US-Based Nigerian Footballer Fikayo Idowu Drowns While Swimming

US-Based Nigerian Footballer Fikayo Idowu Drowns While Swimming

According to The Columbus Dispatch, Idowu hung out with friends on Thursday night and heard that they had planned to go swimming in a lake 40 miles northeast of Columbus on Friday. That was the last his friend Jensen, a fellow Ohio State University player, heard of him.

The following day, a Saturday, Jensen, while picking up another friend, got a call that Idowu died the night before; he drowned while swimming with friends.

“I knew a few people had been invited,” Jensen, told the press. “I just figured I’d stay home. I had to lift, I had to practice. We kind of hung up the phone, and we kind of just looked at each other wondering if it was real.”

“I didn’t believe it at first,” another teammate Tyler Kidwell said. “He was one of my best friends on the team.”

According to the publication:

“Idowu was a defender on the Buckeyes team who had played since 2014. He was a junior enrolled in a premed program. Friends said he wanted to be a surgeon.

Idowu was from Madison, Mississippi, and was majoring in health and rehabilitation sciences while planning to attend medical school. He was an Ohio State Prominence Scholar and a two-time OSU Scholar-Athlete.”

His teammates have since been mourning him, but the Knox County sheriff’s office has refused to release details of the 19-year-old’s death.

“As I understand it, they just went up for the end of the day after classes,” John Bluem, his coach, told Columbus Dispatch. “They just went up to go for a swim.”

Idowu was born to Nigerian parents who are currently based in the United States.