ST. LOUIS • Samkon Gado was under contract with the St. Louis Rams when he went on his first date with the woman he would later marry.

To fill the awkward gaps as the pair sat at St. Louis Bubble Tea, Gado blurted out his plans to spend his life in a mud hut in Nigeria, where he was born, and run a clinic. Medical school was always the plan after professional football.

“I told her she needed to be OK with that — on our first date,” he said, acknowledging how that sounds now. But his brazen tactic worked.

Nine years later, Gado, his wife, Rachel, and their three children are planning their first trip as a family to Nigeria to see how Gado could use his medical training to help the country his family left when he was 8 years old.

Gado is a third-year otolaryngology resident at St. Louis University. The five-year program grooms doctors interested in the surgical subspecialty focused on ear, nose and throat conditions, along with other issues affecting the head and neck. It’s a competitive field — two residents are selected to participate each year.

When Gado and his family travel to Nigeria in January, funded in part by a grant from SLU’s medical school, he wants to learn about resources at the teaching hospitals there.