University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Ola Akinniyi builds for bright future beyond soccer
8/14/2018 9:16:00 AM | Women's Soccer
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- Architecture is the complex or carefully-designed structure of something. For Southern Miss Soccer senior Ola Akinniyi, it embodies not just a field of study she excels in, but the way she plays the beautiful game and works to make others around her better.
She recorded team-highs of seven goals and 15 points last season en route to becoming the first Golden Eagle since 2007 to earn First-Team All-Conference USA honors.
What makes it even better is that she is a defender.
"Ola has been a long project for us, back when she came in as a freshman, and she's really developed her technical aspect and tactical insight of the game," head coach Mohammed El-Zare said. "Last year, she got more sophisticated with the offense and utilized her athletic ability. Ola has done a tremendous job going into this season in terms of her preparation in the summer and preseason, every day showing improvements and stepping up her leadership."
Akinniyi's offensive success from an unorthodox position is something that she alludes to being part of the team's system as a whole.
"I think it's about how our team is built," Akinniyi said. "I can't go up unless someone has my back. If I go up, they have to recognize that they have to cover for me. They are able to get me ball and they aren't making me just have to make these runs for no reason, without purpose."
Akinniyi, who this past weekend was named a team captain, has started all but four games in her collegiate career, but did not score a goal until breaking free as a junior. She credits the teammate rapport that has been built over the years as fuel for her success.
"Ashton Stennis and I played a lot our freshman year, as the two center backs, so she always tells me go up go up, and I'm like 'alright, dude,'" Akinniyi said. "I just think everyone has this push-mindset as a senior."
Stennis echoed her sentiments.
"I feel like being in the same class since freshman year, it's a connection thing," she said. "The seniors all have it, but mostly with Ola. We used to play center back together and when she would go out wide, I would trust her so much to go up and she has all the talent to do it. It's a connection thing."
Enter Phase Two of Akinniyi's architecture: her successes in the classroom and on the job front.
"My dad is a civil engineer, so I've been helping him out since I was a baby, fixing things here and there," she said. "It always fascinated me how people came up with the concepts for buildings and things like that. I always wanted to know how I could get into it, so architecture seemed like a good plan."
This summer, Akinniyi interned with Yates Construction, where she says she learned a lot of good leadership qualities and the mindset she would need for the season.
The life of a college student-athlete, especially with one as strong in both as Akinniyi is, features early-morning runs, lifts and other demanding aspects that contributes to success in the public eye. Architecture is limited only by human imagination and ingenuity, and Akinniyi has witnessed it up close.
"Both my parents are Nigerian, so last December I got to go there and see their building methods," she said. "It's so different from the U.S. We use steel for our scaffolding and they use a lot of bamboo for theirs. We like to prefabricate things and bring them to construction sites, but they like to fabricate right there. They also use their hands for a lot of things and we don't, since we use machines. It's so cool because it looks like they used machines, but they didn't."
Fast-forward about six months, and Akinniyi, a native of Denton, Texas, was right there in the trenches at the Dallas-Fort Worth branch of Yates Construction, taking care of business day in and day out.
"I had to call subtractors and get them to build on new projects," she said. "If they didn't understand something with the plans or the specifications for the building, I had to explain it to them. I was responsible sometimes for getting lunch for the whole office and printing and scanning things for people. I would also put together daily reports for all the project managers and submittals and RFIs (requests for information) and ASIs (architects' supplemental instructions)."
The hard work this summer did not stop there. Akinniyi earned the privilege of being one of 11 student-athletes selected to Southern Miss' inaugural leadership academy, and they joined Director of Athletics Jon Gilbert and other administrators on Outward Bound, a seven-day wilderness experience in northern Minnesota with no technology and whatever they could fit on their backs.
"It was freezing every single night," Akinniyi said. "I hadn't eaten cereal in six years and we had to eat it every single day. You had to keep trucking through despite all the miles.
"Sometimes we would get down on ourselves and someone would come up with a pick-me-up saying or we would take a break, and it's cool to see how you don't think you can do it, but you can when you put your mind to it."
Integrity in even one facet of life can easily transcend into all others as well. Akinniyi, who holds a 3.7 GPA in architectural engineering, has earned additional scholarship aide based on her academic standing. She has already been approached with job offers, yet her final year of classes won't start till Aug. 29.
"I've known Ola since she was 10 years old, playing club soccer," El-Zare said. "She has always been a person that has challenged herself and is doing community service and working for her dad's business in her off-time."
Stennis also notes that Akinniyi, who not only lights up the stat sheet but also glides through her conditioning drills as if she were the wind, is "a very humble, normal, funny, sweet and outgoing person."
The groundwork has been laid and her dues have been paid. The 2018 season, Akinniyi's last in a Golden Eagle uniform, begins Thursday at Mississippi State before the team holds its home opener Sunday at 1 p.m. against ULM. For this rising star, the fruits of her labor can ideally lead to a successful season.
"We need to treat every practice like it's a game, and keep intensity high," she said. "We have to make game-like situations harder in practice so that it's easier in a game. We have seven seniors, so the maturity should be high, but even if you're a freshman, that doesn't mean you can't do the same."
