Posted on Mon, Apr. 28, 2008

19TH SELECTION OVERALL

Otah ends up right where he'd hoped

Spot on Panthers' offensive line was `just how I saw it happening'

DAVID SCOTT

dscott@charlotteobserver.com

AP

Carolina Panthers' second pick in the first round, 19th overall , Jeff Otah, from University of Pittsburgh meets with the media at a news conference Sunday, April 27, 2008 in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Rick Havner)

• Otah's arrival brings clarity

Jeff Otah was watching the NFL draft on television Saturday evening, disappointed he hadn't been taken by the Carolina Panthers with their 13th pick.

The 19th pick, which belonged to the Philadelphia Eagles, approached.

Then Otah's telephone rang. A member of the Panthers' scouting staff was on the line.

"What does it feel like to be a Panther?" he asked Otah, an offensive tackle from the University of Pittsburgh.

Otah was puzzled, not knowing Carolina had only minutes before traded up with the Eagles for that 19th pick -- and had chosen him.

"I thought it was a prank call," Otah said.

But it wasn't, although Otah wasn't fully convinced until another call came. This time it was Panthers coach John Fox, whose voice Otah recognized from a meeting they had at his workout day for NFL teams.

Otah, as it turned out, was heading where he hoped he would be.

"This is where I envisioned myself going," Otah said Sunday at Bank of America Stadium, where he had just finished taking a tour of the facility with Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.

Otah's route to the NFL is unusual. Relatively inexperienced as a football player, he didn't play varsity until his junior season in high school and was more interested in basketball until then.

Otah was born in Lagos, Nigeria, where he played soccer as a youngster. Leaving behind his grandmother and several aunts and uncles, Otah's family moved to the Bronx, N.Y., when he was 7.

After the family moved to New Castle, Del., when he was 13, he took up basketball, a sport he lettered in twice at William Penn High. He might have had a future in that sport: He was 6-foot-5 as a sophomore.

But by the time he was a junior, Otah had developed enough that he was moved from the defensive line on the junior varsity football team to the varsity's offensive line.

Grade problems kept him out of football his junior season, then he broke his wrist as a senior, keeping him off the field for all but a few games. That limited his exposure to college scouts, and he ended up at Valley Forge (Pa.) Military Academy for two seasons.

Otah emerged at Valley Forge and went on to Pitt. There, he became what coach Dave Wannstedt called the "best blocker I've ever had."

By the time draft weekend came around, Otah knew the Panthers needed help on the offensive line. Carolina, he thought, was positioned to draft him. Now, the Panthers hope he'll quickly develop into their starting right tackle.

"I don't know that they would have drafted and traded for me this high for me not to play," he said. "I felt like this is somewhere I could be and that is just how I saw it happening."