No. 21, 28, 31 | |||||||||||||||
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Position: | Running back | ||||||||||||||
Personal information | |||||||||||||||
Date of birth: | October 8, 1976 | ||||||||||||||
Place of birth: | Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) | ||||||||||||||
Height: | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) | ||||||||||||||
Weight: | 205 lb (93 kg) | ||||||||||||||
Career information | |||||||||||||||
High school: | Bellmore (NY) Mepham | ||||||||||||||
College: | West Virginia | ||||||||||||||
NFL Draft: | 1999 / Round: 3 / Pick: 95 | ||||||||||||||
Career history | |||||||||||||||
Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||||
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Career NFL statistics | |||||||||||||||
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Player stats at PFR |
Rushing Yards: | 2,137 |
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Average: | 3.9 |
Rushing touchdowns: | 10 |
Receptions: | 137 |
Receiving yards: | 1,111 |
Receiving touchdowns: | 1 |
Player stats at NFL.com |
Amos L. Zereoué (born October 8, 1976) is a former American football player in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for West Virginia. He was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the third round (95th overall) of the 1999 NFL Draft. He also played for the Oakland Raiders and New England Patriots.
He owned and operated a restaurant in Manhattan, New York, called Zereoué. It has since closed.
Zereoué was raised by a single father in Hempstead, New York; he lived in a group home called "Hope for Youth", in Bellmore, NY, during his high school years, owing to legal trouble in junior high school and the concerns of his father that the drugs and crime of the neighborhood he grew up in were undermining his ambition.
Zereoué attended Wellington C. Mepham High School in Bellmore, New York and was a letterman in football. He set Long Island records of 5,360 yards and 59 touchdowns at Mepham, earning Street & Smith All-America recognition. He was also the first two-time Thorpe Award winner in high school, which recognizes the best player in Nassau County, an honor that surpassed local icons such as Jim Brown and Matt Snell.
Zereoué was a late addition to the West Virginia roster in 1996, but made an immediate impact. On his first collegiate carry, he rushed the ball for a 69-yard touchdown against Pitt. In that same season, he finished the season with two of the school's five-best single-game rushing performances (234 yards against Notre Dame and 228 yards against Rutgers). He was unanimously voted the Big East Rookie of the Year after the season and was a First-team All-Big East selection. He also set a West Virginia freshman rushing record for a season with 1,035 rushing yards, which was later broken by his successor, Avon Cobourne (who broke Zereoué's career rushing records as well).