“I’m near the sideline, slowing down.. the play’s almost over. I’m running out and maybe about a yard and a half away I plant my leg. He gets really low and just throws his helmet into my knee”

This was Alozie’s recollection of his performance at a recent home game against the Schenectady Patriots. Although nothing is broken or fractured, Alozie is expected to be out for the season. 

Alozie is the captain of the Shen Varsity football team playing various positions, however, an injury sidelined him early in the season. Alozie feels disappointed about his injury and feels like he’s letting his teammates down. Although a senior, Aozie says he’s not giving up yet, and hopes to someday play at a higher level. 

As a captain, what kind of struggles do you face?

“Kind of feels like I’m letting my team down. I wanted to be there, and I still wanna be on the field but now the most I can do is just support from the sidelines. For any sport, if you can show that you’re a leader, regardless of if you’re playing or not, people are gonna look up to you, people are gonna respect you, people are gonna seek motivation from you”

How is this going to impact the team?

“It’s gonna impact the team a little, but I wanna stay humble. I believe that my team can still, you know, do great things without me because I’m not the team, nothing I do goes without the team. If I score a touchdown that’s not me, that’s actually linemen. I know that they can do it without me. We have a saying, next one up, you never really know when your last play is, so play every play like your last. If something does happen, the next person always has to be ready. Hopefully we do even better, that’s what I would want to believe.” 

A lot of people think you’re faking the injury, and there’s been a lot of backlash from the school, do you have anything to say about that?

“Last year I got hurt twice, I really didn’t want it to be this way. I really thought I was gonna have a healthy year. It’s my senior year, it’s my first and maybe only year with my younger brother playing on the same team so that’s definitely not something I would do. I love being out there, love the sport, love the team so I definitely would not fake an injury.” 

Last season Alozie strained his achilles during the week 2 game vs Guilderland, and fractured his clavicle a little bit later in the season during the CBA game. 

The medical aspect, being injured, you gotta ask yourself like, is it worth it?

“That’s a big conversation I’ve been having with myself lately. You only get one body. I’m not going to sit here and lie and say that it’s not sad, it didn’t hurt, or it hasn’t had any effect on my mental health, it definitely has. I really can’t do anything right now, it took me 10 minutes to put on a pair of socks this morning. Shout out to Coach Darusso, after the injury he went to his car and he gave me this whole set of stuff to help recover, that was really nice of him, and all the coaches checking up on me. I appreciate all the coaches, they’re family to me. I don’t think I could do half the things I do without them.

You still have a lot of years to go, are you going to use it all of high school football?

“That’s gonna be a conversation I’m definitely going to have with myself again, but as of right now, I know what I want.” 

You wanna get back out?

“I definitely wanna get back out.”