Niners coach Jim Harbaugh clearly reads SFist and respects our discerning opinions. So much so that now the 49ers have signed a man with no football experience but who is, according to Harbaugh, quite a sexy man.
Harbaugh joked that he felt "inadequate" standing next to Lawrence Okoye, the 21-year-old Olympic discus thrower who was just signed as a free agent by the 49ers:
"He's just an Adonis. Just a great physical specimen of a man. I can think of some other adjectives. Our Creator created a beautiful man."
The 6-foot-6, 304-pound Okoye has never played football, but his stellar athletic credentials convinced the Niners coaching staff that his natural ability could translate on the football field. Okoye, a British athlete who previously played rugby, was ranked the world's fourth-best discus-thrower after training for only 20 months, and it's been less than a year since since he threw discus for Great Britain in the Olympics. But the hyper-ambitious Okoye has already set a new challenge for himself: "American football". (Oh, and did we mention he deferred an offer to study law at Oxford?)
Granted, it'll be tough to made the final cut and become part of the 49ers 2013 active roster. But we're cheering for the god-like Okoye all the way. At the NFL's Regional Combine (a sort of showcase for underrated players), he posted a 10-foot-5 broad jump, a 35-inch vertical jump and a 4.78 40-yard dash, and was picked by a top NFL scout as the most impressive figure at this defining trial. "I was very chuffed to hear he'd said that," Okoye admitted.
"Chuffed"! He said "chuffed"! We love this guy.
An earlier version of this story stated that Okoye had been drafted. He was not drafted, but was signed as a free agent.
[SF Gate]
[The Guardian]