Maverick Spotlight: Sophomore quarterback JD Ekowa

Gage Cureton sits down with the talented athlete to discuss his success on and off the field

Gage Cureton
Staff Writer

The Minnesota State Mavericks football quarterback JD Ekowa hates losing more than he loves winning.

“Every win is a win,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you win by 40 or you win by one.”

Ekowa, a sophomore majoring in biomedical sciences, was the most valuable player for the Mavericks after they defeated the Sioux Falls Cougars 31-21 last Saturday. 

“It’s a special feeling obviously,” Ekowa said. “But then again you can’t do it without your teammates and you can’t do it without the coaching.”

Ekowa attended Plainfield North High School, Illinois where he played as quarterback of the school’s football team and was named team captain his senior year. 

However, Ekowa wasn’t always playing on the gridiron.

“I didn’t start playing football until I was in the 7th grade,”  Ekowa said. “My parents really wanted me to stay away from football for the most part actually.”

Ekowa said he grew up in a loving and family-oriented household. It wasn’t until Ekowa and his two brothers began taking more interest in football that his parents began supporting his love of the sport. 

“We spent a lot of time with each other,” he said. “So playing football really brought our family close together because there’s a lot of travelling to practice and all that type of stuff.”

In 2016, Ekowa received a scholarship from MSU and began attending and playing for the University. He said a major sell for his decision to play for MSU was the coaching staff and how family-oriented the environment they fostered was. 

“You make new connections and then with your coaches,” he said.  “And then you see other people’s struggles, and you know where they’ve been and how they’ve gotten to where they are now.”

Ekowa reflected on the Mavericks performance as a team so far in 2018.

“Right now I feel like as we’re elevating, going through our development, that we have yet to reached our true peak,” he said. “What we preach on is developing and getting better every single time we leave meetings, we leave practice and when we leave the games.” 

The Mavericks move onto their last game of the regular season this Saturday against the Upper Iowa Peacocks. Ekowa said the Mavericks are giving Upper Iowa everything they have.

“We have to give them our best and we know that they’re going to give us their best,” he said. “And if we give them our best we should be pretty successful.” 

Feature photo by Mansoor Ahmad | MSU Reporter.