Felix Anudike-Uzomah’s unique celebration dance isn’t just for K-State sacks anymore
Extend your arms, close your hands into a pair of fists and bump your knuckles together with your elbows pointing in opposite directions from left to right. Now, rock your arms violently from side to side, almost as if you were cradling a baby. Stomp your feet and take a few steps forward as you do this. Keep swinging those arms. Feel free to bob your head, too. Have some fun with it.
Congratulations! You’ve just done Felix Anudike-Uzomah’s celebratory sack dance.
It’s a unique set of moves. You won’t find a tutorial on YouTube. But you can easily learn his dance by watching the highlights of Kansas State’s 31-12 victory over TCU in which the sophomore defensive end won national awards for tying a school record with four sacks and a pair of forced fumbles.
He performed his celebratory sack dance so often during the game that some of his teammates joined in after big plays of their own. Deuce Vaughn broke it out after he scored on a 42-yard run. Daniel Imatorbhebhe tried it after he caught a pass for a first down.
Anudike-Uzomah’s fantastic effort and his trending dance seemed to energize the Wildcats and bring the roster closer together. Perhaps that helped K-State play one of its best games of the season.
“I promised him I would do it whenever I scored,” Vaughn said. “Once he had those sacks and he had already done his dance and then Daniel did it after a first down I was thinking, ‘Now I gotta do it.’ It’s one of those things where we were having some fun and keeping Saturday lively.”
Just about everyone was thinking of ways to pay tribute to Anudike-Uzomah on Saturday.
“I told someone, ‘It feels like Felix has 10 sacks right now,’” K-State quarterback Skylar Thompson said. “They just kept saying Felix’s name over and over again. With our scheme, sometimes only rushing three guys, and him being able to get to the quarterback benefits our entire football team.”
So where did Anudike-Uzomah’s dance come from?
The story begins at Lee’s Summit High School, where he played before accepting a scholarship offer with the Wildcats. He calls it “the gorilla dance,” and says he first saw it while watching YouTube videos with teammates. NFL quarterback Deshaun Watson showed it off following a touchdown run for the Houston Texans in 2019. He remembers seeing some college players at South Carolina adopting it, as well.
In any case, the defensive line at Lee’s Summit decided to start doing “the gorilla dance” after anyone on the team got a sack.
“I did it in high school,” Anudike-Uzomah said. “So all my friends were telling me to try and go to college and keep doing it. My teammates liked it and I kept on doing it. Credit to my high school teammates on that one.”
K-State players weren’t sure what to make of the dance when they first saw it. But it has aged like a fine wine now that he leads the Big 12 with 10 sacks through eight games.
“We mess around with him a little bit about it,” K-State defensive tackle Jaylen Pickle said. “I don’t know where he got that from or what he thought about it, but I think it’s pretty cool, and it’s unique. At first, I was like what are you doing? But it looks cool on TV. You can do whatever you want when you’re the man.”
The Wildcats have found some interesting ways to bond as a football team this year.
Senior center Noah Johnson motivated the offense by calling this season a “revenge tour.” K-State defensive players brought back a “mob” hand signal that some of Bill Snyder’s best teams used during his first stint as coach. Now, it seems that Anudike-Uzomah’s sack dance is spreading like wildfire through the locker room.
Anyone still looking for a tutorial is sure to see more of it on Saturday.
“Felix has his special dance that he does after every play,” K-State defensive end Nate Matlack said. “We used to make fun of him for it, but now we are all kind of building on it. You saw (Imatorbhebhe) and (Vaughn) do it. It’s becoming a dance after each play. It’s a really cool thing.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 12:33 PM with the headline "Felix Anudike-Uzomah’s unique celebration dance isn’t just for K-State sacks anymore."