When Ziggy Ansah first took up football as a sophomore at BYU, he didn't even know how to put on the equipment properly. That's how foreign the game was to the Ghana native.
Now an NFL superstar and Pro Bowl player, Ansah has made it his mission to teach the game to the next wave of football hopefuls from his home country.
Every year Ansah travels back to Ghana in the offseason to visit family and friends, but this year he also launched the Ezekiel Ansah Foundation there, which he said aims to "promote physical education and try to create a realistic opportunity for the youth back in Ghana."
"My main focus is just really to give back and help my people," Ansah said Tuesday. "Also, try to introduce the sport to them."
Ansah has plans to return to Ghana in July to hold a football camp, which he believes will be the country's first of its kind. It won't be easy, either. While the interest in American football has picked up some because of Ansah's celebrity status in Ghana, he says these camps will really have to start from scratch.
"Coming here to America to study and to be educated, I never grew up going to a football camp or a soccer camp or looking up to somebody who put on something like that for the kids to follow," Ansah said. "But here in America there's always football camps or there's soccer camps, and these kids go, starting at a young age, and I'm just trying to do the same for my people."
Ansah's foundation will also partner with a children's hospital in the capital city of Accra, and provide resources to that facility.
