Dave Birkett

Detroit Free Press

She can see it in his face, especially when he smiles. And his distinct laugh, it sounds just like his father's.

But where Dr. Rose Ihedigbo-Franklin really sees a striking resemblance to her late husband, Apollos, is in her youngest son James' work ethic and drive and determination.

Rose and Apollos immigrated to America from Nigeria more than 30 years ago.

Apollos came first, in 1979, after some missionaries he met helped him gain admission to Houghton College in upstate New York. Rose followed a year later, with three kids in tow.

They wanted a better life for their family, more educational opportunities, and they had a plan to give back and start a school in Nigeria.

James Ihedigbo was born a few years later, the youngest of five children, and the family settled in Amherst, Mass., where Rose and Apollos attended the state university.

Rose went to school by night, Apollos by day, and the two split parenting duties while working odd jobs to provide for their kids. Rose was a substitute teacher, Apollos delivered pizzas and worked as a janitor at school. On weekends, they combed the city in search of beer cans left behind from the previous night's parties they could return for the deposit.

James and his brothers helped find and clean the cans; Rose said they were the ones who climbed into dumpsters to sift for returnables.

And as Rose and Apollos earned their PhDs, built successful careers in education — Rose as regional director for the nonprofit Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, James as an academic advisor at UMass — and started that school they dreamed about in Nigeria, James learned valuable lessons he keeps with him today as a hard-hitting safety and invaluable locker-room leader for the Lions.

"It showed me I was born something," Ihedigbo said. "It was like I was born with that extra fight, that mind-set of don't just be good at something you do, be the best at what you do, and it's carried me to this point."

Chipping away

Ihedigbo, who returns home for the first time as a Lion today to play his former team, the New England Patriots, wouldn't dare compare his professional struggles to the hardship his parents endured years ago. But the parallels, even to Rose, are unmistakable.

"His dedication, commitment, achieving goals," Rose said. "'Cause his father would set goals. He said he was determined for my kids. Even to his death. And so has James. He set goals, he accomplished goals, and he's determined to work very hard to achieve goals. And he's been achieving them."

Lightly recruited in football out of high school, Ihedigbo walked on at his parents' alma mater, UMass, in 2002, months after Apollos died of heart failure during a trip to Nigeria to work at the school he and Rose founded, the Nigerian American Technological and Agricultural College.

Ihedigbo started four years for the Minutemen and earned Walter Camp All-America honors as a senior, but after being cut as an undrafted rookie, he spent a year out of football before the New York Jets signed him to the practice squad in September 2008.

Elevated to the Jets' active roster two months later, Ihedigbo was a special-teams standout his first three seasons before the Patriots gave him a chance to play safety in their injury-ravaged secondary in 2011.

He made six tackles in his first career start, a home win over the Jets, and stayed in the lineup during the Patriots' run to the Super Bowl that year.

"I finally felt that my hard work was chipping away," Ihedigbo said. "That little glimpse of light, 'cause at that time I was in the league for four or five years, and it was tunnel vision of being labeled as just a special-teams guy, like, this is what you can do is just play special teams. And to be able to show people that, no, I'm more than that. I can play defense. I can command a defense, I can get guys lined up. I can communicate at a high level, I can do all these things, and being able to get that opportunity, of course I was forever grateful for that."

Ihedigbo said he still holds his time in New England and with Patriots coach Bill Belichick in high regard. He referred to Belichick, the man who cut him at the end of training camp in 2012, as a "genius," and said there's no animosity left from his abrupt departure there.

Days after he was released by New England, Ihedigbo signed with the Baltimore Ravens, where he spent two years, won one Super Bowl and played for defensive backs coach Teryl Austin, now the Lions' defensive coordinator and the man responsible for bringing him to Detroit.

"James was a good player for us, he's a good player for Baltimore, and he's a good player for Detroit," Belichick said in a conference call with Detroit reporters this past week. "He's a smart, heady player and instinctive. He did those things for us, he did them for Baltimore, he's doing them for Detroit."

As unheralded as his signing was, especially considering the depth of the free-agent safety class, Ihedigbo has played a huge part in the Lions' top-ranked defense.

He ranks fourth on the team with 41 tackles, has two sacks, two forced fumbles, and has done it all despite missing three games with a neck injury.

When he finally made his Lions debut in Week 4, again versus his old team, the Jets, he unleashed a month of pent-up frustration with a rousing pregame huddle breakdown and had a game-clinching sack-fumble on quarterback Geno Smith with the Jets driving in Lions territory early in the fourth quarter.

"He's definitely a physical force back there," safety Don Carey said. "And having somebody back there who will set the tempo, the energy he brings kind of pulls guys along with him."

He pays it forward, too

Ihedigbo is trying to pull others along with him off the field, too.

On Friday, he hosted a charity bowling tournament for his HOPE Africa Foundation at Emagine Theatres in Royal Oak. The event raised more than $15,000 that Ihedigbo said will fund scholarships to help first-generation immigrants complete their college degrees like his parents did years ago.

The scholarships are named in his father's memory, and his foundation has a partnership with the school his parents started in Nigeria.

"My mom tells me all the time how proud she is of me from my work ethic, and I always say to her, 'Well, I learned from the best,' " Ihedigbo said. "And that's what so, for me, I'm a man of faith and my relationship with God, I look back and I say to God, 'Wow,' because the parallel is so similar to what my dad went through. Struggles of no one giving him anything, he had to work for everything that he had, and even though it's a different context, it's still the same similar thing where in terms of football I've had to work for everything that I had. No one's giving me anything."

At this point, even if they did, Ihedigbo would be hard-pressed to take it.

In his six previous NFL seasons, Ihedigbo has played in two Super Bowls (winning with the Ravens and losing with the Patriots) and two more AFC championship games (with the Jets in 2009-10). He spent last winter at home when Baltimore missed the playoffs, and didn't like that feeling one bit.

"It was weird," he said. "My family, we're used to cheering in January, saying, 'OK, what playoff game are we going to?' So it was different to be home at that time."

Today's trip home will feel different, too.

Ihedigbo said it's special for him, not just because he's playing an old team again, but because he's back in the state he grew up in and around people who helped mold him. His mother, who lives in Baltimore now, will make the trip up for the game, and at some point this weekend Ihedigbo hopes to catch up with more family and friends.

What they'll see is an older, wiser version of the kid who emulated his parents' work ethic, and one who's become a fine football player, too.

"I wanted to come here and be an impact player," Ihedigbo said. "I didn't want to just be another signing, like sometimes you'll see teams sign a guy and it's just another guy. I wanted to come here and be an impact player for my team on the field and be an impact player for my team in the locker room in terms of leadership and mentality, in terms of preparation, all of that. It's kind of gone even better than I've planned, so just got to keep it going."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

Meet James Ihedigbo

Who: Lions safety.

Wears: No. 32.

Vitals: 30, 6-feet-1, 217 pounds.

College: UMass.

Noteworthy: Has 41 tackles, two sacks and one interception in seven games this season. Seven-year pro spent three seasons with Jets, one with the Patriots and the past two years with the Ravens before coming to the Lions.