Vincent Ugwoke stepped off a plane into a snowstorm just after midnight in Concordia, Kansas, in 2022. 

He’d just flown over 6,000 miles to the U.S. from Nsukka, Nigeria — alone and carrying nothing but a bag full of clothes made for the wrong weather.

Three years later, the senior is one of the top discus throwers in college athletics and a key piece of USF’s track and field program, ranked No. 5 in the country. 

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Ugwoke launched a 63.72-meter throw in May — the best in USF history and among the top in Division I this year.

With the mark, Ugwoke will enter the ring at the NCAA Championships in Oregon on Friday with one of the top marks in the nation — but his mindset is already beyond it.

“Going pro sounds like a great thing,” he said. “I don’t know how that works yet, but with the marks I’ve been putting up this year, I might have a great shot.”

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Before Ugwoke’s collegiate career started in the U.S., he didn’t have a plan for life after high school. 

He hadn’t played any organized sports, but people kept telling him he looked like an athlete — like someone who should be doing “something more.”

One day in 2019, he said he wandered into a local stadium and saw runners training on the track, so he walked up to a coach and asked to join.

That coach — “Coach Sam,” as Ugwoke called him — let him run for a few weeks before gently nudging him toward throwing events.

It didn’t take long for Ugwoke to realize that’s where his future might be. 

“It just came natural,” he said. “And that’s how it clicked.”

That raw instinct took him to a national title in Nigeria by 2021 and earned him a scholarship at Cloud County Community College in Kansas.

Ugwoke had connected with Cloud County’s coach through WhatsApp — not as a recruit, but as a referral.

The coach had been scouting Ugwoke’s friend, Princess Kara, who ended up choosing another school. Before she left, she mentioned Ugwoke’s name.

But, he said his first lesson in the U.S. wasn’t athletic.

While the language was the same, even English had to be learned all over again.

“Maybe people would have a little difficulty understanding your own accent, and sometimes you have little difficulty understanding their own accent,” he said. “Because in America, it’s like [they] like to say everything short… as opposed to where I’m from.”

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Ugwoke transferred to USF in 2023, after former Olympian Mariami Kevkhishvili-Machavariani and throws coach for the Bulls recruited him.

“I felt like the way she thought about the whole thing, and how she approached sports, the practice and everything,” Ugwoke said. “I felt like, South Florida, it’s a great place for me,”

At USF, he said he spends his days drilling in technique, cycling through stand throws, half turns and a move called the South African drill.

In the gym, he said he builds strength and power — but in the circle, it’s control and timing that separates him.

“We kind of break it down to different segments,” he said. “Working on these different things specifically helps you get better with those different stages of the turn.”

Now, he’s matured into a leader for the Bulls as they make a national push under head coach Erik Jenkins.

With Jenkins leading the way, USF improved its ranking through “hard work,” he said.

And Ugwoke has grown along with the program, Jenkins said.

“He’s really grown into being a guy that his teammates like,” Jenkins said. “He’s got a lot stronger, and he’s become a better student of the event that he competes in.”