Wadley’s up in the sky, on the big ride

IOWA CITY - It was a big deal for 7-year-old Akrum Wadley to go to Dorney Park, a super-mega amusement and water park in his hometown of Newark, N.J. He talked his way into going with one of his mom's classes on one of those end-of-the-year field trips.

His mom, Sharonda, had some rules.

'I said ‘Come here,'” Sharonda said, 'and I looked down at him and said, ‘You don't get in the water and you don't get on any big rides.”

'OK, mom.”

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The story of Akrum Wadley and football is all about walking.

His high school, University High, didn't have football. Kids interested in playing were able to pick their school. Of course, it had to be convenient. Wadley picked Weequahic High because of friends and because of the fact that it was a 15-minute walk from University.

The bell would ring at University. Wadley would get together with his five or six friends who also played at Weequahic (pronounced Weequay).

'We were like brothers,” Wadley said. 'The quarterback, Kedar Clark, was with me. Yusef Wright was with me. We would all get together. We were really close. We would just walk over to the field.

'Sometimes, we took the bus. Sometimes, we drove,” Wadley said. 'We liked to walk, especially on the hot days. It was a good feeling. We were the leaders of the school.”

Wadley was an untouchable wisp at Weequahic. As a senior, he rushed for 1,548 yards and 25 touchdowns. On special teams, he totaled 371 yards and four touchdowns, including a 95-yard return in the state championship game.

The walk to Weequahic led to football and that lead to scholarship opportunities and, eventually, Iowa.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but Iowa once was huge in Newark. Former Barringer High School coach Frank Verducci taught and counseled Hawkeyes Andre Tippett, Norm Granger, Cedric Shaw, Keith Hunter and George Person at Barringer. Bo Porter, a two-sport star at Iowa and former manager of the Houston Astros, also is a Weequahic alumnus.

Verducci contacted Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz, who visited Newark twice to see Wadley.

'I just wanted to get away, I wanted to get away from New Jersey,” Wadley said. 'I grew up there and I wanted to experience something new. I just felt it.”

This is when the Iowa staff met Sharonda Wadley. She's a mother of five boys. She's been a physical education teacher and coach in the Newark school system her entire working life. She had some instructions for Ferentz. Not demands, mind you, but instructions.

'You can lead him, but I don't want you to ‘pet' him,” she said. 'The coach's ‘pet,' the teacher's ‘pet,' they don't work hard.”

Yeah, Iowa is pretty far away, a 16-to-17-hour car ride, in fact, that the family took for the season opener against Illinois State. Still, No. 2 on the list of instructions was . . . keep him in Iowa City.

'We live five minutes from Weequahic and it's $3 to get in the game and still not everyone could make it, so, no, I wasn't going to let what we could afford to do or not do get in my son's way,” Sharonda said. 'I said to coach Ferentz, if you tell me my son is going to graduate, become a good man and great character, then you send him back in 2017.

'You got him. I don't want him before then. You got him, send him back in 2017.”

During Iowa's bye week, Wadley could've gone home for a weekend. Instead, he watched football on TV, worked out and went swimming (presumably indoors).

'Every once in a while, I try to go back,” Wadley said. 'They tell me, no, no, just stay out here. We're going to come out there. They tell me to stay out here. They know, they know.”

This is not a street thing. Sharonda pointed out Akrum was never that way. It's more about the distance and how hard it might be to return to Iowa once among friends back in Jersey.

Wadley had a cousin, Jamil, who had a football scholarship. He went home, he never went back.

'They're kind of afraid of that happening,” Wadley said.

Sharonda Wadley afraid? That doesn't sound right. We did mention that she has five boys, right? Patrick, 26, is the oldest. He's named after their dad. Akrum is no. 2. Then, there's Donovan, 12, who was named after Donovan McNabb. There also are twins, Trevor and Blake, 10, who were given those names because they sounded like soap opera stars names.

Akrum?

'One of my close friends in high school used that name for one of her sons,” Sharonda said. 'I liked it when I heard it.”

Sharonda Wadley is a physical education teacher at Peshine Academy in Newark. She's been a coach in the district and was a vicious basketball player in high school. Her 1983 Malcolm X Shabazz prep team went 29-0 and was inducted into the Newark Athletics Hall of Fame.

Sharonda took charge with sports from day 1 with Akrum, who was a star basketball player at University High. She takes some credit for Akrum's vision. The example she used to teach him was a pump fake in basketball. Why do you always jump when you see a pump fake?

'Sometimes when I call him up, I'll say, ‘How come in basketball the pump fake is always effective?'” she said. 'And he says, ‘Because once the brain sends you a signal and tells you to do something, you can't cancel it.'”

She said she saw some of that in Iowa's 40-10 victory at Northwestern. Wadley went into the game after senior running back Jordan Canzeri suffered an ankle injury and finished with career highs of 26 carries for 204 yards and four TDs. On his 35-yard TD run in the second quarter, Wadley made a move in a one-on-one situation to break the play open.

There was the brain.

Akrum Wadley's brain is showing up more and more in this. One of the constant reminders from Iowa coaches has been making weight. Wadley would go through 7-to-10-pound swings from practice to practice this fall. His nutrition wasn't what it needed to be. The culprit was honey BBQ chicken wings.

Mom had some advice here.

'You're going to be a buffalo wing eater anywhere you go,” she said. 'What they're asking you is very simple. They asking you to eat. How hard is that?”

The other constant has been ball security, which is tied into the weight thing (Wadley said his target is 185 and he came in at 183-84 this week). Wadley has taken to carrying a ball around during down time in practice and around campus.

He finished the 2014 season, which included a nice 106-yard debut against Northwestern, with three fumbles in 33 carries. He began 2015 anew. Wadley had 15 family members make the long drive from Newark to Iowa City. Three carries into 2015, an Illinois State defender chopped at the ball and he fumbled. He didn't see it coming.

The family was so happy to see him on the field. And then that. They made the trip and then that.

That one got him. Maybe that's when the brain completely engaged.

'That was a long walk home,” Wadley said, 'and I live right across the street from here. That was a long walk home.”

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Sharonda Wadley didn't to the rides at Dorney Park. She walked around the park and did some supervising of the kids, doing what teachers do. She walked and talked with another one of the chaperones.

Then she heard a voice. 'Mom, mom!!!!”

'I look in front of me and in back of me and I don't see anyone,” she said. 'That sounds like Akrum.”

'Mom, mom!”

'I didn't see him, so I looked up,” she said. 'He was on this ride that was so far up in the air . . .

'I said, ‘I'm going to get you. I told you . . .' He just has way too much heart. He's not afraid of anything.”

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