Colts' Yannick Ngakoue is new patron saint of Indy. He doesn't want to leave. 'This is home'

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WESTFIELD, Ind. — The sun is beating down on the football field from a piercing blue sky that is sprinkled with puffs of white clouds, and the sweat is dripping from Yannick Ngakoue's face. He walks off the field after Indianapolis Colts training camp has ended and ducks under a tent into the shade.

He sits down on a plastic chair planted in the grass that seems too rickety for his 6-2, 245-pound body and Ngakoue begins to talk. And soon it becomes hard to tell if the drops on his face are from the sweat or from tears.

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Life wasn't easy for Ngakoue growing up. He is the son of a single mother who immigrated to the United States from the West Indies when she was 22. He watched his mother leave for work at 3 a.m. as a naval nurse at a military hospital. He watched her, finally, come home late that night. On the weekends, he watched her leave again to take another shift and, then, another.

Marlene Chantelly was trying to provide anything, everything, she could for Ngakoue and his brother. But she couldn't give them everything they needed and she couldn't protect them from what lingered in their midst.

Gang members hung all around Ngakoue's high school football field at Friendship Collegiate Academy in Washington, D.C. One afternoon, just before practice began, a teen was found with five bullets in his head. Dead.

How does a team practice after that? Ngakoue did. His team did. That was life.

"Underprivileged." That's how Ngakoue describes his youth as he sits under the tent, as teammates Michael Pittman, Jr., and Jonathan Taylor stand feet away with a swarm of media surrounding them.

Ngakoue doesn't notice any of that. He keeps talking, telling stories of his childhood. When the school year began, there was no money for new supplies. Ngakoue, his brother and his mom would go to the stash of notebooks and pencils they had saved from the year before.

The boys would reuse the pencils and the tattered folders and they would turn the old notebooks upside down to have a fresh set of pages to write on.

Now, Ngakoue is a defensive end for the Colts, his fifth team in almost as many years. He was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the third round of the 2016 NFL Draft, after playing college football at the University of Maryland. After Jacksonville, he played at least parts of one season each for the Minnesota Vikings, Baltimore Ravens and Las Vegas Raiders.

Then Ngakoue was traded to the Colts with one year left on his Las Vegas contract, a 27-year-old newcomer to Indianapolis with zero knowledge of the city he was about to call home.

And yet, in just a few months, Ngakoue has become Indy's new patron saint.

Ngakoue has purchased school supplies upon more school supplies for teachers. He has taken children of domestic violence on shopping sprees to Meijer and to a baseball game.

He is planning his Friday nights around Indiana high school football, with the goal of attending as many games as he can, getting into locker rooms and talking to as many players as he can about life. About what is really important.

Ngakoue's mom taught him all of this. "Life is bigger than you are," Chantelly would tell her two sons. "If you ever can help somebody, then help somebody."

Help somebody. Help anybody, help everyone he can get to. That, along with proving himself on the football field as a player the Colts should sign for a long-term contract, is Ngakoue's mission. But football is mission No. 2. Helping is mission No. 1.

"That," Ngakoue says, the sweat or tears streaming down his face, "feels better than any football play."

'I once was the kid in your classroom'

Erin Eads' dog started barking late on a Friday night. She looked out the window and saw an Amazon truck. The driver started bringing boxes upon boxes to Eads' porch. "What is this?" she wondered. She didn't remember ordering anything from Amazon.

Inside the boxes, Eads found animal crackers, mini packs of pretzels, Play-doh and books. And she found a note.

"A gift for you. Hope you know how important your role is in these kids' lives! I once was the kid in your classroom. Hope you have a great new school year! Go Colts! From Yannick Ngakoue #91"

"I once was the kid in your classroom." Eads fights back tears as she talks about that line from Ngakoue's note.

Eads is a kindergarten teacher at South View Elementary in Muncie, Indiana Her school caters to many kids living in poverty.

Ngakoue once was one of those kids. He remembers going to school hungry, not having money for lunch. And he remembers a teacher who pulled dollar bills out of her pocket to make sure he had what he needed. Ngakoue never forgot that teacher.

As he made a new home in Indy, Ngakoue sent out a tweet Aug. 5: "Hey @Colts nation – where are my LOCAL teachers at? With school right around the corner and knowing the challenges of what you face getting the proper items in your classroom – I want to help. Please drop your Amazon Wishlists so I can take a look – surprises are my thing."

Eads didn't see that tweet, but her brother-in-law did. He sent it to Eads, who was inside her classroom at South View getting ready for the new school year.

"By the time I saw it, he had 300 people responding," Eads said. But then she decided, "Oh, I'm going to try it. I don't know if it will be anything, but it's worth a shot."

Then on that Friday night, her dog started going crazy and the Amazon driver arrived unloading boxes.

"It's honestly such a relief," said Eads as she talks about the snacks Ngakoue sent. "I teach in a Title I building so we have a really high poverty rate, so to be able to feed them a snack before they go home..." That means the world to her.

And so do the books. Ngakoue sent one on Serena Williams and another on Kobe Bryant. "To have books in the classroom that represent them," Eads said, "I think it gives our kids a fighting chance."

Ngakoue is giving kids, not just Eads' kids but many more kids, a fighting chance. In the weeks since his tweet, Ngakoue has sent supplies to 31 teachers with a goal of 91, his Colts jersey number.

"Just knowing all of the teachers that helped me out growing up, they would dip into their own pockets and make sure that I had supplies and more food and stuff like that," Ngakoue said. "I want to use the platform that God gave me to extend my hand out and help similar kids and parents going through situations that I've been through."

But Ngakoue isn't stopping with school supplies.

'He is giving them a childhood'

As he settled in Indy, Ngakoue learned of Coburn Place, a safe haven for families impacted by domestic violence. He wanted to help.

"He reached out to us," said Julie Henson, vice president of development at Coburn Place. "That's rare. We didn't contact him. He came to us."

Ngakoue took 10 kids living at Coburn Place -- ages 5 to 17 -- shopping at Meijer. He gave each a $250 gift card. He brought them doughnuts and drinks.

"And he stayed the whole time to shop with the kids," said Henson. "They could buy whatever they wanted, so it was definitely school supplies, they were picking out folders and shoes. But he was also getting them to just pick things that were fun."

Maybe a candy bar, a toy or an electronic device. Maybe a cool T-shirt or pair of pants.

"He's really interested in addressing basic needs," Henson said. "But he's also interested in facilitating opportunities for joy. I think that combination is really rare."

Under the tent after Colts practice, Ngakoue talked about that shopping spree with the kids, one he and his girlfriend, Maria Perez, did together. "That was amazing," he said, "just seeing the smiles on their faces."

Coburn Place was so thankful for what Ngakoue did that day. And they thought the shopping trip might be the end of it.

"We felt like, 'This is amazing. Thank you so much,'" Henson said, "and then a few days later..." Ngakoue received an invitation from Indianapolis' minor league baseball team to throw out the first pitch at Sunday's game alongside Kenny Moore II.

"Yes, I'll do it," Ngakoue told the team. "But can I bring my friends at Coburn Place?" Henson said she couldn't believe it. But he did. Ngakoue took the kids to Sunday's baseball game.

"Our lives are really busy and a pro athlete is busier than most people, so it makes sense that they do something to invest in the community and then they're onto the next thing ... moving on," she said. "What's rare about him is that he is remembering these kids. He is remembering the kids at Coburn Place and he is actively looking for additional ways to find them fun."

Ngakoue has also invited the kids to a Colts game and he has many more ideas to connect throughout the season. How deep and how impactful what Ngakoue is doing, said Henson, he probably has no idea.

"Breaking the cycle starts with investing in families and giving kids a chance to heal, to be kids and to learn different types of relationships and experiences in the world," she said. "He is giving them a childhood."

'I would love to stay here until I'm done'

His name is pronounced "yah-NEEK in-GAH-kway." People always get it wrong, Ngakoue says, laughing. Like "YAN-nick in-GAK-you." He gets it. There are a lot of vowels in that last name.

But it doesn't matter to Ngakoue how people pronounce his name. He just wants them to respect what he's doing on the field.

Ngakoue, whom Colts teammates and those closest to him call Yann (pronounced "yawn"), will be a free agent after the 2022 NFL season. The Raiders traded Ngakoue to Indianapolis in exchange for cornerback Rock Ya-Sin in March. Ngakoue has one season to prove he should stay.

And he hopes desperately he can stay. He doesn't want his time in Indianapolis to end.

"Oh yeah, this is home for me," Ngakoue said. "I would love to stay here until I'm done, being able to play this game. I'm still young, got a lot left in the tank, 27 years old, and I feel like I'm just hitting my true stride."

Ngakoue has a record of talent, of skill. At Friendship Collegiate Academy as a senior, after recording 17 sacks, he was named Gatorade Football Player of the Year for Washington, D.C. Ngakoue was rated a four-star recruit by Rivals.com and he was ranked as the fourth-best outside linebacker in his class. 

At Maryland, he played all 13 games as a freshman and started all 12 as a sophomore. In his junior season, Ngakoue set a school record with 13.5 sacks.

Before his senior season, Ngakoue announced he would enter the 2016 NFL Draft. As a rookie with the Jaguars, Ngakoue had 22 combined tackles (19 solo), eight sacks, two pass deflections, an interception and a forced fumble in 16 games, 15 starts. His eight sacks broke a Jaguars rookie record.

In his second year with Jacksonville, he was named to his first Pro Bowl as an injury replacement for teammate Calais Campbell. On the list of NFL's Top 100 Players of 2018, Ngakoue was ranked 88th by his peers.

On March 2, 2020, after the 2019 season, Ngakoue tweeted that he would like to be traded, to not play for the Jaguars. Four months later, Ngakoue was sent to the Vikings. After a season in Minnesota, he played for the Ravens. After a season in Baltimore, on March 19, 2021, Ngakoue signed a two-year, $26 million contract with the Las Vegas Raiders.

In Week 7 with the Raiders last year, Ngakoue had four tackles and two sacks in a 33–22 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. He was named AFC Defensive Player of the Week.

Telemundo did a story on Ngakoue earning defensive player of the week and Perez, who works for Telemundo, met him. The two fell in love.

"Truly a blessing to share my life with this talented, hardworking and most humble man I know," Perez posted to social media in July. "Thank you Colts Nation for the love you have shown Yann! Let’s go."

'This is how he's learning our city'

The love the Colts nation is showing Ngakoue has much to do with the love he already has shown them. Doing big things and little things.

"Thoughts and prayers to all the families affected by the explosion yesterday in Evansville," Ngakoue tweeted in August after a house explosion in southern Indiana that killed three people and left homes all around unlivable.

And then he sent another tweet and another tweet. Ngakoue asked for the best restaurants to go to in Indy, where he should shop and what high school football games he should attend.

"Oh yeah, yes, you've got to love Friday night lights," Ngakoue said. "You know, that's the biggest thing in town. I don't care where you are in the country. And I just wanted to be able to show my face and be able to give back a little bit."

Ngakoue showed up at his first Indiana high school football game in August, between Brownsburg and Cathedral. He was there for the game and he was there for the coin flip alongside Riley Hospital for Children Champions.

Henson saw Ngakoue show up for that game and she watched him show up for Coburn Place and she has seen all the other things he is doing in Indianapolis.

"This is how he's learning our city. This is his approach to making himself at home, by getting involved," said Henson. "What an incredible way to enter into a city."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.