Interboro’s Abu Kamara heads to Yale to play football with a chip on his shoulder: ‘I have something to prove’

Abu Kamara learned from her eyes. They came half-mast, atop swollen, shuffled feet from a 16-hour workday. Each night, Kamara could hear the creak in the steps when Salamatu Kamara, Abu’s mother, would trudge out to her job as a health and homecare nurse. She rarely sleeps, between cooking for her two children at home and making sure the house is kept up. Downtime is never downtime, because Salamatu will doze off on the couch watching TV on the weekends.

It is where Abu, Interboro’s 6-foot-1, 205-pound senior running back and defensive back, gets it. It is where he derives his work ethic. He doesn’t possess a wealth of breakaway speed. He did not bowl over college recruiters with his size and strength. He just defies modern sports analytics every time he puts on a football helmet and pads.

How about the old-school bromide that he’s simply a great football player, whose parents are from the West African country of Sierra Leone? His father, Unisa, is a Temple undergrad and law school graduate who is a high-court judge in Sierra Leone, and his mother a registered nurse who on Friday witnessed her son make a life-changing choice by committing to Ivy League powerhouse Yale for football.

This comes after a season in which Abu shattered Interboro’s all-time single-season records and Delaware County records by rushing for 2,832 yards against defenses designed solely to stop him, with 42 total touchdowns (38 rushing, two pick-sixes, and two receiving) while averaging 9 yards a carry. As a strong safety, he made 70 tackles, nine tackles for losses, two sacks, and had a single-season school-record 11 interceptions.

Kamara carries a 4.5 weighted GPA and is ranked in the top percentage of his class. He is the only one in his senior class going to an Ivy League school. He also carries a rather chunky chip on his shoulders from being bypassed by Penn State, Temple, Rutgers, and Villanova.

“It’s frustrating, because none of those schools looked at me, but the way I see it, I won anyway going to Yale,” Kamara said. “Yale is a school I never even dreamed about. They came into the picture late, in December and I took it as another meeting with a big-time school that will take a look at me. Coach Reno [Tony, Yale’s head coach] called me a week later. He called me from a random number. I didn’t even know who it was. He introduced himself and told me that they would like to offer me an official spot.

“They were the first and only school, at that time, to give me an offer. Then Stonehill College, which made the move to Division I last March, came into the picture. But by then, I was talking to Yale. Yale is going to get the very best of me because they are willing to take a chance with me, because the stats speak for themselves, and I have the academics to get into Yale. Oh yeah, I have something to prove. All the other schools that ignored me, I’m going to show them that they screwed up — and I won.

“I’m going to Yale.”

Yale offered a scholarship to Kamara on Dec. 16 and he committed Jan. 30, though he wanted to announce his choice publicly on Friday.

“First, everyone loves Abu, and it bothers me a lot that he didn’t get the college attention we all knew he deserved,” said Dennis Lux, who coached Interboro to a 10-4 record and the PIAA District 1 Class 4A championship for the second time in school history. “When I first coached Abu was seventh grade, when I was coaching the Prospect Park Termites. Back then, he was a hard-nosed, tough kid, but you could tell there was something there.

“Abu’s sophomore year, which was a COVID season (only four games played), I took over as head coach at Interboro. That year, he was our quarterback, because he’s the smartest kid we have. I really needed someone who could run our offense. He was always 10 steps ahead with his film work and preparation, and the way he’s able to read offenses and defenses, he’s faster, because the game comes to him mentally faster than everyone else.”

What stirred everything was Kamara’ five-touchdown performance in the middle of his junior year against Avon Grove, on its senior night, with four rushing scores and a pick-six.

“How stupid was I? We started Abu as a fullback, and but by midseason his junior year, you started to see Abu begin to really begin to come out,” Lux said. “He worked on his speed and added 30 pounds of muscle since then working out and joining the track team last spring. He turned a 4.9[-second 40-yard dash] into a 4.6. He was never caught from behind. You can’t define Abu by the measurables. He went to a lot of camps his junior year and he didn’t stick out.

“When you see him with a football in his hands, and a helmet on his head, Abu is just special. He is a football player in a school that is around 90% white, from a hard-working background — and everyone loves Abu. He is literally the mayor of Interboro, and why he is so loved and respected is not one kid is jealous of what he’s achieved. Talk to any teacher here, any of his teammates, they love him. Everyone has a story about Abu — and it is always positive. I think it’s the way he was raised. His mother always stressed hard work and she wouldn’t tolerate anything less than straight-As. I’ve been associated with area football in Glenolden for 15 years and I’m going to have a tough time when he leaves. He really is the perfect kid. The school goes by him.

“He was signing autographs for the youth club kids and giving away his gloves after we won the district title. He commits time — real time — away from the football field.”

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An example is his work with the local blind community in Beep Baseball, baseball for the visually impaired. John, Lux’s cousin, would annually run a Beep Baseball Tournament in Norwood Park that Kamara helped with as a freshman. As the years passed, the volunteers thinned, but Kamara is still there every spring to help.

Next spring, however, will be far different. He’ll be in New Haven, Conn., playing for Yale, the defending Ivy League champion which finished 8-2 record and boasts five players in the NFL, including Jacksonville linebacker Foyesade Oluokun, the NFL’s leading tackler for the second straight season.

Unisa and Salamatu got out of Sierra Leone just after the bloody 10-year civil war, destroying the country’s infrastructure and impeding its political, social, and economic development. Salamatu still contacts relatives in Sierra Leone, letting them know what her son is doing.

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“My dad knows what’s happening and we stay in contact, but he’ll be around in May or June, around graduation,” said Kamara.

Kamara has aspirations of playing in the NFL, though his priority lies with getting an economics degree from Yale.

“Maybe I can be an agent someday,” he said. “But I see how hard my mother works. I want to make it for my mom. I want her to be happy and be able to finally sit back and relax. She’s my driving force. I see the sacrifices she makes every day. I’m ready to do the same for her. She knew about Yale.”

Kamara had arranged his scheduled announcement for 4 p.m. Friday.

So his mother could make it.