The University of Louisville football team’s fortunes are unlikely to rise and fall on the squat legs of Mario Agyen, a 5-foot-7, 190-pound, walk-on running back who joined the team in the middle of last season after an end-of-summer tryout. Still, amid the daily reminders of where he stands in the team’s 114-player hierarchy, Agyen rarely forgets the distance he traveled to get there, leaving home in the Bronx five years ago with little more than a dufflebag stuffed with clothes, $1.98 in his bank account and an inexhaustible supply of determination to be a college football player. Now, when he takes the elevator up to the football players’ commissary each morning, choosing what type of egg-white omelet a chef will prepare for him, and how much fresh fruit, turkey bacon, pearl sugar waffles, oatmeal or grits he’ll pile onto his plate, he often thinks about how he started. Agyen often woke up famished, wondering if his breakfast would consist of one frozen waffle or two and where he’d be sleeping at night. Once, he was so hungry — and so broke — that he texted a former teacher asking to have a couple pizzas delivered to him.

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Persons: Mario Agyen, Agyen Organizations: University of Louisville Locations: Bronx