Following a six-year career in the NFL, A.J. Ofodile returned to Columbia in the early 2000s to rehab a knee injury and finish earning his bachelor’s degree. Barry Odom just so happened to be entering his first year as head coach at Columbia Rock Bridge High School in 2001 and knew that his fellow Mizzou alumnus wanted to get into coaching.
Ofodile jumped at the opportunity, becoming Odom’s assistant coach in the first year and his offensive coordinator in the second. The two actually ended up living together. “We’d work all day and then we’d get back to the house, and he still wanted to talk ball,” Odom said.