The NFL Draft is on Thursday April 24th and as teams analyse which players can help them to success we are being treated to a slew of interesting background stories.
One that stood out to us is Ahmed Hassanein’s successful past in CrossFit. Now a senior at Boise State, Ahmed has gone from being completely new to football at age 16 to a two-time all-conference selection who is projected to be drafted in the fifth or sixth round.
Born in California, Hassanein moved to Cairo at age 6 to live with his father. While living in Egypt he forgot how to speak English and had trouble both at home and in school. He took solace in sport and tried everything from breakdancing and swimming to ping pong and soccer. It was in CrossFit that he really excelled though, becoming the top ranked CrossFit athlete in Egypt for his age group and number 10 in the whole of Africa.
Then, when Hassanein’s elder brother, Cory Besch, visited him in Cairo when he was in his mid-teens, the family started taking steps to get him back to the US. Besch was a football coach at Loara High School in Anaheim and recognised his athletic potential.
The high intensity, functional movements that are a feature of CrossFit were an excellent base from which to dominate in other sports. There were significant barriers to overcome, not least Ahmed’s lack of English and that he was going to attempt to succeed in football as a sophomore in high school having never played the game.
Jump forward to today and after years of hard work learning the game and developing into a seriously strong and explosive athlete, Hassanein is on the verge of being the first Egyptian drafted to the NFL.
