The Long Road Back The story of an up-and-down year in the life of a college football player.

FINDLAY- Corey Olaniyan had it from the time he was born. It was evident to any and everyone who saw him play athletics from the time he was a kid. Those days seem long ago...playing sports as a kid without any kind of inkling of knowing any better. By the time he was 18 years old, Olaniyan had it all. More importantly, he had it.

By the time his high school football career was over, he drew arguments of being perhaps the most gifted athlete to ever put on a Norwalk football jersey. Certainly, he was top three or four at minimum. Records? He has just about all of them at his respective positions on offense and defense. Game-changing plays to turn the momentum or win a game? At least five or six of those, too.

Olaniyan had agreed to a scholarship offer with Division I Bowling Green during the summer of 2004 entering his senior season. But in the early winter of 2005, some personal issues brought an end to that. After breaking off ties with Bowling Green, in less than 24 hours the University of Findlay contacted Olaniyan and had a football scholarship worth $19,000 in tuition waiting for him to sign. It wasn't Division I, but it was a major Division II school that eagerly wanted to sign him.

"When your being recruited you get told just about everything you want to hear," Olaniyan said of the recruiting process. "It's almost as if you can do no wrong. They love you, they tell you how good of an athlete you are...how good you can be at their school. But once you get here it's almost like a business. Yeah, it's fun to play football...but it's like having a full-time job up here. What you did in high school means nothing."

Olaniyan was now set to be a true freshman for the Findlay program, as a wide receiver and a defensive back playing both ways. Just a few days into camp...he was just a defensive back. A week later, he was moved to a full-time safety. Every time he turned around, it was a new position. Once the season started, he was playing defensive back again. Then he started playing on punt return. Midway through the season, he was suddenly inserted as a starter at safety and recorded eight tackles against a ranked Northwood team. By season's end, he had registered 22 tackles as a freshman and was considered a lock to start at safety for the entire 2006 season. But the entire process of school and football was beginning to wear on Olaniyan.

"School work is tough sometimes," he said. "You have to be disciplined. My classes started at 8:00am and didn't finish until 2:00pm. In between you have to find time to eat and study films, then around 3:00pm it's time for a three-hour practice. It gets hard to balance it because there is no time to be tired. If you get below a 2.0 the school doesn't let you back and your career is over. The coaches here harp on good academics. If you do not get above a 2.5 then your at study tables 3-4 times a week. Its tough doing school work and football, but you have to learn how to balance it to get on the field."

The whirlwind continued over the winter for Olaniyan, as while working out with other receivers and defensive backs during agility drills he ran a 4.40 sprint in the 40-yard dash. Suddenly, he was back to a wide receiver again...full-time.

"I had showed I could get it done on the defensive side of the ball," he said. "But this year we only had two seniors coming back with the receivers, so Coach Simrell asked me to come over and help out. In the spring I played as a slot receiver and I didn't do too bad, but we got here in camp and I came in a little stronger and bigger, and that position is more for a quick little, shifty guy. I got moved out to Z which is an outside receiver, and I showed better results and became the starter."

The 2006 Findlay media guide was then released, and already had labeled Olaniyan for big things. The excerpt read:

"Also returning to the Oilers receiving corps will be 
red-shirt junior George Ashman and sophomore Corey 
Olaniyan. Olaniyan, who saw most of his time last year as 
a defensive back, has big play potential as a wide 
receiver and will be counted on to make the transition 
from defense to offense this season."

As Olaniyan was set to start training camp for the upcoming season with his role now defined, yet another setback came his way in blindsiding fashion. On August 6th, late on a Sunday afternoon, former Norwalk teammate Patrick Smith was riding motorcycles with another of Olaniyan's good friends, former Norwalk soccer player Dylan Flew. Smith lost control of his bike, and collided with Smith. Smith escaped relatively OK physically, but Flew hit his head on the pavement and did not recover. He died a couple days later, just a few days shy of his 21st birthday, sending the entire Norwalk community for a jolt.

"The camp started off rough when Dylan died," Olaniyan said. "I was just having a rough time with that. I wasn't running the right routes and I had all kinds of drops. Finally, Coach Sim called me to the side to talk to me about how he had lost his good friend when he was younger and how hard it was for him. Then my position coach had the same talk with me and kept it real with me. He told me that I flat out wasn't going to play if I didn't get my act together. I was all the way down to third string for the first week. I finally started to get my head right and became first string until then..."

Just when it didn't seem possible that anything else could happen, Olaniyan felt a pinching sensation in his leg. Sure enough, he had the all-time classic football injury...a pulled hamstring muscle. He was now going to be on the sideline watching for a week while others battled for his position. It was then the emotions of everything had caught up to him. Perhaps it was all a sign...there were no doubts his natural ability was a gift, but maybe football just wasn't meant to be fore Corey Olaniyan?

"For a while I was really down," he said. "I even thought about quitting for a very, very long time. I finally sat back and talked to a few of my friends from back home and realized what football was to me, and how many people would be upset if I didn't play. People like my old football coaches, friends, and mostly my parents and the kids that looked up to me in the younger grades while I was at Norwalk. I mean, a lot of people would do anything to get a chance to play college football, and that was something I had to come to terms with. Ultimately, it's what convinced me I had to play."

As it stands now, the Oilers will open their season this Saturday, August 26th vs. Charleston, WV. It's been a difficult process, but when it's time for kickoff Olaniyan will be in the starting lineup as a wide receiver. He had made it back to where he wanted to be...where he needed to be. But it's been a long, hard road...yet it was only one in what will be four years. When asked about potential high school kids that want to play college football, Olaniyan offered this bit of wisdom and advice.

"You have to understand right away its a full-time job," he said. "I was off for a total of four weeks from football during the school year...that's it. The game is tougher and a lot faster. I have to prepare every week by studying film. That is big in college, and without it, it's tough to succeed. There are kids on the team that can run a 4.29 dash but they don't have the other skills to get it done and they are lazy. You are constantly being evaluated. One day you can be first string and the next your a third string player or even playing a different position. You have got to love the game of football to play in college, because if you don't, it wont be any fun. It's all business now."