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ith a wide, toothy grin, Amba Etta-Tawo walked up to cameras and recorders. The camera lights flicked on, thrusting him into the spotlight he’s constantly been in at Syracuse.

He had completed the best game for an SU wide receiver in the program’s history the contest prior, racking up 270 yards and becoming the nation’s leading receiver in the process. He turned, making eye contact and giving individual reporters his attention.

What’s the past week been like for you?

With all this success coming, is that kind of challenging a little bit? How do you make sure you don’t get too high?

Everyone knows you’re in the national rankings. How does it feel?

He paused, likely knowing his real answer wouldn’t fit into a 30-second sound bite. He’d have to parse out his father leaving the United States, one brother’s football career cut short, another brother’s football career never starting and one of his first mentors being killed before he had graduated high school.

Amba is 840 yards into his senior season — a last shot at a football dream. He’s watched so many other careers be cut short. After four disappointing seasons at Maryland, Amba transferred to Syracuse out of desperation and hope.

The move propelled him to one of the most prolific seasons so far. If he keeps pace, he’ll be just the second player to cross the 2,000-receiving-yard barrier in NCAA history. He’ll likely be a contender for the Biletnikoff Award, given to college football’s best receiver. He’ll do what so many of his mentors haven’t: extend his football career.

He faces the questions easily and takes them in stride. Amba gathers himself for a split second and comes up with an answer good enough for the moment, one that doesn’t involve him dissecting how he got here.

“We’re just trying to focus on the next game,” he said.

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mba admitted he was slightly immature as a younger player at McEachern (Georgia) High School. His oldest brother, Etta, knew his brother didn’t take his grades as seriously as he should. One day, that spilled over to football.

Amba was late to practice.

Ken Hockman, Amba’s position coach, happened to be on the phone with Etta and slid the detail into their conversation.

“He’ll never be late to practice again,” Hockman recalls Etta saying.

Etta had been Amba’s father figure since their father, Ekure Tawo, left for Nigeria. Amba and his brother Egim say their father left in 2004. Four brothers constitute the Etta-Tawo siblings: Etta (the oldest), Egim (second oldest), Amba and Ekure (the youngest). After their father left, Etta guided the brothers alongside their mother, Stella.

“When he decided to go back, I took it as my opportunity to step up and be the older figure to my younger brothers,” Etta said.

The family had come from Muscat, Oman in 1999 via a Visa lottery. The brothers played soccer and lived in a 10-mile-wide private community with other expatriates, including Americans, Brits and people of other various nationalities. Every morning, the boys would take a 30 to 40 minute bus ride to a private school. There was enough space in the community for the brothers to ride bikes and roam. But before they left Muscat, an uncle told the boys they’d soon forget about soccer.

“Guys, I’m telling you now,” Etta recalled the uncle telling them, “when you guys get over there, you guys are going to start playing football.”

When they arrived in the United States, the family settled in Atlanta. The 1998-99 Atlanta Falcons made the Super Bowl. The brothers became fans of Jamal Anderson and the “Dirty Bird” dance he did after touchdowns.

The Falcons’ success drew the oldest Etta-Tawo brother in. He won a championship in his first season playing football as a seventh grader. Amba and Egim followed their brother, each scoring touchdowns in their first recreation league games. Etta watched their careers unfold as a volunteer coach in high school. Together, the brothers were naturals. Etta eventually committed to play at Clemson.

During a Monday practice in Etta’s redshirt freshman season, he felt short of breath in a helmets-only walkthrough. Etta thought the problem was a cold, but after two more days of practice, it didn’t improve. He drove with trainers to the hospital and doctors ran tests, which revealed he had an enlarged heart. Etta said he was tested for a year and a half to see whether he could return or if his condition had improved, but he never got back to the field. One of Etta’s former college teammates, Gaines Adams, collapsed and died of an enlarged heart in 2010 when he played for the Chicago Bears.

“Amba and Egim sent me a long text basically saying … ‘You’re the reason I started playing football. I can’t believe this is happening, your dream is coming to an end,’” Etta said. “‘I just want you to know with everything I’ve got left in my body, I’m going to play for you, I’m going to play for Ekure, I’m going to play for mom.’

“I started tearing up a little bit.”

While Etta was disappointed, he realized the end of his career would help spur Egim’s and Amba’s. The latter was so small when he started playing that he hated being tackled, so much so that Hockman said the team had to manage his temper. Opponents and teammates knew it got under the young receiver’s skin. The coach estimated Amba stood 6-feet-1 but just 135 pounds in his freshman season. As a gangly player, he learned to outrun opponents to avoid tackles.

Hockman had a competition for his wide receiver crew each week. Whoever had the best set of practices was allowed to wear a pair of gold Cutters gloves in McEachern’s next contest. Often, Amba and Hockman would stay late after practice and Amba would catch 80 balls from a JUGS machine. The wide receiver coach said Amba was on McEachern’s second team for a few weeks, but they quickly realized he should be moved up.

Hockman saw Amba’s talent, and all he needed to do was refine and refocus it. When Amba was late to practice, his brother reminded him of what he was playing for. The talk set Amba on the right path.

“When you show up to practice late, you’re telling your coaches that you don’t care about their time, that your time is better than their time and you’re better than the team,” Etta said, recalling what he told Amba. “… When you start doing stuff like that, coaches are gonna fall off, fall away from you. You may have all the talent in the world, but if you’re a knucklehead and don’t do what they tell you, then their patience is going to wear thin.”

He was never late to practice again.

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mba played his first varsity football game as a sophomore at the Georgia Dome in late August of 2009. As he popped into the huddle, then-teammate Rajaan Bennett looked at him during the play call.

“This is going to be a touchdown,” Amba recalls Rajaan telling him.

From about 30 yards out, Amba ran a fade to the end zone. The ball floated right into his arms for his first varsity touchdown.

Rajaan, McEachern’s starting running back, was a senior. Amba said the upperclassman helped calm him down on the field in what were some of his first snaps on the varsity field. The former had been friends with Egim because the two played together. When Egim left, Amba and Rajaan became lockermates. Rajaan usurped some of the role Etta and Egim had played before both left for Clemson and West Georgia, respectively. The running back had committed to Vanderbilt, was one of McEachern’s best players and was also an honor student at the high school.

On the morning of Feb. 18, 2010, Amba picked up a call from McEachern quarterback Trent Thompson. He told Amba that Rajaan had been killed. Although Amba didn’t initially believe Thompson, he sobbed for a short time and went to school, hoping it was a joke. When he arrived, he found classmates crying and milling around the football field.

Amba doesn’t remember many people going to class that day.

According to ESPN, the following took place. Earlier that morning, the former boyfriend of Narjaketha Bennett, Rajaan’s mother, had broken into the family’s house. Narjaketha woke up with a .22-caliber pistol pointed at her. Clifton Steger, bitter over a breakup with Rajaan’s mother, had Narjaketha put her brother, who was living with the family at the time, Rajaan and her daughter in a bathroom. Rajaan’s brother was allowed to stay in a bedroom.

Steger had Bennett round up the family’s cell phones. She, however, hid hers and slipped it to Rajaan while she was in the bathroom with him. Rajaan quietly called the police, who showed up. Steger sent Narjaketha out to quell the police. She left the house emotional. Steger headed with his pistol to the bathroom. Narjaketha’s brother met Steger at the bathroom first but was shot while trying to wrestle the gun away. He lived. Steger fired several shots in the bathroom.

Rajaan had taken his sister into the bathtub and covered her from Steger’s shots, which pierced Rajaan’s heart and killed him. Then Steger shot himself.

“When we got the news that he had passed away, I called Amba right away and he couldn’t stop sobbing,” Etta said. “Never in my life have I seen him or been around him when he’s been that upset.”

After Rajaan’s death, McEachern started holding up five fingers before the opening kickoff in honor of their killed teammate because he wore No. 5. On their jerseys, the players had the No. 5 as a patch to remember Rajaan, and Etta said Amba would write a quote or two on his wrists dedicated to Rajaan. Amba was one of several players who read a poem Rajaan had written titled “Don’t Be Scared” for a class assignment before each game. It was also read at Rajaan’s funeral.

“It ended up being some type of amazingly good poem,” Amba said. “We didn’t know that side of him.”

Now, players all around the country wear No. 5 for Rajaan, including Oregon running back Taj Griffin, South Carolina defensive lineman Darius English and Georgia defensive lineman Julian Rochester. Amba hasn’t been able to wear No. 5. In Powder Springs, Georgia, there’s a holiday on May 21 every year named Rajaan Bennett day. Rajaan would have graduated on the date in 2010.

It’s been more than six years since Rajaan’s death. Amba still plays for a fallen teammate who many said was headed for success in football or elsewhere. Talking about his friend, Amba smiles, but shortly after, his face recedes and returns to normal.

“He touched a lot of people, he touched the whole community,” Amba said. “I could go on for hours and hours.”

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hen his older brothers left college, Amba took on the role they had played for him for Ekure. Stella wanted to keep Ekure active, so he took piano lessons. Amba decided to join in. Ekure, unlike his brothers, couldn’t play football because he has cerebral palsy, a disorder which can affect muscle movement, tone and coordination.

He never played publicly, but Stella sent a video of Amba and Ekure playing together to Etta, who never thought he’d see one brother playing the piano, let alone two. Amba took the leadership void Etta and Egim vacated when they departed for college.

“Amba felt like my two big brothers are gone so I gotta be big brother now and take the lead,” Etta said, “and have Ekure’s back and make sure he’s OK with everything.”

The two are the nearest brothers in age (they were just a grade apart in school) and are also the closest of the brothers. Even now, Etta notices the two brothers come home for breaks and trash talk over video games, enough that Egim and Etta may tell them to cut games off and just watch television.

Despite not being able to play football, the youngest Etta-Tawo would often watch his brothers’ practices. Etta said Ekure knows the most about football of the four.

Egim and Amba always promised they’d play for their two brothers who had football taken from them. Not long after the older brothers left, however, Amba had to leave, too. He had committed to Randy Edsall at Maryland. In his freshman season, Amba showed promise, racking up 500 yards. The then-freshman caught his first touchdown against Clemson. Yet he’d never hit that total in a season again at UMD.

After his first season, other players started above Amba on the depth chart. The Terps had future NFL players Deon Long and Stefon Diggs. When Edsall was fired, Amba knew he had a chance to find the right spot for himself. He visited Powder Springs and told Ken and Kyle Hockman he was considering Syracuse.

The Hockmans came from Ohio and both had played at Bowling Green. As alumni, they knew about Dino Babers and what he could do to unlock Amba’s potential. They put in a call for Amba. Despite considering Mississippi State, Missouri and Toledo, among others, Amba cancelled all his other visits after he saw SU.

Over the summer, the Syracuse wide receiver visited Los Angeles and trained with former high school teammate Chris Davis. Kavell Conner, Etta’s former roommate at Clemson and an NFL linebacker who has played for the Indianapolis Colts and San Diego Chargers, helped the two train.

His family had been scheduled to take a trip to Nigeria this summer, and he would’ve visited his mother’s family. Instead, he came to Syracuse to get an early jump on adjusting. He thought it would be a bad look to go on vacation while his teammates worked toward the season.

“Normally my mom would be upset with something like that,” Etta said.

Amba approached his brothers before he told his mother that he’d be skipping the family trip. Etta helped reason with Stella that it was crucial for Amba to stay for his last shot at college football. She eventually grew “more than fine” with it.

“That’s how I know he matured with that,” Etta said. “He decided to skip a trip around the world.”

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hen Etta came home on break from Clemson, he, Egim and Amba worked out together at McEachern. A group of high schoolers from a rival school showed up and challenged the brothers to a pick-up football game. Etta played quarterback and Amba was one of his wide receivers. Then a middle schooler, Amba torched the high schoolers, catching upwards of 20 passes, Etta said.

For the last four years, that potential has only come in bursts. He’s finally gotten the opportunity to execute that talent while playing for the people he used to play with.

On Tuesday, Amba and Eric Dungey teased each other as they were both being interviewed. Amba’s grin reappeared. And while all the football dreams of the players from the pick-up game have faded or will soon fade, his is still in progress.

“I’m trying not to think too much about it,” Amba said. “I’m trying to focus on the next thing and keep on moving. At the end when everything works out, hopefully it does, I can look back at it positively.”

As Amba stopped joking with Dungey, he pivoted and walked through double doors out of the foyer of the Petty-Iacolano Football Wing with the grin still on his face.

Banner photo by Bryan Cereijo | Staff Photographer