He runs. He catches. He shoots. He hits. He reads. He studies. Foyesade Oluokun can do a little bit of everything. Whether he is playing a sport or working in the classroom, Oluokun excels.
The John Burroughs School athletic standout graduated May 30 and will attend Yale University this fall on an academic scholarship. Oluokun, whose parents are from Nigeria, will study business and play football at Yale – which only accepted 6.8 percent of its applicants in 2012.
At John Burroughs, Oluokun was one of only 15 African Americans in his class of 99 students. In the 2012-2013 school year, only 10 percent of the Burroughs’ student body was African-American.
By percentage, Yale has a smaller African-American population than Burroughs. In the 2012-2013 school year, Yale had a student body that was around six percent African-American.
Oluokun was not phased about being part of a minority in high school or college.
“Everybody else in the school, they are accepting of you,” he said. “You’ve just got to be friendly with everybody.”
Oluokun said there is a bond at elite schools between students of African descent.
“We are really accepting of each other,” he said. “We understand that it’s different for us because we are a minority in the school, and we help each other get through and pick each other up when we have to.”
An example of this bond at Burroughs is the annual African American Family Dinner. Daniel Harris, the Burroughs diversity leader, hosts the dinner for all African-American students and their families.
While at Burroughs, Oluokun was a leader of the football team, which finished second in three straight state tournaments. He was named to the Metro League All-Conference First Team. In basketball, Oluokun was Burroughs’ leading scorer and was named the Metro League Player of the Year. In baseball he played left field, contributing to a team that finished second in the district tournament.
“I can see him on the football field, on the basketball court and then in the classroom hunched over a book or a test, and it’s a wonderful image of who he is,” said Suzanne Hamon, his honors pre-calculus teacher. “He was always in my classroom working. He is such a special kid.”
Oluokun’s family stresses education over athletics. So, when he began getting football looks from colleges, he narrowed his choices to high-achieving academic schools like Northwestern, Stanford and Yale. He liked the fact that Yale is situated in the middle of a city.
“You see all these people that are not as privileged as us,” he said. “ I really like that sense that you don’t forget that you are in the real world there.”
If his father, Steve Oluokun, has anything to do about it, the youth also will not forget the people at Burroughs and in his family who helped him get to the elite university.
“I will like Foye to appreciate these people all the time,” his father said. “I made it in this country because of the people that came to my aid, and I hope my boys will do the same in the future.”
