Okoye, whose birth name is Basil but goes by an abbreviation of his middle name, Chijioke, grew up mostly playing basketball. He was a center in the Nigerian big leagues when he was noticed by Ejike Ugboaja, a 2006 draft pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who was scouting one of the games.
Ugboaja and a friend of Okoye’s suggested that he should try out for the Uprise football camp hosted by Osi Umenyiora, a Nigerian former NFL player and two-time Super Bowl champion and Pro Bowl defensive end with the New York Giants. Okoye went to the camp and bombed the drills, but when it came to actually playing the game for the first time, he was alright.
“My coach was like, ‘C.J., you did [crappy] in the drills, but when it comes to playing, you went off like you’ve already played this,'” Okoye remembers.
Okoye got an invite to the first NFL Africa camp held in Ghana in 2022. It was his first time actually playing football. As an offensive tackle, he was named the Offensive MVP.
He was then one of 38 players from 13 countries to participate in the NFL International Combine in London, and from there was chosen as one of 13 players in the NFL International Player Pathway Program. That meant a 10-week training camp at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where he was converted to defensive line and got new instructions.
“You need to go get that guy that you think was important [the quarterback],” Okoye said. “And don’t let anybody from this side of the ball go to this side of the ball. Don’t let anybody run past you. Now, that’s your assignment.”
In May of 2023, Okoye found out he was one of eight players who made the final cuts and was allocated to the Chargers. In his first-ever organized football game, a preseason game against the Los Angeles Rams, Okoye sacked quarterback Stetson Bennett, a two-time college football national champion at Georgia. Okoye didn’t even know what a sack was.