By Martyn Herman
LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Efe Obada spent a decade defying the odds in the NFL after rising from a traumatic childhood marked by trafficking, foster care and homelessness in London.
Now, the 34-year-old believes his real life's work will begin on Wednesday as he retires from football and launches a foundation aimed at helping young people in care.
Obada credits American football with transforming his life and says the Efe Obada Foundation will use sport, mentoring and support services
to help foster children and young adults rebuild confidence and unlock opportunities.
"I'm ready to step away from it while I'm still healthy and while I can pour some of that elite energy into the next chapter," 34-year-old Obada, who made 73 NFL appearances as a defensive end for the Carolina Panthers, Buffalo Bills and Washington Commanders, told Reuters.
Obada's life might have taken a very different path had a college friend not suggested he try American football.
Having been illegally trafficked to Britain from Nigeria as a young child with his sister and abandoned on the streets of South London, he entered the care system and lived with 10 foster families before turning 18.
"I was robbed of a lot of my childhood," he said. "There was a lot of anger built up, there was a lot of discontent, there was a lot of energy that could have gone to a negative place."
FATE INTERVENES
Obada only took up American football at the age of 21 and signed up with the London Warriors where his 6ft 6inch frame helped him stand out. Then fate intervened.
On the recommendation of Warriors coach Aden Durde, Obada was invited to train with the Dallas Cowboys before one of their NFL London fixtures and suddenly the door to a life he could never have imagined swung open.
"I thought nothing of it, went back to work. Then the following year they gave me a call saying they wanted to give me an opportunity," he said.
"Dallas taking a punt on me started a domino effect of me going out there and trying to face this immense mountain that is the NFL."
His big breakthrough arrived in 2017 when he was signed by the Panthers and became the first International Player Pathway athlete to make a 53-man roster.
It launched an NFL career with a highlights reel including a sack on New England Patriots great Tom Brady and captaining the Panthers at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. As an ambassador for the NFL Academy UK, he even got to throw ball with King Charles.
"If you had said to me that, hey, you were this kid from South London who was working cash-in-hand jobs and warehouse jobs and that you'll be in the NFL, I'd be like, 'Have you taken your meds?'"
'SURVIVOR'S GUILT'
Obada said he experienced "survivor's guilt" in his early NFL days -- a legacy of a difficult childhood and a feeling that he was less deserving than other overseas players.
But he soon embraced his life-changing chance and the opportunities it provided to make a positive impact.
"I feel like it was written for me and now I have this platform, now I have this voice," he said. "I'm living proof that your past doesn't have to dictate your future."
Obada said he will miss the brotherhood of the locker room but whereas many elite athletes struggle with the void retirement brings, he is driven by a "true calling".
"It's not just a charity, it's deeply personal," he said of the foundation aimed at transforming the lives of young people in the care system.
"I've lived it; I've been in the system. I know about the isolation, I know about the obstacles. I know about the feeling of not having a voice."
Success, Obada said, will not be measured by how many athletes emerge from the programme, but by the lives it changes.
"I'm not trying to create NFL players," he said. "I'm trying to equip these kids with the tools and the opportunity to live fulfilling, self-sufficient lives.
"Even if we do all of this and we change one person's life, for me it will be worth it."
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Ken Ferris)
