Okafor strides his way to breakfast tacos – the Step Challenge grand prize
Hats (and Fitbits) off to Frank Okafor. On Feb. 28, he walked straight to the grand prize in the Heart Month 3 Million-Step Challenge: breakfast tacos for him and his team, delivered by Dr. John Warner, Executive Vice President for Health System Affairs.
The activity aimed for UT Southwestern faculty, staff, and students to walk a collective 3 million steps to raise awareness of the importance of exercise in our daily lives and promote cardiovascular health among the UTSW community.
Together, we smashed the 3 million-step goal to bits, walking 7,450,488 steps.
Mr. Okafor, a Safety Specialist in the Office of Safety and Business Continuity, logged a mind-boggling 55,137 steps – roughly 26 miles.
About 40 people from his team gathered to celebrate on the morning of March 4, awaiting their special delivery.
As promised, Dr. Warner visited the Facilities Management Design & Construction (WU) building to pass the ceremonial taco.
“I was feeling pretty good about the number of steps I walk per day – about 16,000 – until I saw Frank’s tally,” Dr. Warner said, adding: “You set a high bar, Frank.”
The room filled with applause.
“I like to live a healthy lifestyle and stand on my feet and move around,” Mr. Okafor said. “My daily average is about 20,000 steps, so I had to go out of my way to get this.”
“I didn’t keep track of my steps throughout the day. I wanted to surprise myself. I looked at it just a couple of times throughout the day. All I did was just walk.” – Frank Okafor
So how did he do it? Let’s just say it was the three W’s:
- Work: “My job requires me to go and do inspections all over campus, especially with the construction with the Clements University Hospital addition,” Mr. Okafor said. “And then we have some construction on South Campus with the vivarium. That’s how I spend most of my days. Sometimes I drive from place to place, but on this day, I chose to walk to each one.”
- Workouts: He runs during his daily workouts. Mr. Okafor might also have a bit of conditioning hard-wired in: He’s a former collegiate and professional athlete, who played wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals in 2016.
- Walking community: As a resident of downtown Dallas, Mr. Okafor takes full advantage of the area’s pedestrian lifestyle. “I walk to get something to eat; I walk to see my friends and to see my mom, who lives on the other side of downtown.”
In his remarks to the group, Dr. Warner referred to new health guidelines released in February that emphasize being more active in our daily work lives. “Not only exercising regularly, but just getting up every hour or two and moving around and getting yourself some activity,” he said.
“So this initiative was a terrific idea,” he continued. “We had more than 700 people participating in the challenge, with an average of 10,200 steps each.”
Mr. Okafor says he’s a fairly competitive guy, but wasn’t sure he’d win the challenge. “But it was a goal – I did try to win.” Looking around the room, he added: “Plus, all these people wanted some tacos, so I really did it for everybody.”