Miami Dolphins

Dolphins CB Kader Kohou’s NFL story starts with winning a visa lottery

Updated Oct. 27, 2022 4:11 p.m. ET

Guy Kohou put his name into a lottery. It quickly changed his life.

The lottery wasn't the millionaire-making type, although his son, Kader Kohou, might end up a millionaire as an ultimate result. It was for a visa to the United States. Guy, who was a citizen in Ivory Coast — a country on the coast of western Africa known there as Côte d’Ivoire — had struggled to visit his sister in the U.S. So when he stumbled upon a lottery in downtown Abidjan, the de facto capital city, he entered.

On his first entry, Guy won. He and his family weren't just visiting; they were moving to America. But not right away. There were piles of paperwork. There were blood tests, health tests, mental-health tests. There was also the issue of money. Guy, who worked as a nurse at a clinic, decided he would take Kader to the U.S. first. For financial reasons, Kader's mother, Elise Derou, and his sister, Esmone, would follow a few months later.

"What I know is that this country is a country of opportunity," Guy said. "If you fight, you can have a good result."

In 2008, Guy and Kader got on three different planes without knowing any English, and they gestured their way through simple requests for water and food. They landed in Dallas and settled near Guy's sister, and Guy eventually found an overnight shift at a nursing home where he worked as a certified nursing assistant.

And more than 10 years later, Kader Kohou earned a starting role as a cornerback for the Miami Dolphins. He's the second NFL player ever to hail from the Ivory Coast. This is the wild story of everything that happened to Kohou in between.

In his NFL debut, Dolphins cornerback Kader Kohou knocks the ball away on a pass attempt to Patriots tight end Hunter Henry during Miami's 20-7 win on opening day this season. (Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

When Kohou landed in the U.S. as a 9-year-old, he experienced culture shock. In Abidjan, Kohou excelled in school and skipped a few grades on the way to passing his boards. But in the U.S., he suddenly had to be at school every day.

"So yeah, it was a big culture shock," Kohou said.

That was one of the biggest changes. And then there were all the little ones that made the U.S. different from Ivory Coast. Kohou said his strongest memory in those early days is of fast-food restaurants. The concept was completely foreign to him.

"It was a little crazy. You drive through the place, and they give you [food] through the window," Kohou said. "When we first got here, I loved McDonald's."

Another thing that greatly impacted him when he got to the U.S. is American sports culture. In Africa, he knew about soccer, track, basketball and rugby. That was it. The U.S. had no shortage of sports, and you can guess which one drew his attention almost immediately.

He started playing pickup football on a field near his apartment and joined a league when he reached middle school.

"That was just a way of me making friends. I used to go out there and just throw the ball around," he said.

This is not the story of a star being born instantly. After all, Texas isn't an easy place to stand out in football. Kohou didn't — not right away. Rather his ascent began like any other athlete's — and not unlike the athletes whose careers die before college.

Kohou wanted to play running back, but when he got to high school, he was on JV2 (aka thirds). At that point, he realized he needed to make a change. He switched to cornerback. He moved up to JV in his junior year, then finally to varsity in his senior year. While he finished first-team all-district as a senior, he had already missed the recruiting window. He drew some interest from Georgetown and Davidson, but it faded.

So Kohou took charge of his future. He went on Twitter and messaged coach Colby Carthel at Texas A&M University-Commerce, a Division II school. The coach responded and, at the last minute, a small scholarship opened up.

"It was a very, very, very good opportunity for him to go to Commerce and get the scholarship," Guy said. "It was exciting for us because that helped him a lot."

But just like Kohou struggled to ascend in high school, he didn't quickly climb the depth chart with the Lions. Practices were absolutely brutal for freshmen playing on the scout team, and Kohou hurt his knee.

He didn't see a path to playing time — let alone to the NFL — and he nearly quit.

"The league was never a thought in my head," Kohou said. "I just went to get my education. So I was like, 'I'm already here. Football has kind of been getting annoying and is doing too much.' I was just going to quit and go to school."

His grades were good. He was at a business school. Why did he need football?

But when he tried to quit, teammate Yusef Sterling-Lowe stopped him. He told Kohou that once he broke through the freshman barrier, the grind would get easier. Kohou trusted Sterling-Lowe's advice. And goodness, he was glad he did.

After nearly quitting football, Kohou became a star at Texas A&M University-Commerce, another link in his family's journey from Ivory Coast to success in the U.S. (Photo courtesy of the Kohou family)

Just like in high school, Kohou didn't earn much in the way of playing time until his senior year. He played during the team's postseason run as a junior, but when he gave up a touchdown, the coaches benched him. He didn't play another snap, not even in the national championship game, which the Lions won. He was a national champion, but not in the way he'd wanted.

It was during his senior year when the 5-foot-10 Kohou, then 22 — a year or two older than most draft picks — finally looked like an NFL prospect.

He had spent five years in the weight room, working to match offensive linemen and eventually eclipsing them. He spent time in the film room working to grasp the concepts of zone defense. And he practiced his craft on the field, working his way up the defensive back group.

In his final college season, he made big plays, both in coverage and in run defense. And he developed an instinct for playmaking. One of his biggest plays, for example, was not one the coaches called. In the red zone against West Florida, Kohou blitzed off the edge — which was not by design — and got a tackle for loss. That was quite the risk, but his teammates trusted him.

"He triggers on the ball just ASAP, and that's not called," said Alex Shillow, a former Lions safety and one of Kohou's college roommates. "He's supposed to be in his zone, but he just reads it and goes. That's one of his best highlights from senior year. He just had that itch, and he just knew when to go with that instinct. That's just the player he was. You can't teach that."

The only thing that held Kohou back that year was his contacts — yes, those things that go in your eyes. For whatever reason, he couldn't remember to put them in every day.

"Even though he couldn't see, he still made plays," Shillow said with a chuckle.

The problem was that he would also make mistakes when he forgot to put in his contacts. At least, that's what his coaches chalked it up to. One day the coaches caught Kohou squinting at the board and asked him to read what was written. He couldn't and spent the rest of the team meeting in pushup position. He learned his lesson.

He finished his college career with 111 tackles, five interceptions, four forced fumbles, three recoveries and two defensive touchdowns.

"He was the loneliest cornerback in the Lone Star conference. Nobody was going to throw a ball his way," A&M-Commerce coach David Bailiff said.

Kohou's elite play in a small Division II conference, however, didn't drum up much NFL interest. He received one invite to a pre-draft bowl game — and like his college scholarship, that invite came at the last minute. Kohou made the most of it and began drawing interest, enough for him to feel confident he would get drafted.

Bailiff kept telling scouts: "He will make your club, and if he stays healthy he'll play for 10 years."

On the day before the 2022 draft, Kohou heard from Dolphins defensive coordinator Josh Boyer.

Late interest. As always.

The coach admitted he hadn't seen Kohou's film until that day, and within hours, he was trying to figure out if he could get a flight out to meet the prospect. They settled for a Zoom interview and, between that meeting and others, Kohou thought maybe he would hear his name called in Round 6 or 7. One team, which had showed a lot of interest, called him in the seventh round to say it wasn't drafting any more corners. Then the team did, in fact, draft another cornerback. But it wasn't Kohou.

"That's when I started getting a little disappointed," he said.

Kohou went undrafted but subsequently signed with the Dolphins for $130,000 guaranteed, a hefty sum for a rookie free agent.

"Josh told me he had a plan for me," Kohou said. "And I have a big thing that [when] somebody believes in you, you have to do everything to prove them right."

Boyer comes from Bill Belichick's coaching tree, and the Patriots have a history of finding rookie DB gems in the late rounds and after the draft. The list includes J.C. Jackson, Malcolm Butler, Justin Coleman and Keion Crossen, among others. In Miami, Boyer noted he has now done something similar with Nik Needham and Kohou.

"I would say there's one characteristic that really kind of stands out that's common among all of them," Boyer said. "And I'll probably just keep that to myself."

Trade secrets.

In his welcome to the NFL, Kohou admits that organized team activities were more than he felt he could handle. He was overwhelmed by the speed and the playbook. But in the months between OTAs and training camp, he used that feeling as motivation. When camp arrived, he was ready.

"I'm sure he did feel overwhelmed — every rookie does," Miami receiver River Cracraft said. "But he did a good job of not showing it. I don't think anyone's surprised at the success he's had."

The Dolphins receivers — and basically all NFL veterans — pride themselves on not getting beat by rookies. That's a common adage: no losing to a first-year player. But Kohou made that difficult with physical play and savvy coverage. He made the veterans look bad.

Cracraft remembers the veterans grumbling: "Who's this guy?"

Kohou won over his teammates and coaches during the time that's usually the end of the road for undrafted rookies. His cornerback group, after all, included Xavien Howard, Byron Jones and Neeham. They were Miami's projected starters. Crossen was likely to make the team as a backup and special-teams contributor, and Noah Igbinoghene was a 2020 first-rounder. It wasn't an easy roster to crack.

Few expected Kohou to make the team. He made it anyway. Few expected Kohou to get substantial playing time, but by the second half of Week 1, he was out there in the slot. The coaches didn't start him, but he was so good in his limited play in the first half that they promoted him on the spot.

"[Kohou] had that look about him in the second half. We felt we could feature him, and he rose to the challenge," Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said postgame.

Against the Patriots in Week 1, Kohou didn't allow a single reception.

So far this season, Kohou has the second-highest coverage grade among Miami's defensive backs (67.6), per Pro Football Focus. He is the highest-graded cornerback. He's currently dealing with an oblique injury and has missed a couple of weeks of action, but he is likely to remain a crucial part of the team's play at corner.

Even as he establishes himself as an NFL player, he still stops to take it all in.

"It is crazy," he said. "A lot of days, I do wake up [and think about it]. Even at practice, sometimes I look at the guys and be like, ‘Man, we're in the NFL. We're at NFL practice. We're getting ready for an NFL game.'"

But Kohou isn't dreaming, as surreal as it all seems. His dad really won the visa lottery. He really made it from JV3 to the NFL. And while some of it had to do with luck, Kader Kohou earned it.

Prior to joining FOX Sports as the AFC East reporter, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @McKennAnalysis.