While taking a standardized test at school when he was 10 years old, Osawese Agbonkonkon came across a question prompt that asked him to write his own story.
That one question would give Agbonkonkon the writing bug.
“I went home right after that test and the first thing I did was get a binder, fill it up with some lined paper and start writing my first book,” Agbonkonkon told the Deseret News.
Now, Agbonkonkon is a published author after writing and recently publishing his first book: “Psychic Suit.”
But Agbonkonkon, who was born in Utah and attended Wakeland High in Frisco, Texas, isn’t your typical author.
He’s a student-athlete at the University of Texas, where he competes in the high jump. Agbonkonkon, a sophomore, is majoring in economics with minors in English and history and plans to attend law school in the future.
“It was something I wanted to do, but I never thought that I would be in this kind of position where I’m talking about a book that I actually wrote,” he said.
Writing and publishing his first book
“Psychic Suit,” a YA action adventure novel, has been years in the making.
Agbonkonkon first had the idea for “Psychic Suit” when he was 10 or 11 years old while jumping on his trampoline with his best friend, “telling stories from TV shows we’d seen,” he said.
He started jotting down notes then but didn’t get serious about writing the book until 2018.
As Agbonkonkon continued his athletic pursuits through high school and now college, he’d find time to write after workouts, practice and classes — sometimes even until 1 a.m. if that’s when inspiration struck.
“I just found the time because I really loved it,” he said. “Maybe instead of watching a TV show, I decided to let me write my own story, or maybe I’m reading a book or I am watching something and I get an idea, and the first thing I’ll do is write it down.”
“Psychic Suit” follows a group of individuals called Psychics, who were given powers by a rare, alien metal. When a terrorist organization has stolen technology made from the metal to use in an attack, it’s up to the group of Psychics to stop them.
The book touches on war, politics, power and even mental health, something Agbonkonkon said he relates to “with the weight of expectation” as a student-athlete.
“It’s a big thing in athletics now — this idea that you’re just more than an athlete, you’re more than a machine designed to win medals and trophies, but that there’s actually a human person there. So, I think getting to write about themes like that and seeing myself in different characters was a great opportunity for me,” he said.
After the writing was complete, it came time to publish it. Agbonkonkon decided to self-publish his book with his own publishing house.
Inspired by NIL, he thought if companies considered athlete partnerships a “good business decision,” the same could be said about partnering with himself.
“I now have the ability to build a brand because I’m an athlete, and getting to control 100% of that is a big thing for me,” he said.
Life as a college athlete and author
Track and field coaches had been trying to recruit Agbonkonkon since the eighth grade.
After a coach saw Agbonkonkon dunk in a basketball game as a freshman in high school, he wanted to recruit Agbonkonkon to the high jump.
But Agbonkonkon declined the coach’s invitation.
The coach tried again two more times over the next two years, and Agbonkonkon finally gave in.
A couple of practices were enough to convince Agbonkonkon to commit to high jump.
“I like that it’s so technical, kind of like writing. I like that it’s a very cerebral event,” he said of the high jump. “There’s a lot of things that you have to get right to execute a good jump and even messing up one of those things, especially at a very high bar, can completely throw you off.”
After high school, Agbonkonkon decided to take his high jumping talents to the collegiate level, first for the University of Oregon and now at Texas.
“Coach has been very supportive of it,” he said of his writing career. “Teammates have been very supportive of it, and (I’m) just so grateful to have that around me.”
His coach, teammates and the rest of his friends and family found out about “Psychic Suit” at the same time when he shared an interview he did with the University of Texas’ The Daily Texan.
He posted the article on his social media right before he put his phone away for class. When he checked his phone afterward, he was overwhelmed by the messages he had received.
“People are texting me. People are like, ‘There’s no way you actually did this. Did you actually do this?’ One of my friends was like, ‘I knew you wrote, but I didn’t think you were actually serious about this,’” Agbonkonkon said.
For athletes considering pursuing their own intellectual or creative passions outside of sports, Agbonkonkon would tell them that “we can be more than just athletes.”
“There’s a kind of a connotation around athletes that all they are is good at their sport, and they don’t really know much else. But I’d say getting to dispel that narrative and just showing people that you can be both highly athletic and highly academic is a very realistic thing,” he said.
“Psychic Suit” won’t be Agbonkonkon’s only book. He enjoys sharing his imagination with the world and currently has ideas for 17 books and is already halfway done with his second.
“These are ideas I have,” he said. “These are things that I’m doing, and I personally find them interesting and I hope that other people do as well. That idea of getting to share a piece of my imagination with people was a really great thing for me.”