Former Drake men's basketball guard Ayo Akinwole appreciates coaching opportunity with Bulldogs

Ayo Akinwole made an instant impact when he joined Drake men’s basketball as a graduate transfer last season.

The Papillion, Nebraska native spent four seasons on Omaha’s basketball team before opting to play his final season of college basketball in Des Moines. He jumped into a roster packed with returning stars – ShanQuan “Tank” Hemphill, Tremell Murphy, D.J. Wilkins, to name a few.

But he was always ready to jump in and do whatever Drake needed from him. He finished his only season as a Bulldog with 115 points, 52 assists and 35 rebounds. When he wasn’t playing, Akinwole was one of his teammates’ loudest cheerleaders, offering advice and words of encouragement from the bench.

His college eligibility has since run out, but Akinwole wasn’t ready to give up the game just yet.

So, he’s back on the bench and back in Bulldogs gear, just not as a player.

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Akinwole faced a common conundrum among new college graduates:

What comes next?

He thought about moving to Texas to be closer to family.

He considered putting the graduate degree he started at Drake on hold and doing something else.

But then he took a shot and asked his former coach about a different option.

“I said, ‘Coach, is there a way I can stick around and finish up my master’s?’” Akinwole told the Des Moines Register. “He said, ‘We’ll make that happen, but we need you as a (graduate assistant).’ That was something that didn’t sound too bad. The rest is history.”

Akinwole started helping with the team around June when the hours were the longest.

Managing his new coaching gig and graduate school isn’t too difficult now that the Bulldogs are in season. But the summer months were a different story. That’s when Akinwole said the hours were longer as Drake’s coaching staff put in the most work preparing players for the season.

There are some parts of the job that Akinwole expected: filling in as a practice player, working guys out in practice, little things like that. There are also the more unexpected aspects of being a graduate assistant: figuring out what bus the Bulldogs take to a game, who travels with the team and working with film.

He says that he enjoys the different parts of his job – even the unexpected parts. After all, Akinwole understands how to be a good teammate, even if it’s not him out on the court anymore.

“It’s a lot of work that nobody really sees,” Akinwole said. “But it really matters, you know. It’s a lot of dirty work or work that you might not really understand what we’re doing, but it matters to the team and the whole thing in general.”

Not the easiest transition

Akinwole considers himself lucky with the transition from playing basketball to coaching it. Even though he only spent a year on Drake’s roster, he was familiar with the staff and knew – mostly – what to expect from DeVries.

If anything, Akinwole said that his relationship with the other coaches just grew over time.

But remember how he spoke about the unexpected parts of the job? There’s one thing that stuck out, even with just a couple weeks of the season under his belt. Something that’s easier to shake off as a player, at least in Akinwole’s experience.

“We lost the first game against Indiana State, and it just felt different than when I was playing,” Akinwole said. “We spent all this time breaking up the film, showing the guys everything. But it must have not been enough. We need to go that extra mile.”

If that loss got to Akinwole, his peers didn't notice. According to DeVries, it’s actually his former player’s positivity that sets him apart.

“The thing with Ayo, even as a player, it’s how positive he is every day,” DeVries said. “He’s so fun to be around. Even when he wasn’t maybe playing all the minutes that he would have liked to play, he always had a great attitude, came in always as a team-first guy.

“Now, as a coach, he just wants to learn and get better and he’s doing an awesome job with that.”

Only up from here

Coaching at Drake gave Akinwole two opportunities when his playing career ended: The chance to finish his graduate degree and an opportunity to stick around the program and players he’d grown fond of.

“I just like the people here,” Akinwole said. “The culture here is just amazing. I just felt like it was a perfect fit. I could stick around some of the teammates that I was close with last year and just grow with them and learn the other side of it, the coaching side.”

Akinwole is enjoying every moment with the Bulldogs right now. But he also knows that it's a temporary position that will end when the season does. He also considers himself young, with the potential to still play somewhere.

There are a lot of questions for Akinwole right now, and he knows he’ll have to make up his mind sooner rather than later.

But it’s the middle of the season. Those questions are an issue for another day.

“I’ve got some decisions to make, some conversations that need to be had,” Akinwole said. “I want to finish the season and go from there. If the doors open for me to continue to do this, then yes, I would because I like being around the game.

"At the same time, I wonder if I should try and do something with this game and maybe try to get into coaching when I get older. So, I’ve got to ask myself some questions, but as of right now, I’m just enjoying it.”

Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Drake men's basketball assistant Ayo Akinwole on switch from player to coach