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The "Camp Kyle Olympics" allow the Utes to let off steam by competing in disciplines they aren't meant to have perfected.
Nose tackles catch punts.
Coaches hit lob wedges.
Linebackers take BP.
Last Thursday, players tried their hand at holding and kicking field goals. Some missed wildly, barely connecting. Others chipped it through.
Then, suddenly, a sound like cannon fire. As the left upright wobbled back to stasis, a half-dozen people asked: "Who was THAT?"
"Afia."
"Right," they said. "Of course."
Not unlike Andy Phillips, freshman safety Philip Afia played soccer long before he played football, but unlike Phillips, he didn't earn a scholarship with his feet.
Powerful as they may be.
Afia — embarrassed that he missed his kick, for the record — was born to Nigerian parents and grew up in San Bernardino County, Calif., able to score from his team's side of the field as a tyke in the American Youth Soccer Organization.
"He was really good," said longtime childhood teammate Malcolm Jones, a U-18 U.S. national team defender who was in the Los Angeles Galaxy system before signing with national runners-up UCLA in February. "He would score a lot of goals when he was playing forward."
Later, as a goalkeeper, Afia teamed with Jones at the U-12 level to win state and regional championships, showing a penchant for stopping penalties.
But as an incoming freshman at Ayala High, Afia told Jones and his parents that he had a new ambition: to excel at American football, which he'd never played beyond pickup in the neighborhood.
His mother, Diana, was "shocked," she said. He was a skinny boy, and she worried about the danger of injury. "But he said, 'Mom, that's what I want to do.' "
So Diana, who knew what a touchdown was and little else, did her best to learn from the other football moms while her son picked up the game at a breakneck pace.
It helped that he could kick. He was in good shape. Plus, "I play defense, so it's a lot of instincts, and that's how it is in soccer," he said.
Growing to 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds, Afia graduated as an all-league safety — with 144 tackles and seven interceptions in his final two seasons — and received a dozen scholarship offers.
Utah saw in him its three priorities at the position: range, the ability to high-point a football and physicality.
Also, said safeties coach Morgan Scalley: "It means something to him. He's a great student of the game, and guys that are like that ... they come along fast."
Afia's father lives and works in Nigeria after splitting with his mom, who rarely had a free day between working in sales administration and shuttling Afia and his older siblings to activities.
Regular visits to his family's homeland, both in the city of Uyo and the rural surrounding area in the southeastern coastal state of Akwa Ibom, gave Afia perspective about U.S. life. On one vacation, Afia and his brother went to a local school to play soccer, Diana said. Seeing that the other boys didn't have cleats, they took theirs off and played barefoot.
"When they finished, I asked them why. They said, 'We didn't want to hurt their feet.' I thought, 'My kids are off to a good start.' I didn't have to tell them the right thing to do; they did it."
Should Afia become a professional player, she tells him, he has a responsibility to give back to his community. For now, he's trying to soak up as much as he can, as fast as he can, while Tevin Carter, Marcus Williams, Andre Godfrey and Jason Thompson get the most reps at safety.
He still loves soccer. And he can still play, Jones said, although his old friend thinks Afia probably turned out to be better at the American version of football.
Should Afia's services ever be required: He kicked four field goals and 29 PATs in high school and once made a 54-yarder in practice. He can also kick off into the end zone, he said.
With raised eyebrows, Scalley, who is also Utah's special teams coordinator, said he might have to test that out.
Twitter: @matthew_piper About Philip Afia
Vitals • 6-foot-1, 190 pounds, No. 2
From • Chino Hills, Calif.
High school • First-team all-league safety also played wide receiver and kicked. Rated a three-star safety by Rivals and Scout; had offers from Boise State, Oregon State and Washington State — visited the latter two, but chose Utah.
Personal • Has two older brothers and one older sister. Plans to major in business and economics, with a minor in communication.