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Gravel Road to GreatnessGravel Road to Greatness
Football by David Kiefer

Gravel Road to Greatness

From the farm to The Farm, Elic Ayomanor took an unlikely path to Stanford

EACH WEEK DURING the football season, Elic Ayomanor is introduced in some way – to a television audience, in a game program, on a flipcard distributed in a press box.

He is a redshirt sophomore wide receiver from Stanford, and one of the best in college football. His major is computer science. And he’s from Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.

But where is someone from exactly? Is it their birthplace? The town where they grew up? Or is it the place they feel they belong?

Medicine Hat is Ayomanor’s point of origin. It’s where he grew up, where his mother raised him, where his dreams sprouted. But where does he belong? Maybe it’s a remote farm on a gravel road, a prep school in the countryside, or a green swath 100 yards long under bright lights.

‘Medicine Hat’ is the simple answer. The long answer is not so simple

THE CLOUDS PASSED in front of Edmonton’s high summer sun as Team Alberta, an all-star football team of 15- and 16-year-olds from the Canadian province, struggled in a tournament game. The special teams weren’t helping and Kwame Osei, an assistant coach, found himself taking glances at his injured receiver.

Finally, a frustrated Osei couldn’t help himself and asked Ayomanor, “Can you return kicks?”

Though he’d never done so on this team, Ayomanor replied “sure” without hesitation, and jogged onto the field.

“We were behind,” Osei recalled. “I see this athlete right beside me and we’re not using him …”

Ayomanor caught the first punt at the 45-yard line, accelerated up the left sideline, cut inside a defender at the 25, broke a tackle at the 4, and kept his balance as he was knocked backward at the goal line. Touchdown.

Moments later, Ayomanor caught another punt, this time at his own 51 on Canada’s 110-yard field. He found room again up the left side, stiff-armed a defender at the 10, and scored again. Later, he caught a touchdown pass as his team rallied to win. Ayomanor was named tournament MVP.

This was the validation Osei was looking for. As a ‘spotter’ for a service called 730 Scouting run by Justin Dillon, Osei kept an eye out for promising players from his province who had high goals in the game and would benefit from exposure in America.

Ayomanor made an impression on Osei with his great athletic ability, but what set him apart in Osei’s mind was his inquisitiveness. “He seemed thirsty and hungry to know more about the game,” Osei said.

In this instance, Ayomanor couldn’t practice because of a hyperextended elbow, but remained engaged in everything around him, asking questions about alignments, positioning, game situations, and strategy. But game film was the catalyst.

Osei approached Elic afterward and asked what he wanted from football.

“To play in the NFL,” he said.

“Then you need to go to the States,” Osei replied.

Osei wanted that thought to marinate for a few days and, if truly interested, Elic could call back and bring his mother into the conversation.

Two days later, Ayomanor called. He was on board, but his mother was hesitant.

“I don’t blame her,” Osei said. “Single mom. This is her only son. He’s young. Letting him go to America … It was risky.”

PAMELA WEITERMAN split from Elic’s father when her son was an infant. A farm girl growing up, Weiterman settled in Medicine Hat, a small prairie city of 63,000 along the South Saskatchewan River. It’s known as the “The Gas City,” for its natural gas reserves, and “The Sunniest City in Canada,” belying the fact that temperatures dip to minus-40 Fahrenheit during the winter. And it’s a hockey town, home of the Medicine Hat Tigers, a major junior team in the Western Hockey League.

Pam has two kids, Elic and Jill, the oldest by seven years. She spent half the time with her father.  Mostly, it was Pam and Elic, a name created as a compromise between each parent’s choice, Alek and Eric.  

“He really just had me,” Pam said. “I was the mom and the dad.”

She raised Elic with structure and rules and an uncompromising style. If you’re going to run the race, you’d better run to win. If you’re going to take a class, you’d better try to get an ‘A.’ Quitting? Don’t even think about it.

While most kids in town start playing hockey at 3 or 4, Elic didn’t show interest until he was 6, and begged to try out like his friends.

“I didn’t even know how to skate yet,” he said.

Predictably, it did not go well. Elic didn’t want to play anymore and Pam was having none of it.

“Once you start something, you finish it,” she said. So, Elic returned and, in one day, taught himself how to skate. That moment was a revelation.

“Something just clicked,” he said. “It sparked a certain type of competitiveness. I just kept going. I learned to really love figuring out a way to get to where I wanted to be.”

When things don’t go quite right, Elic reminds himself of that time and where he came from.

“Our family name is Weiterman, and there’s a certain characteristic that comes with being a Weiterman, a certain grit,” he said. “You know that person’s a Weiterman, for sure. And a Weiterman definitely does not quit on anything.”

ACCORDING TO Google Maps, the drive from Medicine Hat to Kincaid, Saskatchewan, is 313 kilometers (194 miles) and takes 3 hours and 16 minutes.

“They don’t know the backroads,” he said. “It’s more like 2 ½ if you know the right way.”

Pavement is overrated in southern Saskatchewan. If you want to get anywhere, it’s gravel you need to take.

Kincaid is a ‘village’ of 120. It has a grain elevator, indoor rink, school, store, and Bouvier’s Berry Basket (open all summer). Three miles outside on, you guessed it, a gravel road, is the Weiterman homestead.

The property once spanned 2,560 acres and the farm ran 100-150 cattle. Crops rotated among barley, canola, duram, flax, hay, lentils, mustard, oats, peas, and wheat. There’s a well, but the water is undrinkable. Drinking water is brought home in five-gallon jugs. And there is no wi-fi. Too expensive in the Rural Municipality of Pinto Creek No. 75.

This is the home of Jack and Theresa Weiterman, Elic’s grandparents. They’re retired now. The last cow has been sold, and they’re down to 160 acres. But this is the destination for every major holiday, family gathering, and summer vacation.

“Kincaid is in the middle of nowhere,” Elic said. “And they live even more in the middle of nowhere.”

Elic learned to ride a bike there. He drove go-karts and quads. There were races of every sort and countless competitions among family. There is a massive egg hunt at Easter, and at Christmas every year, they rent the entire Kincaid rink for 100 friends and relatives, with skating, food, and gifts.

The family brand was the Flying J and during branding season, Elic helped tag calves and hold them down while their ears were clipped.

Elic witnessed the difficulties of calving season, when pregnant cows need to be checked frequently, including in the middle of the night in the coldest of winters. If a mother was in trouble, Jack would have to pull the calf out, sometimes even bottle feeding until they were strong enough to return to the mother, who sometimes would reject it.

“They were long days, but that was farm life,” Pam said. “We grew up as strong kids because we worked. We really worked.”

How strong? Pam was known for arm wrestling. Jack would think nothing of pitting shy 11-year-old Pam against his friends. And she would win.

Her one regret is not knowing when to stop. For the first 13 years of Elic’s life, Pam was undefeated against her son.

“One day, he came and said, ‘let’s arm wrestle,’” she said. “He was getting stronger, but I thought, let’s do it. And he beat me. I knew I would never beat him again. I should not have said yes … Damn. Too late.”

Childhood for her, when she wasn’t working, was carefree. It meant walking an hour to town on her own, spending the day catching frogs, making mudcakes with twigs as candles, swimming in ponds while pulling leeches off her skin without a thought.

“To regular kids, that sounds disgusting,” Pamela said. “But in your mind, you’re just adventuring. You’re outside in nature. You’re making memories.”

From the house, you can turn any direction and just see land. It seems to go on forever.

“There’s no judgment on the farm,” Pamela said. “You can just be you.”

But as she got older, Pam itched for something different. “I wanted out,” she said. “I was not going to do that with my life. But, now, looking back, those were the best days.”

Elic would say the same.

“Farm kids are just tough,” he said. “That’s just how it is.”

I could see it ... People ask me, ‘how do you know?’ I see something in them that is needed to take it to the next level. I knew this guy was different. There was hard work instilled in this young man. He realizes where he came from. This is not a suburban kid.

Justin Dillon730 Scouting

DILLON SAID IT took three plays on film to be sold on Ayomanor.

“I could see it,” Dillon said. “People ask me, ‘how do you know?’ I see something in them that is needed to take it to the next level. I knew this guy was different. There was hard work instilled in this young man. He realizes where he came from. This is not a suburban kid.”

With Dillon’s backing, prep school coaches began making house calls to Medicine Hat. From those who showed interest, Elic narrowed it down to The Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, and Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, for his sophomore year.

While visiting, Pam realized these were the best schools anywhere. Football or no football, they had just won the lottery.  

“I was sold,” she said.

After choosing The Peddie School, they applied for and were granted financial aid to cover costs that were more than Pam’s annual salary.

Though the roster at Peddie was small, Elic quickly came to the conclusion that “I was the worst player on the team. Probably 90 percent of the players ended up playing Division I football,” he said. “But the way I responded to being the worst player is the reason I got into Stanford in the first place.”

Elic rarely watched sports growing up, with the exception of a shootout compilation by his favorite hockey player, Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks. And though Elic was a hard worker on the football field, it wasn’t purposeful. But at prep school, he was exposed to players like him, with big goals. He was there to be the best, to reach the NFL. He now had a motive, a why, and a destination.

Ayomanor played seven games before breaking his collarbone, catching 17 passes for 253 yards and three touchdowns during an 8-0 season for the Mid-Atlantic Prep champions. It would be the most action he would see in a high school season.

A coaching change at Peddie prompted Ayomanor to transfer to Deerfield as a junior, but his season was wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. His senior season was wiped out by a knee injury in the second game.

Three years of American high school football amounted to only nine games and very little film, leaving little to show college recruiters.

“When I tell people I’ve got a kid from Alberta, they’re like, ‘OK, where is he from?’ And I go, ‘Medicine Hat,’” Dillon said. “Canadians, let alone Americans, go, ‘What? From where? He plays football?’”

AS A SINGLE working mom, Pam was conscious of outside influences and tried to keep Elic as busy as possible. That meant signing up for every sport imaginable.

His middle school doubled as a hockey academy and each day Elic alternated between a day of classes and a day of hockey. There were camps, trips, and games in whatever the sport and because Medicine Hat was so remote, Elic and his friends spent much of their time in Pam’s car, traversing across the emptiness of the northern plains.

This was where Pam felt like she really got to know her son. She could hear his conversations, learn his music.

“Those were some of my best memories,” she said. “At home, I’m busy. But when we’re in that car, it’s just us. I hear them talk about boy stuff or kid stuff, and I get to be part of it.”

Pam does not tolerate swearing, but at the end of one trip, when someone cursed, Pam pulled into the driveway, turned to the kids and said, “’Here’s the rule: The only time you can swear is if we’re in this car in this driveway. I don’t want to hear it any other time.’ So, we sat in that driveway and just swore for five minutes straight. It was the funniest thing.”

These were the moments that made her conversation with Osei even harder.

Born in Ghana, Osei was raised in Toronto with no guarantee he would escape the gangs, drugs, and violence of his neighborhood. Osei felt no one cared, not even his coaches. But there was a teacher who did. That teacher saw Kwame for who he was and invested time and effort into him. Osei grew in confidence, and would go on to play college football, earn two degrees, and become a gifted public speaker, mentor, and teacher.

“I understand that every child is one caring adult away from becoming a successful story,” Osei said. That’s why he needed to talk to Elic.

“I saw a kid who needed guidance,” he said.

When Kwame got on the phone with Pam, her first reaction was, “I don’t think so.”

“You’re always very proud of your kids,” Pam said “At the same time, I didn’t know how I would let him go. He was going to be in a different country, with people I didn’t know, doing stuff I didn’t know. As a parent, you just worry about every damn thing.

“I said, ‘We’re not doing it.’ But Elic kept insisting. In the end, I believed in Elic.

“For a full year, I just cried.”

If everyone is on board, Osei sends film to Dillon, who evaluates a player’s Division I potential. If good enough, Dillon uses his connections to find a U.S. boarding school with a strong football program to attract a major-college scholarship and perhaps blaze a path to the NFL.

Complicating these conversations was pushback from the Medicine Hat football community who heard rumors of Elic’s departure and felt he was being set up to fail. He was better off in Canada, they said. Meanwhile, Osei kept his involvement secret for fear of backlash, and Pam was hearing the talk too.

Pam was skeptical of Dillon’s motives, but quickly realized that Dillon had Elic’s best interests at heart and was someone they could trust.  

“I realized he wasn’t that guy at all,” she said. “I was a lot calmer after that.”

Ayomanor never wavered. “Justin has been doing right by us from the very beginning,” he said. “He really just wants to get Canadians the opportunities Americans have. He always says to me, his goal is to flood the NFL with Canadians.”

Elic saw no precedent for a path to football success from his home province as there was for hockey. Two examples he could think of were Chuba Hubbard and Ajoe Ajoe. Hubbard, a running back, stayed at home, got a scholarship to Oklahoma State and now plays for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. Ajoe, a receiver, transferred to a Florida boarding school, played at Clemson and South Florida, and now plays for the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders.

“There’s not a lot of respect in recruiting for Canadian athletes,” Ayomanor said. “If I had stayed in Canada, I maybe would have gone to an FCS school, but probably not even that. I probably would be playing Canadian college football right now.”

Elic AyomanorSYRACUSE, NY - SEPTEMBER 20: Elic Ayomanor #13 during a game between Stanford Football and Syracuse University at JMA Wireless Dome on September 20, 2024 in Syracuse, New York.

FROM THE MINUTE Ayomanor met Deerfield teammate Geoffrey Jamiel, they became fast friends. They were like-minded receivers determined to be the best they could be.

Jamiel came from a football family. His father, Joe Jamiel, was one of Brown University's all-time greats as a running back and kick returner. Two older brothers, JoJo and Andrew, played receiver in college.

“Being from Canada, Elic hadn’t really been exposed to football in the sense that I had – I grew up with a football in my hand 24/7,” said Geoffrey, now a junior receiver at Lehigh. “I knew Elic had untapped potential, and he knew it too. And he was obsessed with getting better and unlocking that potential.”

One difference between the two: Jamiel was 5-foot-8 and 180 pounds while Elic was 6-3 ½, 215 pounds. Jamiel knew that with his size, his shot at playing receiver in Division I depended on mastering technique, running precise routes, and catching the ball cleanly. But for a big receiver like Elic, route running typically wasn’t a priority.

But Elic realized that if he also mastered route-running, and combined with his size and athleticism, he could be the perfect receiver.

They trained together every day, even while quarantined during COVID at the Jamiels’ Cape Cod home. Andrew Jamiel sent professional level coaching plans. And Joe, a longtime youth and high school coach, offered his input.

“Elic didn’t have a season, so he knew getting film out there was the most important thing,” Geoffrey said. “We tried a ton of stuff. We tweeted videos of us lifting, sprinting, running routes and catching passes, and playing in intrasquad games. Anyone who knows anything about football could see how smooth and fluid of a route-runner he was.”

One video of Elic running a route tree attracted particular attention. How could someone that size run the routes of a smaller receiver? In the COVID recruiting world, the video went viral and the offers started to come in.

Early on, Dillon put Stanford out there as the ultimate goal, the epitome of all that Elic and Pamela valued. Dillon had a Stanford connection through Wesley Annan, a 6-4, 275-pound defensive tackle from Whitby, Ontario, who Dillon steered through Lake Forest (Ill.) Academy to The Farm. Though Annan never played at Stanford because of injuries, he graduated with a human biology degree in 2019. That connection helped Dillon get the attention of Cardinal coaches, especially David Shaw’s receivers coach, Bobby Kennedy.

After sending video to Kennedy, Dillon’s declaration was being put to the test. Dillon, his wife and mother-in-law were on the way to visit relatives when a call came to Dillon’s cell. It was Kennedy, who had just watched a compilation that Dillon provided the night before.

“I love this kid,” Kennedy said. “This guy’s going to be special.”

The others in the car could sense this was a monumental and emotional moment. Dillon’s mother-in-law said, “It looks like you did something big for a kid there.”

“I did,” Dillon replied. “I did something huge. You don’t understand, this is what I told him in the beginning. I want this more than Christmas. I want this more than anything for this young man. Because I know if he gets this offer, it’s over for him.”

Ayomanor was invited to a Stanford camp and made a lasting impression by asking to be matched up for his final rep against the camp’s best defensive back. Ayomanor beat him down the sideline and caught a deep pass on a fade. That afternoon, Shaw offered Elic a scholarship.

ON A FRIDAY NIGHT in Boulder, Colorado, Ayomanor was presented to the world. It was Game Six of the 2023 season. Ayomanor missed the 2022 season with injury, and was eager to make an impact.

With an ESPN audience, Stanford fell behind Colorado, 29-0, by halftime and Ayomanor had nary a catch. But in the second half, he exploded for touchdowns of 97 and 60 yards as Stanford rallied to force overtime.

The Buffaloes pulled ahead once again, but Stanford countered with a spectacular catch from Ayomanor, who gathered a pass from Ashton Daniels by pinning the ball on the back of cornerback Travis Hunter for a 30-yard touchdown – the signature play in Stanford’s 46-43 victory. Ayomanor caught 13 passes for a school-record 294 yards.

Jamiel watched the first quarter, and not an especially good one for Ayomanor, before going to bed early to rest for a game against Georgetown the following day. When Jamiel woke up, his phone was blowing up. “Did you see your boy?!” “Your boy’s going off!”

“I shot out of bed,” Jamiel said. “I watched all the highlights. I texted Elic at 5 a.m. and he was still awake from the night before. It was surprising for everyone else, but not for me. I knew it was a matter of time.”

Ayomanor felt the same.  

“Truthfully, in my college football career, there was going to be a game where I did that, just because of the level of play I’m at,” he said. “I just ended up doing it where there was the most media and against the most tracked team of the year.”

Though Stanford has endured an uneven 2024 season, Ayomanor knows he’s even better than he was last year when he earned the Jon Cornish Trophy as the top Canadian in college football.

“My route running is better,” he said. “My endurance is better. My feel for the game is better. I play faster because I’m more sure of myself. I see things quicker. I’m just better at everything.”

The one-handed grab at the pylon for a 17-yard touchdown in the 26-24 ACC-opening victory at Syracuse?

“Instinctual,” Ayomanor said. “But how you make it instinctual is by working, by catching hundreds of balls and running hundreds of routes, and catching it at different angles a bunch of different times. The play is instinctual, but the work isn’t.”

IN THE CANADIAN PRAIRIES, “you don’t need the highway,” Pam says. “We’re taking the gravel roads.”

The same could be said for Ayomanor. Be wary of smooth. Be wary of easy.

“I’m a product of the values I was raised with,” he said.

You’re your mom’s son. You don’t quit, and you don’t let her beat you in arm wrestling. Flash is unnecessary with dirt under your fingernails and miles of empty land in front of you.

“Authentic and genuine,” says Mom. “That’s how we grow up here.”