LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Chicago Bears fullback Paul Lasike took a circuitous route to the NFL.
Lasike, a native of Aukland, New Zealand and the ninth of 10 children in a Kiwi-Tongan family, enrolled at Brigham Young University on a rugby scholarship before making his college football debut for the Cougars in 2012.
Four years later, Lasike is the starting fullback on the Bears’ Week 1 roster. Last season, Lasike spent all but two weeks on Chicago’s practice squad, temporarily leaving the team early in the year to obtain an updated worker visa.
“It’s unbelievable,” Lasike said Thursday. “I never would have envisioned myself several years ago looking down the road being here and being in this fortunate situation. It’s huge. At first, the toughest part was just learning the game. It was frustrating, because football is a very technical sport. You watch football from the outside and you just see people running the ball and catching, but there is so much more to it. There are so many things like timing, and the other nuances of football that I had to learn. That has been the hardest thing.”
On Thursday, the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame announced that Lasike is one of 19 players on the 2017 Polynesian Pro Football Player of the Year Award Watch list.
“I’m very proud of my heritage,” Lasike said. “We weren’t brought up too much in the culture, but there were certain things that my dad was brought up with -- work ethic and stuff like that. Even when I played in Arizona [the summer of 2015], and here. I’m pretty close to all the other Polynesian players, which is pretty cool.”
Lasike might have a small edge. Former NFL center Kevin Mawae, whom the Bears recently hired to the coaching staff, is the inaugural member of the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame and one of eight voters for the award.
“Oh, really?” Lasike said with a grin. “Yeah, I’ve talked to him for sure. He seems like a really good guy.”
Among the other players on the watch list: Tennessee quarterback Marcus Mariota (Samoan), San Diego linebacker Manti Te'o (Samoan), Detroit defensive tackle Haloti Ngata (Tongan), Cincinnati linebacker Rey Maualuga (Samoan), and San Francisco defensive lineman DeForest Buckner (Samoan).