North Babylon's Ukonu grows into stardom

Raymond Williams remembers the scene vividly, sitting across from the hulking youngster and "lighting into him."

Golden Ukonu had just gotten the bad news from his coach, then received the dreaded call to the principal's office. He was 15 then, still just a big kid, and his plummeting grades and behavior problems, including fights, had cost him.

This was rock bottom, being kicked off the football team and sternly told he'd have to earn his way back.

It was the second time Ukonu had been denied the sport. Coaches deemed him "too big" to play with other kids when he was 5, but this time it was his fault.

"He was getting involved in negativity and I think some of it had to do with his circle," Williams said. "My job, I felt, was to highlight all the positives he has; show him if he chose the right path, that life can be very good. But if he took the wrong road, he'd be disciplined."

At that point, Ukonu's 6-4, 375-pound stature didn't mean a thing, nor did his prowess and promise on the field. Stripped of that, he was just a sophomore at North Babylon High School - a boy who had been humbled.

"I knew I messed up and I wasn't crying or mad," he said. "I just listened to what he had to say . . . I played the first game that season and that was it. After that, I didn't get in any more trouble."

And that's where it started - the transformation from big kid to young man; from troubled youth with unrealized potential to someone the principal today calls a role model.

What followed the talk wasn't rebellion but a realization of what could be - good and bad. "Without football,'' Ukonu said, "I had nothing else to do."

So he focused, in the class and weight rooms. He got a tutor, went to SAT classes at night and took summer courses to erase his low grades.

"Now it's 85s or higher. I used to be satisfied with just passing, but not anymore," Ukono said.

He used to be OK with just being big, but that's a no-more, too. He started a grueling workout regimen: bench presses (330-pound max), shoulder presses, incline bench, dead lifts, power cleans and speed training. He altered his diet, eliminating some of the junk food and loading up on potatoes, baked chicken and water.

"I'm faster, more endurance, and I can play both sides of the ball," he said. That's right tackle on offense and interior line on defense.

Fast-forward a year, with Ukonu back with the team as a junior, a key member of the Bulldogs' Suffolk championship squad. Preshod McCoy got the headlines with his signature spin moves, but the bulk of his 1,535 rushing yards came off the right side, behind the big fella.

"We probably run right 99 percent of the time," coach Terry Manning said with a chuckle.

Fast-forward a bit more to last month; Ukonu, now a senior with colleges hankering for him, is one of three players featured in an MSG Varsity photo shoot in Holbrook. He's joined by Bellport lineman Ryan Sloan and Garden City's Stephen Jahelka.

As they pose - with expressions ranging from grins to "game-face" scowls - Ukonu dwarfs the others.

Jahelka recalled the Long Island championship game (a 9-6 Trojans win) and the impression Ukonu made.

"I was playing fullback and we ran a dive at big boy and it was . . . " He paused and shook his head. "We went outside after that."

Ukonu has become a local celebrity. Golden Sr. says people often mistake his son for a professional (with more than NFL size, he looks the part in his jersey). "I have to tell them, 'He's only 17!' " he said. "I'm really proud of him. Everything he's done, he's done it well."

Yet Ukonu grades his 2009 performance as only a "B." He's lost 11 pounds this summer (leaving him at 364) and spends nights watching tape of himself, noting areas that need improvement: "stamina, staying on blocks, wrapping up on tackles."

Good enough, since his maturing, hasn't been good enough.

Along his massive right forearm are tattoos that express his devout Catholicism: rosary beads and a cross. On the left shoulder, though, there's a wolf-like beast. The anger he carried in the past is "still inside me," he said. "[The tattoo] is symbolic of me at game time. I wait until then and let it all out. I have a nasty streak on the field."

That doesn't include foul language or trash talk, but aggression in his run-blocking technique.

"It's straight-forward power," he said. "The stronger man wins."

Inner strength has won, too. Ukonu's five older siblings have all been successful, including a sister studying physical chemistry and another in medical school. His family is "a big influence."

"I don't want to be a failure in life," said Ukonu, who has NFL aspirations and interest in law. "I promised myself and them I won't be the rotten apple."