BULLHEAD CITY, Ariz.
A hundred-ish teenagers kneeled around him at Anderson Auto Group Field House, students summoned to the football field, eager to hear the sensei speak. But Las Vegas Raiders linebacker Segun Olubi wanted to hear their voices before camp began, grabbing the microphone to let them know.
“I’m an energy guy,” Olubi said, dressed in a long-sleeved Raiders shirt with matching black pants, white socks and orange Nikes.
“So on the count of three, we’re going to get the loudest yell we can possibly do. One, two, three.”
Silence from the students as Olubi yelled, his face toward the ceiling and his arms extended, prompting some laughs and another request a few seconds later.
“We need some energy. … On the count of three, the loudest yell we got.”
Energy matched. Camp underway.
The unvarnished passion with which Olubi organized his football camp in his onetime hometown has steadied him through the cycle of change that resulted in a one-year free-agent deal with Las Vegas. An NAIA recruit turned junior college transfer turned Division II starter turned Division I walk-on, Olubi, 26, is now a fifth-year force of will with a selfless spirit and sterling smile.
The Raiders watched him block a punt off the booming right foot of A.J. Cole in their loss last year to the Indianapolis Colts, seeing his special-teams prowess firsthand. His mother, Yemisi, a physician working in California’s Inland Empire, where he also once lived, watched him refuse to yield his dream as they canvassed the country throughout his youth.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” she said, cheesing after the camp concluded following two two-hour sessions then a break, the first with elementary school boys and girls. Wearing a Bullheads Firebirds Flames shirt, a nod to Olubi’s Pop Warner team, she added: “The fact that he would want to come back here and deposit something in this community, it just shows that he’s growing into a good man. A man who likes to give back and bring other people along with him in his journey.”
Campers were guided through stretches and drills by Olubi’s former coaches and teammates, Las Vegas edge rusher Kwity Paye — his former teammate with the Indianapolis Colts — and kicker Kansei Matsuzawa among them. Afterward, the Raiders trio signed dozens and dozens of autographs, drawing out grins they mirrored in photos for which they posed alongside their pupils.
Pizza and waters were also presented free of charge like the rest of the camp, along with black shirts adorned with the greater-than symbol in white across the front.
“It’s really just being greater than your circumstance,” Olubi explained standing 6-foot-1, chock-full of muscle at 233 pounds. “Being greater than any obstacle that comes toward you. And being able to be a pillar of light in your community, regardless of what happens to you in life.”
Regardless of no Division I scholarship offers.
Bullhead City became a base of sorts for Olubi, born in Philadelphia with stints in New Jersey and Minnesota’s Twin Cities — where his parents divorced and his mother did her occupational medical residency — sandwiched around one in Corona, California.
Sports provided a sense of stability and structure amid the constant movement in his youth.
Basketball, soccer and track and field filled Olubi’s idle time, but nothing resonates with him like football does. His mother bought him a Minnesota Vikings uniform for his elementary school’s “pro day,” foreshadowing the next 20 years … and counting.
“Since then, it’s just been this passion for football,” said Yemisi Olubi, from whom he and his brother, Gbenga, inherited their resilience — watching her grind through medical school. “He was able to take different things from different environments, develop adaptability and also learn how to integrate into different groups of people or teams.”
Olubi was in fourth grade when his family landed in Bullhead City, where the Anderson Auto Group Field House hadn’t been conceptualized, much less built. The desert town of 44,493 tucked across the Nevada border and nestled alongside the Colorado River supported his start.
Hence why he came back to host his camp, whether he played in Las Vegas or not.
Said Randy Moreno, a coach at the camp who coached Olubi in football and basketball his freshman year at Mohave High School — keeping in touch with him throughout his career: “There was not a selfish bone in body. Everything about him is how he can give back. Even at that time, I would give him a ride to practice and it was like ‘Coach, ahhh.’ I was like ‘Man, you’re good.’ … Before he was closer, he was still going to come back.”
The move to Corona enrolled Olubi, then a sophomore, at Centennial High School, for which he played across the defense, thriving also on special teams. Sometimes a safety, linebacker or gunner, he never found a positional home.
That “probably didn’t help him out a ton,” Huskies coach Matt Logan said, but it didn’t dim his passion or verve. “The pace and the intensity he played with is where I think we started to see of the separation of what he could become,” even if D-1 programs didn’t.
Without a D-1 scholarhip, Olubi made his way to College of Idaho, a NAIA program in Caldwell, Idaho, for which he played his freshman year. Then came a year at Saddleback College, a junior college in Mission Viejo, California, that led him as a junior to Harding College, a Division II school in Searcy, Arkansas.
All those stops and their corresponding coaches afforded him tangible takeaways he has since applied to his pro career: leadership at Idaho, belief at Saddleback, conviction at Harding, he said. If not for Harding’s discontinuation of his economics major, he might not have thought to walk on at San Diego State.
“I think about that too,” Olubi said, championing his faith in God. “I don’t harbor any type of negative ill will towards anybody, because everything happens for a reason.”
Olubi’s multi-positional background eased his adjustment to San Diego State, where he impressed on coaches with his processing and speed in addition to his customary all-out effort. With a defensive back’s burst and a linebacker’s thump, he was an ideal fit for the “Aztec” spot, a hybrid safety-linebacker role akin to the “Lobo” role manned by former New Mexico star (and Chicago Bears star turned Pro Football Hall of Famer) Brian Urlacher.
Depth on the defense — for which he eventually settled at weakside linebacker while serving as a standout on special teams — limited Olubi to seven games his senior year, compromised by COVID-19 and granting him a fifth-year scholarship campaign.
“It was just like one of those things where like — why did it take this long to do that?” said Olubi’s defensive coordinator at San Diego State, Kurt Mattix, now Ohio’s defensive coordinator. “Because they saw it. He’s beating corners and safeties and defensive backs in sprints because he didn’t know any other speed other than full-go.”
That’s in part why Olubi’s teammates voted him captain his senior season, the other part being his commitment as their teammate. He led by example, led with friendship, led with connection — and the hard conversation.
“He can look in the mirror and know that he was always giving his best in everything he did,” Mattix said. “Unbelievable person to be around. Always had smile on his face, unless he was mad at you because you got after him a little bit.”
Though 53 tackles in 14 games, including 3.5 for loss plus a pair of sacks, weren’t enough to get Olubi drafted in 2022, a 4.45-second 40-yard dash at his pro day helped him garner attention from NFL teams. First from the San Francisco 49ers, then the Colts, for whom he played the past four years.
Not that he was bothered by that.
“Those hard times, when you’re kind of learning to work by yourself, I learned that skill,” Olubi said. “I had learned to work in the dark and let that come to light.”
And to silver and black.
Las Vegas specials teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis said he’s “excited” to coach Olubi, calling him “twitchy,” a “difference maker” and noting he has already left a favorable impression.
The Raiders see him as a special teams standout. Bullhead City sees him as a hometown hero.
“For him to come back and to give into this kids and pour back into them, it’s great,” Moreno said. “A smaller area, it lets these kids know ‘If I have discipline and hard work, I can achieve my goals as well.’”
Contact Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on X.
