8 minute read
Just Being Real
Sam Acho thought he had it all: money, fame, security. But in reality he was broken, carrying weight he wasn’t meant to. So he surrendered it to God, and the NFL veteran is now on a mission to encourage others to be their authentic selves through a relationship with Christ.
BY JOSHUA DOERING
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< Sam Acho filming for Football Sunday 2021
am Acho felt like he had finally made it. It was the s to Nigeria, which Sam started going on at age 15. The first summer of 2018 and Acho had just just signed a two-year, time he went, he met a girl who had moved to the village they $5.5 million contract to stay with the Chicago Bears, following were visiting to help take care of his grandmother. three one-year deals with the team. About to enter his eighth Her name was Ngozi Ebichi. They were married in 2014. NFL season, it was one of the high points of his career. After starring at St. Mark’s School in Dallas from 2003-2006,
And yet, Acho was broken and lost. Acho committed to play at the University of Texas. It was there
“It seemed like right around that time, the seams started that his faith really began to grow. to fall apart in my life,” Acho said in his interview for Football One of his new teammates was a redshirt freshman backup Sunday 2021. quarterback named Trevor Walker. As Acho was heading
He wasn’t loving his wife, Ngozi, the way he wanted to. He to practice one day, he saw Walker waiting for an elevator, was getting angry at his kids. He was anxious “all the time.” reading his Bible. Walker invited Acho to get into the Word
The week before he reported to training camp, Acho met with him. up with a friend and revealed everything that was going on. “It was at that point I said, ‘OK. There’s something different His friend suggested he go see a counselor, which Acho did at about this guy,’” Acho said. “And oh, by the way, there’s an the beginning of training camp. The counselor advised Acho opportunity for me to actually walk out and live out this faith to start journaling. He did so in his dorm room that night, and that I talked about.” the tears started flowing. Walker challenged Acho to live out his faith on a daily basis.
It happened again the next day in the locker room. They would do Bible studies and go to church with 10-25 Teammates came alongside him and offered support when teammates. The group called itself C.O.A.H — short for City they saw the pain he was in. Soon after, he reached out to on a Hill — and continued to grow throughout Acho’s time some of the team’s staff members asking for prayers. in Austin.
“The weight I’d been trying to carry was this weight of By the time he was a junior, he was a regular contributor at perfection,” Acho said. “I have it all together. I have all the defensive end, and Emmanuel had joined him at Texas. The answers. I’m the star. I’m the guy. I’m great. And God’s like, ‘I 2009 Longhorns went 13-0 to set up a meeting with Alabama didn’t [mean] to have you carry that. I want you to get to know in the national championship game, which they lost after Me and to spend time with Me. That’s all I want. I am enough, quarterback Colt McCoy left with an injury. not you.’ I was never living that out, but I started to.” Acho finished his college career with 32.5 tackles for loss and 21 sacks in 49 games, helping lead Texas to a top-10 finish in the final AP poll in three of his four seasons. The Arizona Cardinals picked him in the fourth round of the 2011 draft. He made immediate and significant contributions in the NFL. As a rookie, Acho registered seven sacks and forced three fumbles while appearing in every game. He started he story of Acho’s relationship with Christ begins with all 16 contests in year two, contributing four sacks, two his parents, Sonni and Christie, who were born in Nigeria. interceptions, two fumbles and 48 tackles. They moved to the United States in their early 20s after Acho signed the first of those three one-year deals with the missionaries found Sonni preaching the Gospel on top of Bears at the conclusion of his four-year rookie contract. From a bus. 2015 to 2017, he missed just one game, started 25 times and
The Acho family settled in Dallas, where Sam and his collected 111 tackles. Chicago rewarded him with the twoyounger brother, Emmanuel, were raised. Every other year deal following the end of the 2017 season. Christmas, they would travel to Nigeria to visit family. Their As Acho went from a rookie to a young player to a veteran, parents also participated in an annual medical missions trip he built relationships in the communities he played and
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looked for ways to use the influence he had as a professional athlete. A gift drive for prisoners, supported by a sermon at his church focusing on Jesus’ charge to remember those in chains, piqued Acho’s interest in prison ministry. But he wanted to do more than just send supplies.
He then received an invitation from his pastor to join him on a trip to the Louisiana State Penitentiary — “Angola” — the largest maximum security prison in the United States, formerly among the most dangerous in the world. The experience challenged and inspired Acho.
“I felt safer there than I do outside of those walls,” Acho said. “And the reason why is that the men there had encountered Jesus. There’s no better way to say it.”
He went back the following year and the year after that. He started visiting other prisons as well. For Acho, it is a way to emulate Christ by spreading the Good News of salvation and help change lives.
“It doesn’t matter who you are,” he said. “God offers you restoration and I’ve seen people restored. Not only do I want that, but I want to extend that to anybody I come in contact with. Jesus wouldn’t avoid prisons. Jesus went. That’s who He hung out with.”
At the end of the 2018 season, Acho found himself as a free agent again. He signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers midway through the 2019 season and played in eight games. Acho finished the year with three tackles, a forced fumble and a sack. That was the last time the 32-year-old played in an NFL game.
cho’s off-the-field endeavors go far beyond his involvement with prison ministries and have expanded in 2020 without an NFL season to focus on. In February, he started “The Home Team” podcast with ESPN’s Sam Ponder and pastor Steve Carter. After George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, Acho helped facilitate listening circles among youth, police officers and athletes in Chicago. He also organized a fundraising effort that raised $500,000 to turn a Chicago liquor store into a youth-led food market called Austin Harvest.
His contributions in the fight for racial equality are motivated by a desire to emulate Christ and support those in need.
“If you’ll allow yourself to listen and not harden your heart, you’ll see a couple things,” Acho said. “One, you’ll see some of the sin that you’ve been ignoring. But then you’ll also hear your brothers and your sisters pleading for your help. And I think there’s a really great opportunity to model what Jesus modeled, of speaking up for those who couldn’t speak up for themselves.”
The freedom Acho has found since opening up about the struggles he was going through in the summer of 2018 taught him the importance of being vulnerable and authentic. It was a lesson he wanted to share with others — so much so, in fact, that he wrote an entire book about it. “Let the World See You: How to be Real in a World Full of Fakes” came out on Oct. 13.
Being authentic is a choice that has to be made over and over again, just like choosing to place your trust in Christ.
“Every day I have to make a decision,” Acho said. “The Bible talks about taking up your cross daily and following [Jesus]. Am I going to take up my cross and be real, be authentic? Or am I going to pretend and act like I have it all together and act like I have all the answers? It’s a daily decision.”
That’s the lesson God is teaching Acho now: how to maintain that authentic, Christ-centered mindset through the ups and downs of life and remember He is present in every set of circumstances.
“I’m learning how to make a decision but then follow through with that decision, even when it comes up to obstacles or interference or turmoil or doubt or pain. God is in the pain,” he said. “Jesus is walking with us in our pain, in our doubt, in our confusion, in our sadness, in our grief, in our anger — and in our joy and our excitement and our happiness and in our ups and in our downs. He is with us. And many people don’t understand that.”
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