When Ziggy Ansah (BS ’13) came to BYU from Ghana, he wanted to play basketball. Instead he got an education in football, a sport he’d never played. And in April the BYU defensive end was selected by the Detroit Lions as the no. 5 pick in the NFL draft—tying Jim McMahon (’81) as the Cougars’ highest draftee.
“We didn’t recruit him,” says Coach Bronco Mendenhall. “I didn’t know anything about him; he walked into my office—didn’t have a scholarship for two of his three years—and now he’s . . . a first-round pick? I’m not sure that’s ever happened in college football.”
At the draft, Ansah fulfilled Coach Mendenhall’s dare to wear the signature Ansah accessory—lensless 3-D movie glasses.
Now going into his mere fourth season, Ansah anticipates the work ahead. “They have confidence in me,” he told Lions media. “And I have confidence in myself too.”
