commitment and daily consistency helped him achieve excellence in both football and academics, earning him the nickname “ScorePion” for his acrobatic goals.
Ayomikun: We have our guest here today. His name is Hakeem Onitolo. He’s going to be talking about a whole lot of things about his academics, his football career and maybe a little bit about his background. Hakeem, good to have you with us on NRTC. Can you take us back to where it started? How did the journey of football begin for you?
Hakeem: Well, I’ve been playing football since I was a kid, since I was very, very small. But I only took it professionally the moment I discovered it was a professional job. Let me say that, when you’re just doing something and then you discover that you can actually make a living out of it. It was at that point that my journey of aiming to become a professional footballer started.
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Ayomikun: That was like how many years ago?
Hakeem: I can’t remember. I was still very small. I was just like well, I want to become a professional footballer. So yeah, I’ve started the football journey since I was very, very small.
Ayomikun: We’ve seen that you’ve done so well for yourself, not just in football, but also in your academics. What motivated you or what pushed you to achieve such excellence in your academics? And the way you’ve also been projecting yourself, the way you’ve been pushing yourself in your football journey, there should be something that has motivated you to do this?
Hakeem: The thing is, I do tell people that motivation is a false god, discipline is the ultimate. So I don’t think I’m a motivated person, to be honest with you. I don’t think I’m motivated by anything per se. Maybe I can say the fact I want to succeed is what pushes me more. Wanting to succeed is not even enough. The secret is doing what you have to do every day. I feel like discipline is actually what makes me who I am, not motivation. I’m not motivated. I don’t need motivation. Just do what you have to do every day. And by the end of this particular period, you’ll see that there’s nothing hard in all these things. The hard thing is to show up every day, consistently showing up. That’s the hard part. So it’s about doing what you’re supposed to do every day. So all those everyday work is going to pile up too. I’m a disciplined person more than I’m a motivated person.
Ayomikun: So in short, there’s no particular person or group of persons that have motivated you.
Hakeem: Nobody motivated me. I can qualify as a self-motivated person. But people made me because there’s no self-made man. Nobody’s pushing me like internally, but externally, I meet people. For example, maybe my management, my friends. As a footballer, I play with my teammates. So if I don’t play very well, it’s going to affect my game to an extent. So those are the external push I need.
But internally, I don’t need anybody to tell me that, “ah, Hakeem, you must go train now.” I don’t need people to tell me, I know what to do and I’ll do it. Whether I want to do it or not, I know what I have to do to get what I want. So I just need to put in the work. So internally, I don’t need anybody to tell me what to do. I know what to do already.
Ayomikun: So it means time management, hard work and diligence, just as you said during an interview, are those key factors that work for you?
Hakeem: I believe it can actually work for anybody, but not anybody will be disciplined enough to be that consistent. It’s a very hard thing to do. Even for me who do it, I know it is hard, but I’ve wired myself to that way. So when I tell people that this is how I did this, people still don’t keep up to it. They don’t start because they are based on motivation. So people are like that because they are dealing with motivation. For me, I’m like, oh, today I need to just do this thing.
I don’t care that the exam is three months away. I’ll just keep doing it. I need to do this thing tomorrow. I need to do this. This is my course and I need to know this course. When people ask me questions, I should be able to answer them. People should know that I know this thing. So that’s actually what I do.
Ayomikun: You had a CGPA of 4.83. Best graduating student from the Department of Estate Management and Valuation and also the best graduating student of the Faculty of Environmental Science. Now, to get a First Class, you need to work really hard for it. But then, were there times where you felt like giving up? Maybe there were times it was tough, especially for someone that was combining football and academics. Maybe times you felt like dropping one for the other, like maybe football for your academics or your academics for football. Were there times like that?
Hakeem: I can’t really say that there were times. I don’t think there was a time like that. Of course, like I said, I used to have plans. One of my friends called me a planned man. From the get-go, I already knew I wanted to combine both of them. So there was no negotiating whether I wanted to drop off or not. It was both of them. Like Eminem said, why be a king when you can be a god? So that’s the kind of person I am. There’s no need to settle. Moving one for one is to settle. And I don’t like to settle. I don’t like mediocrity. I know I don’t do both of them. I just know that there was a lot of work to be done.
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So the only thing that I needed to do was continue doing the work that was needed to be done. So I just kept doing the work. I know that everything is going to align eventually. Just keep training, keep reading, keep training, keep reading, keep showing up in your class. Just keep doing those things. For every day that passes is a day closer to your graduation, it’s a day closer to your exams, it’s a day closer to your professional debut. So that’s how I live. I live day by day. I don’t mind if I have a trial next two weeks, I’ll continue training the way I trained because I’ve been training for that same thing. So it’s not like I want to stay in my schedule.
I’m not changing my schedule because I have a trial. I continue with my schedule because I’ve always known that that day was going to come. I’ve been preparing for it, so when it comes, it’s not going to miss me. I’m prepared.
Ayomikun: Football-wise, who are those players that you looked up to when you were much younger, like you loved to watch so much that you can say these were the best players for you and maybe that you would love to emulate when you become a professional?
Hakeem: Now that you’ve asked, thinking about it, I don’t think I did. I just enjoyed watching people, but Stephen Gerrard, yeah, because I used to be a defensive midfielder. Gerrard was one of the notable players for me when I was younger. Ronaldinho too, but Gerrard was the major.
Ayomikun: Okay, so you said you were a defensive midfielder, but right now, we know you more as a striker. When did that transition happen?
Hakeem: It was a coach, cos as a defensive midfielder, I was even scoring.
Ayomikun: You said you were a defensive midfielder, but right now, we know you more as a striker. When did that transition happen?
Hakeem: It was a coach. Cos as a defensive midfielder, I was even scoring. I am a very good marker. The first point of my strength was that I could mark. So that made me defensive. So, I preferred to play as a defensive midfielder, but it later happened that I was scoring more than our centre forward. Even in training sessions, and short circuit games, nobody could score more than me. Even though I was marking, I knew how to mark and I knew how to score – those are my two traits. I was not a ball-playing person. Even as a DM, I was a marking DM. I was not a ball-playing DM. Mark and give to my 10, mark and give to my 8. When the opponents want to play a corner against us, I am there to head the ball away. I was nicknamed the ‘HEADMASTER.’ When we have a corner in our favour, I am there to score. So, I was always scoring. With my left and right, I was scoring. So, when I joined my first team as a very small boy (a team I also captained), the coach asked me of the position I played in and I told him I was a DM. During our first training -a a short circuit – the coach looked at me and said I was a striker.
So, coach Ateko converted me to a striker and from then, I discovered that might be my best role. That’s why right now, I mark from the front. I mark defenders as a striker and that’s why I steal a lot of balls from them.
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Ayomikun: You mentioned that while you were a DM, you were scoring goals. Then, as an attacker still scoring goals, they called you HEADMASTER. So, because you score a lot of goals, is that where the name ‘ScorePion’ came from?
Hakeem: No, not actually. It’s because I score a lot of acrobatic goals. That’s why they call me ‘ScorePion.’
I’ve scored with a Scorpion kick before. I’ve scored a bicycle kick, many times in fact. I do acrobatics sometimes. I’m a flexible person. It’s the way I throw my body when I want to score sometimes. There’s a particular goal I scored, then I heard someone say “this guy na scorpion o”. So, I just liked the name and then I decided to hold on to it. I added the ‘e’ – ScorePion. So, I like the name and that’s why I adopted it.
Ayomikun: So, what are the most memorable moments you’ve had being on the pitch? While you were an undergraduate and since you graduated, for the clubs that you’ve played for?
Hakeem: I’ve made a lot of memorable moments. So, now, I can’t pick. I’ve played a lot of matches and I’ve had a lot of memorable moments. The only memorable one from my undergraduate days was the one I scored on my birthday – that’s the only one. Even if I’m asked 10 times. That’s all I’m going to say. That was my birthday and it was the final of our HOD games. We were behind. It was 1-0 against us after the first half. It was also the birthday of the coach on the opposing team. So, in fact, the opponents were celebrating a supposed victory already. That’s how late into the match I equalised.
As they were celebrating, the ball found its way to me. Being the last kick of normal time,, I just headed the ball. I have this thing where I tell people that if I’m finding it difficult to score, just keep putting the ball on my head. If I’m on a goal drought or maybe I’m being heavily marked, just find a way to cross the ball to my head. That’s my secret. Most goalkeepers find it hard to catch headers. I’ve noticed it.
So, the goalkeeper, who had been saving my efforts all through the match, could not even fly to save my header. Immediately, the shouts of celebrating from the fans of our opponents stopped and our fans celebrated the leveller. And then, the referee just stopped the game immediately. The game went into penalties and we won.
For my most memorable moments outside undergraduate days, they are many one is even too much. One was when I was on trial for my team in Abuja, where I scored four goals and created an assist in a game. I scored six goals and I think two assists in four games. The four games were my trial period. So, imagine going on trial and then scoring six goals in four games. Which team is not going to sign that kind of striker? Funny how I’d not scored in my first game for them. So, I scored the six goals and one assist in three games.
Because in my first game, I was just playing and didn’t understand the people I was playing with, although I came in as a sub. I started the other three matches where I scored those six goals. And that was how I became their player.
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Ayomikun: Many young students have found it difficult to combine academics with sports. Some engage in football, some in basketball, etc, and some even intend to go professionally.And balancing both is seriously difficult for them, and because they are not like other people, maybe like someone like you, they might not really be able to excel very well in both at the same time. So, you’ve mentioned some things that you were able to devise and that worked for you. So, what other things do you think can work for these students, apart from the ones you said?
Hakeem: I do say something, “man, know thyself.” For example, when I was a student, I never read overnight. I never had any reason to read overnight.
Because reading overnight was redundant. It would have been redundant. When I don’t sleep overnight, I know the way I feel – my day is going to be ruined, or let me say disjointed. I knew it was not for me (to read overnight). So, I never even tried it because the reading during the day was enough for me.
There is this saying that “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” I was reading during the day and I was passing. So, why am I reading overnight? For some people, they probably need to read at night. They need to balance it. For some people, day-reading is better for them. Also, circumstances determine many things for you. It’s good to always point out your privileges. Sometimes, circumstances allow you to do certain things. You have to compromise. You have to compromise according to what works for you. So, I feel like for the students, you have to be disciplined. Other things are going to suffer. One thing must suffer for other things. If it is ‘academics and sports’ for you, then it must be academics and sports, nothing else must interfere.
When I was in school, there were some teams I couldn’t play for because it would be taking me out of the academic field totally and it would be hard for me to. I was playing for teams that understood my position as a student. So that made it easy. That’s when I was playing for Starbase and 36 Champions and the likes.
So, it depends on many factors but the major factor is that you must be disciplined with your time. When people invite me for stuff and I get there and they’re not even ready, I leave. Because my academics and sports are my priorities. They are both priorities and like I said in an interview I had yesterday, I told people that balance is not always 50-50. As a student, I will tell you that my academics to football ratio was like 70-30. But that was balance. That was the ratio I needed to allocate my time to do well optimally in both.
The full interview is on our YouTube channel. Check it out now – NRTC interview with Hakeem Onitolo.
Tags: Hakeem Onitolo, 9th Planet FC, Gramaze FC, Starbase, 36 Champions, UNILAG, best graduating student, #nrtcnewsnigeria, #nrtcnigeria, #nrtcnews, #nrtcsports, #NewsRoundTheClock.
