Owah Makes The Grade – On The Field
By Marcus Helton
HARRISONBURG — Tony Owah did more than enough on the field to make his dream of playing Division I college football a reality.
It’s because of what he didn’t do off of it, though, that that his path to that goal is taking a detour.
The recently graduated Harrisonburg High School star has decided to go the prep school route to boost his grades and stock among recruiters, and all indications are he’s picked the right place to do it.
Last month, Owah was chosen from among 1,500 applicants to fill one of the 70 roster spots at powerhouse Milford Academy in New Berlin, N.Y., next season.
"I just thought that that school would be the best place for me to go D-I," Owah said this month at his family’s Harrisonburg home, "’cause I really never wanted to play Division II or Division III. Not that anything is wrong with it, I just thought that I’m a Division I athlete."
Owah certainly showed D-I caliber skills during his three-year varsity career, developing into one of the Blue Streaks’ best and most versatile players.
Along the way, he made a name for himself within the sibling trio that has become synonymous with HHS’s new millennium football dominance. His older brother Andy starred at running back before graduating in 2006, while younger brother Alex – a rising junior – led the area in rushing as a sophomore.
As a senior, Tony Owah was the team’s leading receiver for the second straight year, hauling in 21 passes for 398 yards and six touchdowns. He also played defensive back – earning first-team All-Valley District honors on both sides of the ball – and returned kicks.
Off the field, however, Owah admits he sabotaged himself by waiting too long to focus academically.
"It did start for me late," he said. "I really wasn’t [concerned]. I was a little high school superstar, so I wasn’t really like, ‘I need to do this in order to get here.’"
While Owah said his grade point average hovered around a 2.8 late in his senior year, his SAT scores – which he declined to reveal – fell short of the qualifying standards at several schools that showed interest.
Among those suitors, the 5-foot-11, 185-pounder said, were Division I-A Georgia Tech, I-AA James Madison and Massachusetts, and Division II Shepherd (W.Va.) and Saint Augustine’s (N.C.).
"A lot of schools looked at me," he said, "but my SAT scores weren’t up there and they didn’t come in [after retaking them] in time for me to, like, be able to get into those schools."
With his qualifying status in doubt, Owah said college coaches on the combine circuit began telling him about Milford, a football-only preparatory school located 18 miles from Cooperstown. The school opened in 1906, but became a non-profit, post-graduate-only program in 1965.
Owah said that after his father, Andrew, looked up the school on the Internet, they called Milford coach Bill Chaplick, who invited them for a visit in early May.
While at the school, Owah took part in a combine-style workout and impressed Chaplick and his staff by running the 40-yard dash in 4.55 seconds and bench-pressing 225 pounds 11 times.
"We just think he’s going to be a good player, you know?" Chaplick said. "His speed, his size -- we just think he’s going to fit. Overall, we just liked everything about him."
Chaplick said players either apply or are recommended to his program, which has become a springboard to Division I.
"There’s a lot of talent up there," Owah said. "The players told me the practices are harder than the games."
Of the 60 players on last year’s roster, 18 received scholarships to Division I-A schools, while 15 more signed with I-AA programs. Offensive MVP Graig Cooper is headed to the University of Miami, while Defensive MVP Jermaine Pierce is going to Syracuse.
"We expect him to come here and have a good summer camp and be a starter here," Chaplick said of Owah, who is listed on the roster as a defensive back. "If you’re a starter here, you get a scholarship, so we plan on him having the pick of wherever he wants to go by the time he’s done."
Chaplick said the majority of players in the program leave to enroll in four-year schools the following spring, while some stay a full year and a small number for two.
They attend the academy for varying reasons.
"There’s plenty of kids with SAT problems," he said. "Some kids are learning disabled, some kids just have a low GPA, some kids are already cleared and came from a high school that didn’t have good exposure. There’s a hundred different reasons, and there really is never one exactly the same as another."
Owah said he’d like to parlay his time at Milford into an offer from a fairly local D-I school – JMU, West Virginia, Virginia Tech or U.Va – in order to be close to his family.
"I’m happy to get away," he said. "I know that I’m going to miss my family the most, but it’s just something I need to do to get where I need to go, so I think it’s a good thing."
Owah hopes the move proves as beneficial to his career as his last one.
All three Owah brothers were born in Enid, Okla., and the family came to Harrisonburg when Tony was in the third grade after his father – a manager at Perdue in Bridgewater – got a job transfer. Their mother, Henrietta, is a nurse in New Market.
Despite their time in the football-crazy Midwest, however, Tony Owah said football – and athletics in general – were an afterthought in his house.
"We didn’t play any sports," he said. "When we came here, we talked to some friends and they just got us involved in like Pee-Wee and Midget [League], and then that’s when we started noticing that we had talent and we could do something with it. Back where I used to live, we didn’t know anything about it."
The Streaks’ athletic programs are undoubtedly happy the Owahs moved east.
"It’s real good," Tony Owah said of his family’s run at HHS. "We’ve made a name for ourselves, and it can be bad at some times, because we feel like we’ve got a lot of pressure on us and we have to do good. We don’t ever want someone to be able to classify us as good athletes that didn’t go anywhere. We all just want to do our best and compete with anybody."
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