Some might say that athletic talent is a quality people are born with. They might even say it runs in the family.
In the world of sports today, brothers like Eli and Peyton Manning both excel as NFL quarterbacks. Multiple siblings also represent Ohio State athletics, such as the Homan brothers in football and the Hill siblings in basketball.
For the Chekwa family, athletic excellence is practically an expectation.
Senior cornerback Chimdi Chekwa is the youngest of six children, all of whom have excelled at sports on the high school or collegiate level.
Before the talented children came talented parents. Chimdi’s father, Charles, played professional soccer on Nigeria’s national team. His mother, Eunice, was also an athlete, running track during her younger years.
According to Charles, sports were just as popular for his family growing up in Nigeria.
“All of my brothers and sisters were involved in athletics too,” Charles said. “My older brothers played softball and ran track, and my younger sisters did too. When we grew up, it was just natural for you to get involved.”
Chimdi is preceded by three older brothers: Uche, the oldest; Chima, the second-oldest; and Ike, the third-oldest.
“For me, it was my older brothers and sisters who inspired me to do sports,” Chimdi said. “I just watched them and they loved sports, so I loved sports. When you have the brothers, you basically do what they do.”
Being the oldest brother, Uche paved the way for the rest of the family.
“My oldest brother ran track and played a little football,” Chimdi said. “His sport was track. He ran it in high school — he won state in the 400 meters. Then he ended up getting a scholarship for Virginia Military Institute.”
From there, the stage was set.
Because he was plagued by injury, Chima Chekwa did not play sports at the collegiate level, but the second-oldest brother still starred as a three-sport athlete in track, football and basketball during his high school years. More recently, Chima has made his debut not in athletics, but on the big screen in various films.
Ike, the third Chekwa son, started playing football partway through high school, but it was not an easy road.
“With my parents coming from another country, they didn’t know about football too much. My mom didn’t really want my older brother to play football at first,” Chimdi said. “It took a lot of begging and begging until they were allowed to play football, so they each got started really late.”
Ike went on to junior college before transferring to Texas State to play football. After his college career, he also spent several years playing in the Arena Football League in Corpus Christi.
Chimdi also has two older sisters, who each played a different sport at the collegiate level. Blessing, the oldest sister, played college basketball at Mississippi State, and the youngest sister, Nonye, currently plays volleyball for Warner State in Florida.
Each member of the family was brought up with lofty athletic expectations.
“The one thing was, if you didn’t do well in your sport, you didn’t really want to keep doing it,” Chimdi said. “If I played basketball and I didn’t think I was good at it, I wouldn’t play it. After your game you’d come home and everybody would tell you that you need to do this, you need to do that. Everybody expects you to be good, because they were good.”
In the Chekwa household, the competition isn’t necessary ugly nor friendly, just something everyone has in common.
“It’s not fierce (competition), we just understand each other,” Chimdi said. “We understand that if we don’t do good, it is going to be criticized. If you ran a 10.6-second 100-meter, then they ran a 10.3-second 100-meter.”
The Chekwa family is currently scattered in various states across the country, from Florida to Louisiana on up to Ohio. Because of their busy work or school schedules, the siblings can’t support each other as much as they might like.
“It’s difficult. We basically just talk to each other on the phone,” Chimdi said. “At this point, they’re just coming out of school and working and they don’t get the opportunity to get to many of my games.”
For the parents, attendance at sporting events had to be divided while the kids grew up, so everyone had someone there supporting them.
“It was challenging,” Charles said. “We divided up the assignments, but if we had to miss a particular child’s game we would have to miss someone else’s so no one would feel bad in the end.”
Chimdi might have the busiest schedule of them all, as he has run track for three of his four years at OSU in addition to playing football. He has experienced success in both, winning the 4×100-meter race in the Big Ten Championships for track and recording Big Ten titles in football as well.
“At the stage I am now, I’m not really a role model, but something they can all be proud of,” Chimdi said. “A lot of my brothers were really good at sports, but they didn’t get the opportunity that I had.”
Rooted in strong Christian values, Charles Chekwa always told his family to “put God first, and everything else would fall in line.”
While watching the Heisman trophy presentation in high school, Chimdi’s mother also had some words of wisdom for him, as she told her son that one day he too would win that trophy.
“I told her I don’t even play a position that will win the Heisman,” Chimdi said. “But they want me to be that motivated person, and I take what she has to say seriously.”
The Chekwas hold high standards for their youngest son as he heads into his final year as both a student and athlete.
“We expect him to have an outstanding year this year. We believe he should perform to the best he possibly can, just leave it all out on the field,” Charles said. “He’s a very good boy.
It can be a very big challenge to balance academics and athletics, but he does it well, and we are so proud of him.”
