Seppo Ovie Evwaraye was born in Finland because of a meeting in Czechoslovakia between two love-struck medical students, one of whom was a man from Nigeria.

That Nigerian’s name was Frederick James Evwaraye. He was Seppo’s father and it was he who made sure Seppo was born a king.

As the years have passed, the more important names have become to Seppo — but particularly one name, his last name.

His first name is Finnish — as is his mother, Sirpa — and it is the name of a mythical craftsman god.

And his middle name, he knows, was given with care by his dad. Frederick picked the middle names for all of his three sons.

He didn’t just pick middle names because he liked how they sounded to the ear, the way many people pick middle names for their newborns. He  picked middle names because of what they meant. The name had to suit the boy.

So it was that he looked at Seppo, then about 310 pounds lighter, and told him his middle name was Ovie. 

“It means ‘king,’” Seppo says with pride.

But now the 6-foot-5, 320-pound Nebraska starting right tackle shakes his head.

“The last name,” he says. “I never found out.”

Evwaraye. Pronounced “Ev-vwah-AYE-yea.”

What could it mean?

He knows it is a Nigerian tribal name. His dad was part of the small Urhobo Tribe. That is all he knows.

“I am going to have to find out one day for myself,” Seppo says. “To get some closure.”

Dad would have the answer, but Dad left too soon. A heart attack took Frederick when Seppo was just 5.

The family was living in Kano, Nigeria, at the time. Seppo doesn’t remember much about Nigeria, just that it was always hot and his father and mother worked at a medical clinic.

When Frederick died, Sirpa moved her three boys, none older than 8, back to her homeland in Finland to take in the love of their Finnish grandparents.

It also seemed best to get away from the unstable political situation in Nigeria.

“The common people were friendly and tolerant and ever so happy,” Sirpa says of the Nigerians.

But all around those people were grim circumstances. Poverty. No electricity. No drinking water. It was no place to raise three boys alone.

It was with good reason she returned to Finland each time she gave birth to one of her sons. She wanted them to have Finnish citizenship.

She always spoke Finnish to them, even while living in Nigeria.

Returning to her hometown of Vaasa tragically as a widow, she encouraged her sons to be dream chasers, even if those dreams put them on an airplane to another continent.

Even if those dreams led a giant like Seppo to play football in a little Nebraska town of 980 people.

Remembers Seppo: “My mom always said, ‘If you wanna go, I’ll help tomorrow.’”

It was just before his junior year of high school when Sirpa had to say goodbye to Ovie.

She always called him that.

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On exchange student request forms, they provide a space for the student to suggest where he or she might like to go.

Florida. California. New York. Seppo could have requested any of those.

Could’ve had beaches and big buildings.

Seppo got cornstalks, two gas stations and The Pizza Ranch.

Honest-to-God truth, he wrote: Laurel, Nebraska.

A man in Finland had told him that’s where he should go. A man named Scott Frear.

Seppo had never heard of Nebraska. Didn’t even have a clue where it was.

But Frear knew a thing or two about the place. He had helped coach some football in Laurel. He even spent a couple of years as an assistant at Wayne State, coincidentally working under a guy named Dennis Wagner, now Seppo’s position coach at NU.

Frear spent his summers helping coach football in Finland, a country where hockey and soccer own peoples’ fancies.

Seppo had only competed in about a year of organized football. The game in Finland was played at a snail’s pace, but it still turned his switches.

He knew one thing. It beat hockey. “The skates never fit right. They always hurt my feet. So I just said, ‘Screw it.’”

He had watched Notre Dame play football against the likes of Michigan State and Michigan on NBC. He wanted a piece of that.

After competing in a game in Finland, he sought the advice of Frear, who had coached the other team. Where should he go if he wanted to play some serious American football?

Serious football, you say? There’s a place, the American told him.

Seppo told his mom he needed to go. He had to see if he could play American football, maybe in this place called Nebraska.

He was just 16. She told him to go for it.

What allowed her to let go?

“His determination and strong will,” she says.

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So you’re told that you’re going to get a exchange student from Finland.

The American mind thinks blue eyes and blond hair. Guy with a glass-shattering slap shot.

Jim Erwin still remembers his reaction when he got the bio on the big Finn: “Holy cow.”

“6-5 … 290 pounds … Likes to play football. …”

Jim and Carla Erwin had four children, but they were all almost out of the nest.

They had talked about hosting a foreign exchange student. But only now, with their youngest son Jon about to be a junior in high school, did they act on the urge.

They met Seppo for the first time at the Omaha airport.

It was dark when they got him back to Laurel — 187 miles north of Lincoln. The Erwins own about five acres.

“Wow, what a big house,” Seppo said upon seeing it. “Wow, what a big yard.”

They showed him the town in the morning.

“Wow, what a small town.”

In a few weeks they had him on the football field. He didn’t play the first couple of games.

Jim was down on the sideline when former Laurel-Concord coach Tom Luxford put Seppo in for his first play.

“Watch this,” Luxford told Jim.

Seppo rose and the other guy went backward. Just like that, the game was on.

Word winds fast through Nebraska when a monster Finn is pushing guys back five yards every whistle blow.

Former Husker assistant Dan Young soon paid a visit. Told Seppo he needed to come to Nebraska’s summer camps.

The plan had been to go back to Finland after the year. Now, he couldn’t leave. He told his mom. She said he should stay.

The summer before he helped Laurel-Concord to a state championship, Seppo showed up at the Husker camp with his new “brother,” Jon.

A call came from Lincoln one day during that camp.

“Boy, Seppo kind of wowed them,” Jon told his dad. “He’s with Coach (Frank) Solich right now.”

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Jim and Carla Erwin now share legal guardianship of Seppo with Sirpa.

Carla and Sirpa are like sisters, according to Jim. “They talk all the time.”

When there is a play in a Nebraska game and Seppo is on the field, Jim says he watches only Seppo. Only after his blocking work is finished, does he take stock of what happened on the play.

Jim is always looking out for Seppo.

Before he went to college, Seppo once told Jim he wasn’t taking driver’s ed.

“I will drive a bike,” he said.

“Seppo, in America, people drive cars everywhere.”

Soon, the Finn was in a car. He couldn’t go against Mr. Erwin.

Of concern now is trying to help Seppo claim American citizenship.

If he returns to Finland after this final year of college, he’ll be required to fulfill a military commitment of at least eight months, a mandatory requirement for Finnish males.

Though willing to do it, Seppo isn’t that crazy about the idea. He’s gotten to love America, his experience enhanced by the Erwins.

“It was hard because he hadn’t had a father for quite a while who treated him like a son,” Jim says. “For me, he’s our son. He has two moms and one dad. That’s the way I feel about it.”

From Finland, Sirpa and her boys — the elder Ari and the younger Efe — follow Seppo’s football highs and lows daily on the Internet.

He is the first Finnish player to receive a Division I scholarship, and there is much pride in that.

After games, Efe wants a detailed review from Seppo of everything that transpired.

But it’s tough to truly grasp it all from the western coast of Finland.

Sirpa and family have never seen Seppo in Husker uniform before a stadium dressed in red.

This year, Seppo’s senior year, that must change. Sirpa and Efe will make the trip to Nebraska to see the Huskers host both Iowa State and Texas Tech.

“I’ve experienced the Memorial Stadium empty and it was unbelievable,” Sirpa says.

“I can’t wait to hear and sense the atmosphere with the 80,000 fans cheering for my son and the Huskers. It sure is a dream come true.”

So, if in upcoming weeks, you make your way to Memorial Stadium and find a woman yelling a name unfamiliar to you, a woman yelling for some mysterious hulk named Ovie — you will know where the name came from.

And of where she came from.

And of what she let go.

Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7438 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.