NORMAN - Danny Okoye’s impact at Oklahoma reaches well beyond the edge.
The Sooners defensive end is expected back Saturday against Michigan after missing the opener with an injury, and OU will need him in a hurry against Bryce Underwood and the Wolverines offense. But Okoye has been making noise in a different lane, too - through community work that has become a real part of who he is.
This summer, he hosted a free football camp for kids in Tulsa. The day ran long, the crowd was big and the heat was brutal, so the details are fuzzy for him now.
One moment stuck. As the camp was wrapping up, a young camper came up and told him, “Oh, my gosh!”
the kid said. “This is so cool!
I’m never gonna forget you.”
Okoye remembers thinking the boy meant it.
That kind of connection fits the broader picture around him. Since arriving at OU, he has visited elementary schools, packed supplies for underprivileged children, delivered care packages to foster families, mentored kids in a group home, painted, cleaned and logged hundreds of volunteer hours.
Now he has tied football directly to that work. Okoye has partnered with the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which was launched after 9/11 and supports homes for military and first-responder families. He is the first student-athlete connected with the foundation to link his production to a payout: $100 for every tackle, $200 for every sack and $500 for every interception this season.
“My brother Stephen gave his life running toward danger so that others could live,” foundation chairman and CEO Frank Siller said in a release of his brother, a New York City firefighter who died on 9/11, “and it is people like Danny who feel that same sense of duty and responsibility that keeps his legacy alive every single day.”
Okoye was already on the radar for his service. He made the SEC Football Community Service Team a year ago and landed on the preseason watch list for the Wuerffel Trophy, college football’s Heisman Trophy of community service, earlier this fall.
Still, he says the recognition isn’t the point.
“Just trying to be myself and keep the standards that I've held my whole life and the principles that I've learned being surrounded by good people and being influenced by good people,” he said.
For Okoye, the urge to give back comes from where he started.
“Coming from Tulsa, I didn't really have a lot,” he said. “One bedroom apartment with my mom, my dog, pretty much my whole life.”
Football was the constant. He played youth ball in Tulsa, then continued at Tulsa NOAH after being homeschooled.
That’s where Smokey Hurst first entered the picture. Hurst, part of Bob Stoops’ first recruiting class at OU and a Sooner from 1999-2003, began coaching at NOAH when his sons joined the team. He became the defensive coordinator when Okoye was a junior and his recruiting was taking off.
Before Okoye’s senior season, Hurst asked him to coffee and learned more about what was going on at home. Money was tight, help was limited, and the family situation was hard.
“So we just kind of stepped in,” Hurst said.
That started with helping fix Okoye’s car. Then came meals, a birthday party and more. When Okoye was selected as an Army All-American and invited to the showcase game in San Antonio, the Hursts asked who would go with him.
“Who’s going to go with you?” they asked.
“Nobody,” Okoye told them.
“Well, we’re going to make a weekend out of it. We’re going to go.”
A few weeks later, they helped him move to OU as an early enrollee. While unloading on campus in Norman, Meagan Hurst was handed paperwork.
“Here you go, Mom,” someone said.
The Hursts pulled that person aside.
“Whoa, whoa,” they said. “This doesn’t add up.”
The reason was simple enough: Okoye had listed Smokey and Meagan Hurst as his parental guardians. Later that night, over dinner, they asked him what he wanted from them.
“We’re here for anything and everything,” they said. “What do you want? What do you need?”
“I just want you guys in my life,” Okoye told them.
Since then, the Hursts have become family in every sense. They already had four children of their own, but just before fall practices began at OU last month, they made it official and adopted Okoye.
Smokey Hurst said the change has been profound.
“There was a time in high school where he just was running on fumes because he had no food, no comfort, no security,” Smokey Hurst said. “It was just, ‘How do I make it to the next day. Now, he’s realizing how much he has with the opportunities God’s blessed him with.
“He’s moved from surviving to thriving over the last three years.”
Okoye says seeing hardship up close changed him, too.
“Seeing people just stuck in that situation,” he said, “it’s like, ‘Dang, I want to be able to do something.’”
And he has acted on that feeling. Starting with his first semester at OU, when he joined other players on a mission trip to South Africa, he has looked for ways to help. During a family gathering, he spoke with Hurst’s brothers - one the fire chief in Owasso, the other a police officer - and the conversation turned to lives saved by Narcan, the anti-opioid drug that reverses an overdose.
Not long after, Okoye learned of a chance to promote Narcan through a name, image, likeness deal.
“Danny has experienced people in his life that if they would have had something as readily available as Narcan, would their life be different? Would they still be here?” Smokey Hurst said.
“It has some meaning behind it.”
His Tunnel to Towers work carries meaning, too, especially because Hurst’s brothers, now Okoye’s uncles, are first responders like many who died on 9/11.
Okoye says he wants to keep finding more ways to help.
“I never knew it was going to get to this level,” he said, “but I'm thankful to God that He brought me here and that He's turning it into what He's turning it into.”
Hurst sees the bigger picture clearly.
“It’s that old African proverb - when God blesses you, do you expand your table or do you build a fence?
“He’s expanding his table.”
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That drop has only added to the sense that Oklahoma could be backed by more than the usual traveling crowd. With Michigan fans cooling on the game after their recent performance, the balance in the stadium may lean more heavily toward crimson than many expected when the matchup was first circled. For a road team in a setting like this, that kind of noise shift can matter almost as much as anything that happens on the field. [Read more 🡒]