August 14, 2010: Ghana’s NFL connection

The world saw the talent of Ghana’s World Cup football team this year in South Africa but few may know that there is a Ghana connection to American football. In what might be an NFL first, this weekend, two NFL players with strong Ghanaian roots played opposite each other. I attended the pre-season Green Bay Packers exhibition game at Lambeau Field this Saturday evening. It was an unusually beautiful day with temperatures pushing 90 degrees (and in Green Bay, there will be games when the temperature is 20 below zero), lots of sunshine and the traditional tailgate party featuring hamburgers, bratwurst and Italian sausages cooked over a grill.

I checked the roster and Charlie Pepreh was playing in the defensive secondary for the Packers. He is the grandson of one of Ghana’s former military leaders. Then I noticed that Kwaku Danso was playing for the visiting Cleveland Browns. Kwaku was born in Ghana and barely knew how to play American football but has bucked incredible odds to make it through the Brown’s training camp fighting for a chance to be on their final roster.

For those visitors from Ghana, I thought you might enjoy seeing such a familiar surname on the jersey of a Green Bay Packer. I took these photos during pre-game warm-ups. Pepreh played very well — he plays a tough position on defense called safety. For those unfamiliar with American football, safeties are responsible for covering a lot of the football field and need to display excellent vision to see how plays develop and then quickly react to what the offense is trying to accomplish. It is the sort of position in which a mistake is obvious to all — you are really alone out there, often the last person between an offensive player and the goal line. Pepreh has to cover fast wide receivers and also tackle runners who break through the line — and I saw him do both with great skill and confidence.