LANDOVER, MD (WTKR)- As his Browns stumble out to a 1-4 start, Bethel product Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah is drawing from his 757 roots to help motivate a turn-around in Cleveland.
It may carry over to his teammates as well.
"When the team is not going as well as you want it to go, that foundation coming from the 757, we have a no-quit mentality," he pointed out following Sunday's 34-13 loss to the Commanders. "That's the aim here and that's what I wish to do is to uplift the place where I come from as much as possible."
The linebacker has come a long way since his days as a Bruin. He's one of a handful to travel to path from Hampton Roads to the NFL and realizes there may be some other young people walking the halls of his former high school who wish to do the same. His simple advice to them is to separate themselves.
"Obviously it's a competitive world," Owusu-Koramoah said. "It's a competitive nature of getting to college, getting through high school. You just want to find ways to separate yourself from those things that may be normal. Be revolutionary, be different, be unique to yourself."
The former Bruin is not just helping in Hampton and Cleveland, but on the other side of the world as well. His family hails from Ghana and he does his part to provide aid to the country by holding youth football camps, funding wells for clean water through his non-profit, providing other resources and whatever the people may need.
"I think it's my responsibility, everybody's responsibility," he pointed out. "When you get to a certain level, you want to be able to give back and you want to be able to identify some of the issues that are around you. I think intelligence is defined by how can you solve problems around you."
He's looking to do that both on and off the field. Owusu-Koramoah picked up an interception, a sack and two tackles for loss during Sunday's contest at Washington. He says it wasn't enough and there were more plays he could've made, putting a big part of the responsibility on his shoulders.
"When you're baking a cake, you have a recipe," he noted. "When the recipe is not necessarily clicking and you don't have the cake that you want, you kind of go back and say 'OK, what can we change about the recipe' and that's what we do."
This past offseason, Owusu-Koramoah signed a three year, $37.5 million contract extension with $20 million guaranteed. He and the Browns visit the Eagles next Sunday at 1:00 PM.
