Kwame Darko is a classic over-achiever.Not only is he a starter and captain on the men’s soccer team, but he also takes a full load of classes and a bunch of extracurricular activities.

“I’ve been on Senate, worked with Sports Information, been an RA, and worked in the Admissions Office giving tours,” Kwame recites.

Throughout campus, Kwame Darko is known as a student who is everywhere. As a senior, he is one of the most well known people on campus. Known by both athletes and non-athletes, his name is recognized by almost every student here.

Kwame talks about how he really loves soccer.

“I really like it a lot. I see it as a camaraderie, and yet a diplomatic way of having fun. It’s known as a sport made by hooligans who wanted to be like gentlemen. It’s a hard game, yet the rules are made for an anal-retentive person. There are many rules, even with uniforms, with how they’re supposed to be given out, and which number to use.

“Yet at the same time, once you get down at the pitch, there’s a lot of stuff that could bring out the hooligan in you. There’s lots of physical contact.”

It was playing a sport with physical contact at a maximum level that caused Kwame to get injured last year, during the season.

“I had just been pushing my body as hard as I could, and eventually I developed a strain in my groin, which caused me to be on the bench for a large part of the season,” says Kwame. “I have a natural groin problem, and I don’t stretch very well. And I just kept playing through it. I just kept asking so much of my body, and it got worse and worse.”

As to whether his injury affects his play this season, Kwame says his injury has made him slightly tentative to do certain things on the field which he used to do. For example, as one of the team’s starting defensemen, he is required to make a lot of slide tackles, to save the ball from going in the goal at a critical moment in the game. He has found that hard to do.

“I’m scared to go down now. I’m still trying to learn to come back. My body still hasn’t had that much demand on it for about half a year.”

Yet Kwame seems confident of his abilities to cope with the injury.
“It sucks, but it’s nothing ice can’t fix.”

Despite all of the obstacles in his life, Kwame is proud of everything he has been able to achieve, so far.

“Being able to go this far in soccer, and also in my education is an important thing to me. Sometimes it doesn’t always work the way I want it to, but that’s life,” Kwame explains.

Being chosen as the team’s Most Improved Player his freshman year, he has much to be proud of.

Kwame also has a slightly crazy sense of humor, and enjoys having fun with his teammates. He describes one event in which he was parading around naked through the hallway between the locker rooms and the showers with his teammates, just having a good time, at an away game.

“We thought the building was just for guys, and this kid takes off his towel, singing, ‘I’m too sexy for my towel,’ and I was like, ‘Alright, alright, I’ll match you up,’ and so I took mine off, and there was a bunch of us just going around, trying to be funny, and I was looking down, so I didn’t see the girl coming around the corner. And there I was, standing buck-naked in front of this volleyball player. She took one look at me, gasped, and ran out of the room,” recollects Kwame, with an embarrassed smile.

When asked what major goals he has for himself in the near future, Kwame immediately replied by stating that he would like to win an Old Dominion Athletic Conference Championship.

“It’s getting down to the wire, but I think we really have the talent to do it this year,” says Kwame. “We just need to get that psychological edge that we need, and we’ll be fine.