Thanksgiving was a special time for Baltimore (MD) St. Frances Academy OL Sunny Odogwu.
It was a time for him to reflect on where he's come from.
And where he's going.
It was just two years ago that Odogwu was awarded a basketball scholarship to play in the United States from his home country Nigeria. In the U.S. he has his own bedroom. In Africa he shared a 12x12 room with 10 family members. With one bed pushed up against a wall for his parents, there was no room for him to sleep inside. So he'd take a wooden mat, lay it down outside the front door and go to sleep.
The mosquitoes lay in wait every night.
"I still have the marks of bug bites all over me - it was hard," said Odogwu, who says `Sunny' is his given name and that he thinks it's fitting because "I'm always smiling."
Odogwu's father, a carpenter, died shortly before he came to America. His mother is a seamstress struggling to bring home enough for the family.
Which is why it brought tears to his family's eyes when Odogwu sent home one of his first pictures from the U.S.
There he was in 2009, standing in his host family's dining room with an enormous turkey leg in one hand, mouth wide open ready to devour it.
"They were so happy I had so much to eat," Odogwu said of his family's reaction to that picture.
When Odogwu lived in Africa he would help out by hunting for dinner.
"We would hunt grass cutter, which are like huge rats, bigger than cats," he said. "We'd eat that, go for deer and those things.
"The transition (to America) was tough at first. Here everybody has a lot to eat; how I was raised we never had it all."
Needless to say, it wasn't an easy decision for mom to let this 6-foot-9, 270-pounder leave home when he was helping provide for the family.
"It was a hard decision to let me come to the USA," Odogwu said. "But it was best for the family for me to have good education."
Now Odogwu is looking forward to continuing that education at a top college that won't cost him a cent - the Hurricanes were the first to give him serious recruiting interest and he says he has now added offers from West Virginia and Notre Dame. He visited West Virginia last weekend and will visit Notre Dame on Thursday.
He's in the process of setting up an official visit to Miami.
"We're sending his transcripts down now so we can get that set up," said Odogwu's high school coach, Messay Hailemariam.
Odogwu says of the Canes that "I've been following a lot about them, am thinking about going there. Miami's a great school. They have everything - good education, academics and everything and a good football program. It's in a good place."
Odogwu says there's a chance he'll graduate early.
And, asked if there's a decent chance he'll wind up a Hurricane, Odogwu said, "They have a pretty good chance because they are a great program. Following up on what they've done for a long time, they've been great. They have guys getting good degrees and making it to the next level."
Odogwu is in his first year playing organized football, so he's a raw talent.
Hailemariam says that "his hands and feet - he's the best prospect I've seen in a long time. He runs a 4.93 40. He's got athletic ability and he's smart. Anything you teach him, he's a fast learner."
Odogwu initially attended Huntington Prep in West Virginia, earning a basketball scholarship there after he wowed at a camp in Georgia. He competed in basketball, soccer and track at the school before transferring to St. Frances this year.
So how did it come about that he began playing football this season?
"I came to Maryland and began playing football because people said I was too aggressive for basketball," Odogwu said. "And I've been learning football. I love football. You can hit and nobody will call fouls, so it's awesome."
Sounds like a nice hard working young man. Well disciplined, too.
