After father’s death, Boise State’s Igiehon didn’t have to look far for a role model
Yvette Igiehon begins every day with a group message to her five children: “Good morning, lovelies.”
“Good morning, SuperWoman,” responds Tarale Murry, a doctoral candidate at Michigan. Boise State defensive lineman Scale Igiehon chimes in with “Good morning, gorgeous,” and the rest of the siblings aren’t far behind.
The Igiehons have family threads on Instagram, iMessage and Snapchat full of goofy videos shared between brothers and highlights of basketball games. Igiehon and his sister Iduzaye — the youngest of the group, who goes by “Duda” — share videos on TikTok, and at least one of the brothers catches up with her most days on Snapchat.
Though thousands of miles now separate the Igiehons, Yvette won’t let them drift apart.
“My mom emphasized that for the longest time,” said Murry, the eldest of four brothers. “She would say, ‘If and when me or your dad ever leave, I want ya’ll to stay close together and love each other.’”
At Lehman High in Texas, Murry set the program record for rebounds in a career and led the team to its first state playoff berth, but his college playing career didn’t begin until he had been at Texas for two years. He wasn’t thinking about basketball, instead focusing on earning an accounting degree, until 2013 when the Longhorns held an open tryout and he made the cut.
He played sparingly in his final two years at Texas, but the connections he made in Austin led to a graduate assistant coaching position at Texas A&M and a year as an assistant on a professional Canadian team, the St. John Riptide.
“I’m not supposed to be dealing with people. I’m supposed to be in an office with a computer and financial statements,” Murry said. “That’s why walking on at Texas was such a life changer.”
Murry’s first season on the team at Texas was just beginning when Igiehon’s father, Imade, suffered a brain aneurysm. The Longhorns were returning from a scrimmage against Gonzaga, and Murry was still at the airport when he got messages from Yvette, saying Imade suddenly fell while cooking in their family home and had to be rushed to the hospital.
Imade pulled through, but he was in the hospital for 40 days and needed constant care for the next two years as the aneurysm caused an innumerable amount of strokes, which left him with physical limitations and impaired motor skills.
“It wasn’t just the physical labor of helping him take his medicine and things like that, but a lot of emotional labor for my mom,” Murry said. “It took a lot of mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual labor.”
In 2016, Igiehon was preparing for his junior year at Del Valle High in Texas when Imade died in his sleep. Igiehon was away at a basketball tournament, and he was Murry’s and Yvette’s first stop as they had the painstaking task of informing the family.
“You don’t really know what to say or do in that moment,” Igiehon said. “I was sad, but I had to keep pushing forward.”
In 1997, Imade immigrated to the United States from Nigeria, where he was a lawyer and social worker. After settling in Texas, he worked in computer manufacturing, and after he was laid off at Dell, he went back to school and got a master’s degree from Texas State University.
Igiehon was 16 years old when his father died, and he was left to navigate a roller coaster of emotions while trying to be strong for the family.
“He kind of tried to step up to be big brother a little bit with my other son in school, and maybe that was too much too fast,” Yvette said. “He wasn’t going around beating up anybody, but you knew you had to tip-toe around him a little bit not to make him angry.”
Igiehon’s emotions got the better of him during halftime of a game early in his senior year, and a scuffle in the locker room left him suspended for a couple of games.
“He just didn’t know how to control his emotions and reach out,” Yvette said. “There was no way to prepare him to have to step up and be big brother while still being a kid at the same time.”
Igiehon also clashed with his older brother, but even though he admits to not always realizing or appreciating it at the time, he never had to look far to find a paternal figure as long as Murry was in the picture.
“He is such a passionate, driven person,” Igiehon said. “He was like my rock, my pillar and someone to look up to and follow in their footsteps.”
‘There had to be two adults’
With Murry away at school, Yvette was left to care for four children who were spread among three different schools and had varying social calendars. So, Murry often ferried his siblings to school in the morning before making the 20-minute drive into Austin to make it in time for his own classes.
“He was everything to me and to the family,” Yvette said. “I just felt like I wasn’t the stay-at-home mom. I worked, so even when they were young, Tarale took care of Scale. He was the one that brought Scale up.”
Murry regularly left practice early or missed a workout session to pick up his brothers and sister in the the afternoon, but Murry said Texas coach Rick Barnes was always accommodating.
“There had to be two adults to help with all the kids, so that was an interesting space to have to negotiate at that age,” Murry said.
Murry helped raise all of his siblings, but being that they were the oldest, there was always an air of competition when it came to Igiehon. Whether they were doing pushups in the garage or playing pickup basketball, Igiehon always went a little harder against his brother than most anyone else.
“I used to laugh because he had the worst shot in the family, but it would go in somehow,” Murry said.
Igiehon picked up a few moves on the basketball court from his brother. Even weighing more than 300 pounds, he was a starter on the varsity team at Del Valle in part, Murry said, because of his innate skill as a tactician.
“He was a wide body and a great screener, and you weren’t going to move him out of the paint,” Murry said. “But what separated him was the game seemed to be slower for him such that he could see things and understand what he needed to do.”
Igiehon’s size and athleticism made him an easy addition to the Del Valle varsity football roster his freshman year. But unlike when Murry stood between him and the hoop in the family driveway, Cardinals football coach Charles Burton said Igiehon seemed hesitant to go all out against his smaller teammates in practice.
“When you grow up that big, you get used to dominating everybody so you kind of start to go easy on people,” Burton said. “We used to have to tell him it was OK to really use all his strength.”
Murry was 6-foot-2 and 187 pounds during his playing days at Texas, and he is the smallest of the brothers. Osayande — a freshman at Little Tribal Preach College in Nebraska — is 6-4, 240. Nehikhare stands 6-7 as a sophomore at St. Stephen’s high school in Austin, and Iduzaye is already 5-10 in eighth grade.
Murry said growing up it was understood that given their natural size advantage, they didn’t go all out until it was game time. That was something he struggled with early in his career with the Longhorns.
“That’s something we’ve all had to face and realize that it’s OK to play like a maniac,” Murry said. “You never want to lose control, but Scale has trucked plenty of kids.”
Igiehon’s apprehension didn’t slow him down. He posted at least 35 tackles in each of his four seasons at Del Valle, including a career-high 55 as a junior, and was named all-district in all but his freshman season in Texas’ 6A classification.
His size didn’t hurt, but Burton said Igiehon’s IQ is what made him a natural on the football field.
Burton was a linebacker at Syracuse from 1998 to 2001. He graduated with former Indianapolis Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney, and said he sees a lot of similarities in how Scale approaches the game.
“Dwight was a freakish athlete, but what doesn’t get talked about as much is how intelligent he was and how he played the game like a chess match,” Burton said. “I can see Scale getting to that point mentally where he’s working in the first quarter to set up moves he wants to use in the third and fourth quarters.”
Burton said he wouldn’t put it past Igiehon to attempt Freeney’s patented spin move, especially since he dropped a few pounds.
“Scale didn’t do anything but get bigger every year here, but while doing that, he was also getting more athletic,” Burton said. “That’s a testament to his work ethic, and he was a joy to be around.”’
‘A lot of schools missed out’
Igiehon ballooned up to more than 320 pounds by his senior year at Del Valle, and Burton said that may have scared off a few recruiters. Boise State, Purdue, UCF and Houston all offered scholarships, but schools from the SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12 all took a pass.
Former Boise State defensive coordinator Andy Avalos put the idea of slimming down into Igiehon’s head during a visit his senior year, and by the time he arrived in Boise, he was down to 305 pounds.
“You don’t see somebody that big, who moves that well and is that smart,” Burton said. “A lot of schools missed out.”
Given what his family went through, it would have been understandable if Igiehon wanted to stay close to home and signed with one of the Texas schools that offered him, such as Rice, Houston and Abilene Christian. But with his mother’s blessing, he chose the Broncos.
“My mom is so strong. I wasn’t really too worried about her,” Igiehon said. “She told me to worry about myself and go to the best place for me, which was Boise State.”
Igiehon made an impact as soon as he arrived at Boise State. As a true freshman, he appeared in 11 games and made three starts. He racked up 1.5 sacks in his first career start against BYU.
Last season, he took a backseat to a trio of seniors — David Moa, Sonatane Lui and Chase Hatada — but still managed to almost double his tackle total and post a career-high seven stops in the Broncos’ overtime win against Wyoming.
“I didn’t take any less reps. I just wasn’t in the same role,” Igiehon said. “It was just embracing that and supporting those guys and being behind them as a team player.”
Moa, Lui and Hatada are all currently diving into life after college football. So this season, it’s up to Igiehon to lead the charge in the trenches. He’ll have some help from junior college transfers Divine Obichere and Shane Irwin, Homedale native Scott Matlock and Utah transfer Jackson Cravens, but his ability to create havoc at the point of attack will play a pivotal role in the Broncos’ success against the run.
“That position is the tip of the spear for us,” Boise State defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding said. “Those are the guys who can affect every single play.”
