Abule Abadi-Fitzgerald's long journey from Nigeria to Kentucky
Kentucky's newest commitment, Abule Abadi-Fitzgerald, emigrated to the United States from Nigeria when he was in junior high school.
He has remained in Florida since that time, and his journey is now leading him to Lexington.
SIGNING DAY OFFER: Go premium and have free months added to your account.
Lakeland (Fla.) Victory Christian Academy head football coach Tommy Lewis has gotten to know Abadi-Fitzgerald well over the past year. He's coached the 6-foot-6, 240-pound defensive end for just a short time, but he quickly became enamored with much more than his potential as a football player. He loves Abadi-Fitzgerald's story.
"He's got an amazing story," the Victory Christian coach told Cats Illustrated on Tuesday, one day after Abadi-Fitzgerald verbally committed to Kentucky and one day before he's set to sign with the Wildcats.
Every year a large number of Nigerians travel to the United States, most in search of better educational opportunities. Nigerians are among the most educated ethnic groups in the United States, and that's one reason Abadi-Fitzgerald's father sent his son to America.
As a sixth grade foreign exchange student with his family still in Nigeria, Abadi-Fitzgerald (then just Abadi) wasn't only here for academics. Though education was a major emphasis and reason for his journey, he was also in America to play basketball.
"People were always saying, 'Is this kid eligible? Where's he from?'" Lewis told Cats Illustrated.
Abadi-Fitzgerald bounced around from home to home until Steve Fitzgerald and his family decided to pursue adoption. Fitzgerald and his wife were both educators at Coral Springs Christian Academy, and they approached Abadi's father with a proposition.
"The Fitzgeralds contacting his family in Nigeria and said, 'If you sign some papers and allow us to adopt everything will go a lot smoother,'" Lewis said. "His father was willing to do that. It's a lot longer process than this might make it seem because they didn't adopt him officially until he was in the ninth grade."
As a ninth grader Abadi-Fitzgerald was persuaded to try out for football, but Coral Springs Christian dropped their program when he became a sophomore. That didn't bother Abadi-Fitzgerald too much because his first and main love was still basketball.
Fitzgerald got a job at Dade Christian and so Abadi-Fitzgerald transferred there.
"He decided to go out for football again his junior year but there was some mix up in his paperwork and he was ineligible until that paperwork got straightened out," Lewis said. "It took them a while to get that done but he did get it straightened out before basketball. That year he played in basically one game, the Kickoff Classic, and then he got word that he was ineligible for football. So he didn't really play football his junior year either."
Dade Christian experienced some financial struggles and their enrollment plummeted from around 600 students to less than 100.
Enter Victory Christian Academy, the institution that hired Abadi-Fitzgerald's adopted mother and father before the 2016-17 school year.
"That was right at the beginning of the football season," Lewis said. "Abule arrived at camp the first day of it in August. We literally only had him for one season so he has very little experience but he learned, he grew and he worked on his game."
Abadi-Fitzgerald's work ethic served him well, helped him develop and also won the respect of his teammates and coaches.
"We're going through the dog days of summer, two-a-days in August, and during his time off after rotating out of a drill he would either go over to the one-man sled and work on things by himself or he was doing extra pushups or situps," Lewis said. "I knew right then he was a pretty special young man."
Aside from his brief stint with Coral Springs Christian as a ninth grader, Abadi-Fitzgerald's only full season of varsity football was in 2016. Lewis said his defensive end worked hard in the classroom as well as on the football field.
He hasn't been the most vocal teammate but he's taken care of business.
"As you can imagine, coming somewhere for your senior year can be pretty difficult for a teenager," Lewis said. "But he's handled it with grace and maturity. Everybody here is just very excited for him to have the opportunity he does at Kentucky."
Lewis knew he had a player with enormous athletic potential right when Abadi-Fitzgerald arrived. He had more of a basketball resume than a football history to promote, however, so Lewis and his staff immediately set out to gain some exposure with college football coaching staffs.
They just didn't have much to work with. Abadi-Fitzgerald's first highlight reel was a hodgepodge of about eight to ten plays from his limited time with Dade Christian. They sent that out to FBS and FCS programs all across the country.
"We sent that out and told everybody that we've got a diamond in the rough that you're going to want to come check out for yourself," Lewis remembered. "We got literally zero (feedback) from that email blast."
Their next attempt at promoting Abadi-Fitzgerald was at the midseason point. With five or six games worth of film the Victory Christian staff put together a more comprehensive highlight reel that was more up-to-date and a better production.
"Again, we sent it out to every FBS and FCS school we could," Lewis said. "And again we were kind of met with silence."
The only coaching staffs to respond to that sent email blast were from NC State and Clemson.
"And they basically said, 'Thanks but no thanks,'" Lewis said.
There was one exception. Abadi-Fitzgerald landed an offer from the University of South Dakota on their limited exposure to him thanks to a combine he attended during the spring of his junior season when he was still at Dade Christian. That offer from South Dakota didn't translate into a wave of interest, and it faded into the past as a seemingly isolated event.
Kentucky quarterbacks coach, co-offensive coordinator and area recruiter Darin Hinshaw was the first coach at a major FBS college football program to really show serious interest.
"Other than South Dakota, Coach Hinshaw was the first one to kind of discover Abule," Lewis said. "He was the first college coach to come to our campus and say, 'I'd like to meet the 6'6, 240-pound defensive end you have.' When he arrived to campus we took the little footage we had. It was really bizarre. It was almost right after the season at the end of November. I guess Kentucky's season was probably over and when Coach Hinshaw showed up that's when the floodgates really opened. But it's not like he had 40 offers instantly. It's just that compared to the silence we had been met with prior it was a big change."
Hinshaw's trip to Victory Christian was followed by a visit from the UMass coaching staff. Rutgers and NC State called.
"Then all of the in-state schools came," Lewis said. "FIU was the first one to come I guess because they hired Butch Davis probably before anybody else had their staff together yet. Willie Taggard left (USF) in late December and so Coach (Charlie) Strong had to get his staff together. FAU was going through a coaching change and we never really heard from Florida State, Miami or Florida until Florida came in about two weeks ago. But Coach Hinshaw was the first one."
Hinshaw and everyone else who came by wanted to make sure Abadi-Fitzgerald passed the eye test and measured up to how his coaches had promoted him.
"They wanted to see, is he really 6'6 or 6'7? Is he really 240? Do his hands really swallow yours when you shake his hand? Does he really have a size 16 shoe?" Lewis said. "To a coach, he always passed the eye test. It wasn't too much longer until the offers started coming."
In spite of Abadi-Fitzgerald's obvious attributes, his size and athleticism namely, there's no getting around the fact that he's a project.
"I don't think there's any question that he's been recruited on potential," Lewis said. "Because he's still learning the game. I remember the first couple of games we had, he would toss a 260-pound guard or tackle aside like it's nothing. Then he would get into the backfield and he'd just stare at the running back or quarterback like, 'What do I do next?' Obviously that got better as the season went on but he's still learning the game."
Lewis believes Abadi-Fitzgerald will benefit tremendously from becoming a year round football player.
"I think he had pretty good coaching here," Lewis said. "We've got a guy who played defensive line for Florida State and he's a very good coach. He was a very good player in his day. But when you're dealing with a high school kid and you've only got three or four months, it's a pretty short learning curve. He did what he could do and he's going to get better and better. When he gets to college he'll be learning the nuances of the game and the nuances of his position."
Lewis said Abadi-Fitzgerald could eventually play at 280 or 290 pounds "without batting an eyelash."
"He's athletic and a basketball player, and a pretty good basketball player at that. He's got great feet and hands," Lewis said.
Lewis believes Abadi-Fitzgerald best projects as a defensive end "coming off the edge like Jadeveon Clowney." But he said he's got the build and ability to play inside, if Kentucky wants to move him around. He also believes the Cats could groom him to play in coverage a bit.
"He could even be a tight end if they wanted to make him that. He's athletic enough to play just about anywhere," Lewis said.
But at first there's going to be a steep learning curve.
Lewis and his staff at Victory Christian were very up front with Kentucky and coaches from other schools that approached them. It was a struggle to gain exposure for Abadi-Fitzgerald, but however aggressive they were the coaches were always honest.
"We told them from the get-go, 'You're going to have to develop Abule.' It's going to be at least a year and maybe even two years before he's a great player," Lewis said. "But if you're willing to take the time, the potential is definitely there. I think every program that recruited him was aware of that."
Kentucky's coaching staff had the luxury of taking a calculated risk. It's not much of a risk at all, in fact, because the Cats already have arguably the best defensive line class in the program's modern history. Abadi-Fitzgerald isn't filling a void so much as complementing an already-impressive group.
Over the weekend Abadi-Fitzgerald took official visits to Kentucky and Florida on consecutive days.
"I think in hindsight what really swung things in Kentucky's favor, ultimately, were the people and the facilities," Lewis said. "Kentucky's done an amazing job in the last year and moving forward in terms of improving their facilities and making them second to none.
"And then there's the spiritual aspect. That was very important to Abule and the Fitzgerald family. They said everybody they met, whether they were eating a meal or doing something else and whether it was a student-athlete, someone from the academic department or a coach, no matter who, they all took the time to bow their head and say a prayer," Lewis said. "It was heartfelt prayer. They got to meet the character coach there at Kentucky and those were the kinds of things that really impressed the Fitzgeralds.
"That's not to say others didn't have it. It just seemed to be real natural at Kentucky. They really appreciated that. They felt like not only would Kentucky take the time to develop him as a football player, but they would take the time to develop him as a person," Lewis said.
Abadi-Fitzgerald and his adopted family felt the same positive vibe at Florida International, Lewis said.
"But when all things are equal and you can throw in the fact you have these incredible facilities (at Kentucky), it makes it hard to turn down an SEC school when comparing it to a mid-major," Lewis said. "I think it was going to be between FIU and Kentucky and those were some of the things that ultimately led him to Kentucky."
From Nigeria to Florida, in search of educational opportunities and a basketball future, and now to Lexington — just not for the sport Lexington or Abadi-Fitzgerald have been best known for over the years.
