Coach, youve got to hear AK rap: The story of Wales college football career

June 16, 2024

Back before he was Wale, before he had albums and world tours and private White House shows, Olubowale Victor Akintimehin was a running back.

More specifically, he was a scout-team running back at Robert Morris. He was the type of small and shifty runner who would “shake the shit out of you,” says former Robert Morris cornerback Vladimir St. Surin, speaking from experience. And Akintimehin’s athleticism was a problem. The scout team was supposed to prepare the first-team defense for the next opponent’s offense. If, say, Albany’s running back always hit a certain hole, Akintimehin had to hit the same one. He was instructed to be a copycat: Follow the scout card. Don’t trust your instincts.

Scott Benzel, the coach who ran the Colonials scout team in 2003, remembers two things clearly. The first is that nobody knew this running back as Wale. Akintimehin went by AK or Vic. The second is that as soon as Akintimehin touched the football in practice, his instincts went into overdrive. He didn’t want to pound between the tackles. He wanted open space and room to run.

“He would always bounce the ball outside as soon as he could,” Benzel says, laughing, almost 20 years later. “It was like clockwork.”

The detours typically tricked the first-team defense, too. All week they had studied film to figure out how the opposing running back operated. Then Akintimehin trashed their game plan — and talked smack as he did it.

“Vic would get the ball, bounce outside, shake someone, run toward the sideline, come back across the field,” St. Surin recalls. “We’d be like, Wait. What? And Benzel would be screaming, ‘AK! Where are you going?!’”

Robert Morris was the first of three colleges Akintimehin attended in the early 2000s. Officially, these two stats are all he has to show for his college football career: one carry, one yard. But the stories — from scout-team shenanigans to writing rhymes and Valentine’s Day poems — are still fresh in the minds of his former coaches and teammates. Today, Akintimehin, 35, is the rapper known as Wale. When he quit football and dropped out of college to chase a music career, friends called him crazy. But they’d soon discover what Robert Morris’ defense had learned long ago: His instinct was almost always right.

Akintimehin’s media-guide headshot at Robert Morris. (Courtesy of Robert Morris Athletics)

He hated his number. Hated it.

Before practice one day, Akintimehin brought his No. 49 jersey to Benzel.

“Yo, Coach,” he said. “This number is terrible. Can you hook me up?”

“I’ll talk to (equipment manager) Ray Butter,” Benzel replied. “But here’s the thing. Today, for scout team, you need to actually do what you’re supposed to do. Give me some effort, and I’ll make sure you’re hooked up tomorrow.”

Akintimehin thought about that offer, then countered.

“Can I get a single digit?”

Benzel smiled. Akintimehin was the fifth running back on the depth chart. No way he’d get a single digit. But Benzel said, “Sure, Vic. I’ll see what I can do.”

The next day, the No. 49 jersey was again hanging in Akintimehin’s locker. He went to find Benzel. They had the same conversation for each of the first three weeks of the season. Eventually, Akintimehin accepted that he was stuck on the scout team with No. 49. So, he made alterations. He rolled up the sleeves and tied them tightly with rubber band and tape to make his arm muscles pop.

“He made that 49 look as good as it could,” St. Surin says.

Another thing about Akintimehin …

“He liked to talk,” says former Robert Morris quarterback Rich DeMaio. “A lot.”

Once, in training camp, Akintimehin took a handoff, juked several defenders and raced for a big gain. When he was finally hauled down, Akintimehin jumped to his feet, stared down first-string defenders and started yapping. Teammates on the sideline laughed and cheered his brazen confidence.

Then there was the time then-Robert Morris head coach Joe Walton lined up the scout team for a challenge he called “98-yard drive.” Akintimehin and the scout team started on the 2-yard line and tried to go 98 yards against the first-team defense. On one play, starting safety Robb-Davon Butler was run over by a scout-team blocker. Teammates teased Butler about it, and he was steamed. Two plays later, Akintimehin went off script, as usual, and cut back and forth across the backfield. “He looked like Barry Sanders,” St. Surin says. But Butler had him in his sights. He wanted payback. Butler, who would spend four years in the NFL, streaked across the line of scrimmage and laid out Akintimehin.

“He got smoked,” Benzel says.

Walton blew his whistle and practice stopped.

“I remember going, oh my god, that’s it for Vic,” Benzel says. “To his credit, he popped back up and ran his mouth again, talking smack like only AK can do.”

Akintimehin in pregame warmups. (Courtesy of Robert Morris Athletics)

Little by little, they realized Akintimehin could do more than talk.

During practice one day, Akintimehin walked up to St. Surin and dropped this little line: If practice makes perfect, then my mother’s name is Practice.

“It hit me the next day,” St. Surin says. “I’m like, ‘Yo, Vic. That’s pretty good.’”

Akintimehin was always writing. He loved poetry and rhyme and the go-go rhythms from Washington, D.C., where he was raised.

“For Valentine’s Day,” St. Surin says, “if you were trying to talk to a girl, you’d ask Vic to write you a poem. And he would do it. I was like, this dude could make money with these rhymes.”

(Spoiler: He would wind up making a good bit of money with his rhymes.)

“Guys would say, ‘Coach, you’ve got to hear AK rap. He’s really good,’” Benzel says. “I’d be like, eh, I don’t know. I was more concerned with getting him to do what he was supposed to do so Coach Walton would stop hollering at me.”

Akintimehin was an entertainer, too. On road trips during the season, he would freestyle and have a busload of teammates bobbing their heads to the beat.

“He was real funny,” recalls former Robert Morris assistant coach Scott Farison, who now coaches at Duquesne. “How he put things together on a whim and came up with a rhyme a lot of times made everyone laugh.”

Akintimehin’s only collegiate carry came on the last drive of a 36-6 win against Saint Francis on Sept. 27, 2003. He gained a yard. And he had gotten his wish, at least partially. Akintimehin didn’t wear No. 49 in that game. He wore No. 37.

Akintimehin left Robert Morris after the 2003 season, his junior year, and accepted a football scholarship at Virginia State. From there, details are foggy. Cassandra Price, assistant athletic director for sports communication at Virginia State, says Akintimehin was never listed on the football team’s roster. He apparently left abruptly. Akintimehin then spent a short time at Bowie State but did not play football there, per an athletic department spokesperson. (Attempts to reach Akintimehin for an interview were unsuccessful.)

Coaches couldn’t comprehend why he’d walk away from a college scholarship.

“But he proved them wrong,” St. Surin says. “Big time.”

By 2006, Akintimehin had left school and released his first mixtape, “Paint a Picture.” Football was in his rearview mirror. His hip-hop dreams had hope.

For many of his former Robert Morris teammates, Akintimehin’s name resurfaced in 2009 with the release of his debut album, “Attention Deficit.” The lead single, “Chillin,” featured Lady Gaga and cracked the Billboard Hot 100.

“My buddy put the video up,” DeMaio says, “and I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s AK.”

St. Surin had stayed in touch with Akintimehin and watched him rise in the D.C. music scene. St. Surin recalls visiting D.C. with his fraternity brothers and hearing Akintimehin on the radio for the first time. When “Nike Boots” was released in 2007, St. Surin says, “Some of the rhymes he sang, I remembered. I was like, wait, he was talking about that shit at the cafeteria table.”

In 2011, Akintimehin returned to Robert Morris and performed on campus as part of his Ambition Tour. Many of his former teammates were in the crowd.

“It’s like watching a family member become famous,” St. Surin says. “Everyone’s like, ‘Wah-lay! Wah-lay!’ And we’re like, ‘Oh, that’s Vic. That’s AK. That’s my man.’ You just feel so proud that he chased his dream, busted his ass, and he got to showcase his true talent — not athleticism, but lyricism.”

Now, St. Surin is an interim dean of students at Community College of Allegheny County. One day, not long ago, a student swung by his office and said, “Hey, Dr. Vlad, you’ve got a fake Wale hitting you up.” St. Surin couldn’t make sense of that comment. Then, later in the day, his wife told him to check his Instagram. The real @Wale had liked and commented on one of his photos.

“As big as he is, he still likes my photos on Instagram,” St. Surin says.

DeMaio, the former quarterback, is the offensive coordinator at Edinboro. The Edinboro players are allowed to pick the team’s warmup music, and from time to time they’ll play Wale. “I’m always the first to say, ‘Dude, I handed the ball off to this guy,’” DeMaio says. “Of course, they don’t believe me.”

The days when Benzel was a graduate assistant pleading with Akintimehin to hit the right hole in practice seem like a lifetime ago. Today, Benzel is the head coach at Westminster. Whenever he is recruiting in Washington, D.C. or Baltimore, he knows he can catch players’ attention by mentioning Wale.

But the coach also says Akintimehin taught him a lesson.

“When he was saying he wanted to be a hip-hop star, we’d roll our eyes,” Benzel says. “Yeah, OK, AK. Now, I’ve been coaching 19 years. We’ll get some guys who say, ‘Coach, I want to rap.’ And now I encourage them. I share AK’s story. I say, ‘Well, I had a guy say that to me one time. His name is Wale.’

“Their eyes light up. They say, ‘Coach, you know Wale?’ I say, ‘I know Victor Akintimehin. I don’t know Wale, per se. But I knew Victor when he was your age, and he was saying the same stuff as you’re saying now. So, if that’s in your heart, you can do it. I’ve seen it happen.’”

(Top photo of Wale: Mindy Small / FilmMagic)

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