By Christopher Tremblay, Staff Sports Writer

Ashland’s Kevin Ozulmba is one of those rare athletes who don’t really care about the wins and losses as long as he is having fun and enjoying himself. However, while the Clocker athlete has been enjoying himself on the football field and wrestling mat, he has also been succeeding. The success that Ozulmba has found is an added bonus to the seniors' enjoyment.

“My competition level is the same with both sports; they’re both competitions, and you give it your all. Wrestling is a fun environment, and although I don’t like losing, the rankings mean nothing to me – it’s just another match,” Ozulmba said. “Playing football, coaches know my game and see what I can do on film. I go out there with the same mentality, and when I started to have success running, I pushed myself to keep going, and I am not going down easily.”

This past year, playing on the gridiron, Ozulmba and his teammates went undefeated in the league, and he captured the Tri-Valley title and the team MVP award. He was a two-way starter (outside linebacker and running back), rushing for 2051 yards at an average of 10 yards per carry. He also now holds the Ashland career rushing record with a total of 4,422 yards.

While wrestling on the mat, the senior was also part of a TVL Championship that went undefeated in the league. In fact, Ozulmba, who has been part of the Ashland wrestling team since his freshman year, is part of the Clocker grapplers, a team that went undefeated in all four seasons of their high school career in the TVL. Ozulmba was named to the team's MVP and went on to capture a Sectional Championship, finishing fourth in the Division 2 State Tournament.

Obviously, Ozulmba enjoyed participating in both football and wrestling, as his coaches reported that he never missed a single game or match in either sport due to sickness or injury. Academically, he had near-perfect attendance, having missed only four days of school thus far.

Football entered his life in first grade, and although he was not fully immersed in the game at that time, he would play if nothing else of greater importance was happening. It was while playing youth football that his coach came up to him and asked him to be more competitive on the field.

“I was nothing special on the field, but after that talk with my coach, I started playing flag football and realized that I could perform well,’ he said. “In the eighth grade, I found out that I wasn’t really that bad.”

During his first eighth-grade practice, the coaches asked the player to line up wherever they thought he should play; Ozulmba surprised everyone and got into the running back line. He knew that Ashland football wasn’t one that threw the ball all that much, so he decided to take a shot at running back. He would hit the gym more often and would look up running back drills on YouTube and TikTok. 

“Coming into that year, I knew that Ashland was not that good, but Coach (Andrew) MacKay told us that we were the future of Ashland football, and that inspired all of us,” Ozulmba recalled. “That summer we bought in, and a lot of us found our way to the field to work on our techniques. We also had a great strength and conditioning program that helped us a lot.”

Before getting involved in wrestling, Ozulmba was a basketball player. But when he injured his ankle late in the eighth-grade football season, he decided to take the basketball season off to recuperate, and that was when things took a turn.

“I got a DM to come and wrestle from one of the coaches. I thought that wrestling was weird and didn’t want to do that,” he recalls. “That coach wouldn’t take no for an answer, so as a favor, I told him that I’d come and watch a practice. Once I was at the practice, he made me get onto the mat and try it, and continued to push me to join. Eventually, I figured that it couldn’t be all that bad for a couple of months, and I’d be able to deal with it, and who knows, it may help me with my football.”

It wasn’t long after that that he decided to leave basketball behind him and start wrestling. As a freshman, he made his way onto the JV team, then the varsity team, and over the years, he began building his strength and ability to apply what he had learned to the sport. This past year, he accomplished something he never really thought about – winning a Sectional Championship for the Clockers.

“Getting there was one thing, but once I was there, I knew how big the stage was and just didn’t feed into the hype of it all,” he said. “I just went out and competed to the best of my ability.”

Ashland Coach Mike Capobianco may be in his first season as the varsity head coach, but he has worked with Ozulmba all four years, as well as being his middle school football coach. 

“As a freshman, he was athletic, and you could see all that raw ability; unfortunately, he went winless in his three matches, getting pinned all three times,” the Clocker Coach said. “It's amazing that he didn’t know a single wrestling move and evolved into a Sectional Champion and State placer. He is a fierce competitor who keeps coming at you and will eventually overpower you.”

Capobianco went on to say that the senor grappler hates losing and forces his will upon his opponents. With a young team, the Ashland coach was very grateful to the two-year captain this winter, who was the engine that drove the team to its fifth straight TVL Title.

Although he has come to enjoy taking part in wrestling, football is still the favorite sport of the three-year varsity athlete, who was also a two-time captain, 2-time TVL All-Star, and TVL MVP.

“He did everything that he could accomplish,”  Football Coach MacKay said. “I have been fortunate enough to have coached such a good athlete, one of those at the top of the list. He brings a competitive nature and continuously rises to the challenge and has no problem competing.”

Over the years, Ozulmba has gone through the natural progression to improve his skills on the football field. He has the heart of a lion and is a phenomenal athlete.

Having played football for almost his whole life and having it be his favorite sport, one would think this is a sport he truly appreciates.

“As a football player, I am more humble as it is a team sport, and although I am the one running the ball, I don’t deserve all the credit. That should go to all those around me who make my job possible,” he said. “Wrestling, on the other hand, is an individual sport and at the end of the day, wrestling is the sport I am most appreciative of.”

Wrestling may be the sport he appreciates the most, but football may be the one he will play on the collegiate level come next year. 

“At this time, I am not 100% sure that I want to play football in college, and people are saying I’m crazy,” Ozulmba said. “Coach MacKay is helping with the transition and communicating with the schools, so right now it’s a wait-and-see thing.”

The soon-to-be college freshman is more concerned with his academics, but if the opportunity to play football comes his way, he says he will take a look at it as long as the school fits his needs.