The Kiwi Bear: How A Former NZ Rugby Youth Rep Beat The Odds and Made The NFL

To almost everyone in Houston's NRG Stadium last Sunday, Paul Lasike was just another Bear.

Just another guy wearing navy blue and orange, trying to beat the home team that more than 70,000 fans had came along to cheer on.

But once the Bears' first offensive snap of their 23-14 loss to the Houston Texans was over, Lasike wasn't just another Bear.

The guy wearing the Bears' number 47 jersey had just made one of the unlikeliest dreams come true for a Tongan kid born into a rugby-loving family in Auckland, New Zealand.

The 26-year-old is just the third Kiwi to ever play in the NFL - and the first since Minnesota Vikings lineman David Dixon in 2004.

"My heart is almost beating out of my chest, bro," Lasike tells VICE Sports AUNZ from Chicago.

"You couldn't hear anything in the huddle. We were in the huddle and [Bears quarterback] Jay Cutler is telling us the play. Everyone is up in everyone else's grill because it's so loud. The quarterback is literally yelling the plays."

"It was a crazy feeling – I've never felt anything like. Just to look around, take a deep breathe and be like: 'bro, I'm here.'

"[I thought about] all those times I was practicing, and doing stuff on my own. Envisioning myself making the team. But now I was there."

Kiwi NFL player Paul Lasike during a Bears 2016 pre-season game against the Cleveland Browns. Source: Youtube

As Lasike talks, his baby daughter gurgles away happily in the background. This is clearly not a man caught up in the big-hype, big-glamour, big-talk world of the NFL.

This is just a Kiwi dad home from a really cool day job that he's knows how hard he's worked to get.

A 2013 NCAA study showed that college football players have a 1.6 per cent chance of making the NFL. What chance then for a Kiwi who only took up the sport four years ago - at 22 - to wind up at the Chicago Bears?

Lasike's story has all the unbelievable twists and turns you'd expect it too.

He grew up as a talented rugby second-five for both Westlake Boys' High and Church College in Hamilton. His talents saw him make a number of Waikato youth rep teams, as well as a New Zealand Under-17s training camp in 2006 that included future All Blacks Julian Savea and Charlie Ngatai.

He then got a rugby scholarship to Brigham Young University in Utah, which saw him do a two-year Mormon mission to Alabama.

When he arrived back in Utah ready to play rugby again, the coach of the university's American football team saw him working out – and convinced him to pull on some cleats.

Unbelievably, that was just four years ago. He turned into one of BYU's top players; a hard-hitting running back who took them to a bowl game against Memphis in 2014.

Paul Lasike saw the field for 14 of 56 offensive snaps (25%) as well as 6 special teams plays, week 1 vs Houston. — The Niche Cache (@thenichecache)September 13, 2016

Lasike entered the NFL Draft last year, but was passed up – only to receive a training contract with the Arizona Cardinals.

He played in the Cardinals pre-season games, but was placed on waivers last September. The Bears picked him and – after a few visa issues – was made a regular member of their practice squad.

This pre-season, the Kiwi got another shot to make the regular season team. After turning the heads of the right coaches in their pre-season encounters, he made the 53-man squad as a fullback.

Lasike says the difference from the practice squad to the first team – where he is paid US$450,000 a season – is huge.

"The extra added responsibility is definitely there," he says.

"It's not like once Friday is done, you're done, as a practice squad member, for the week. Practice squad guys work three and a half days a week, and get US$6600 just for that.

"The added responsibility now is you're are doing everything during the week so he can play and perform in the game. It's not just practicing and giving the offensive a look. Now, you've got to get your mind right. It makes it a lot different.

"Like today. Today's a Tuesday, but we were on a Monday schedule. In the practice squad, you do your lifting and you're pretty much done.

"In the main squad, we lift, then we watch the game, analyze it, see where you can get better. All of those little things make it a huge difference."

Lasike's not playing in a glamour position at the Bears; with the fullback considered somewhat of a throwback role in American football.

Lasike's job is to effectively act as a personal blocker for the Bears' running back Jeremy Langford; a personal bulldozer for the guy that gets the spotlight.

By virtue of that, and the fact he wasn't a NRL superstar before he took his medicine in American football, don't expect Lasike to get the press coverage that rugby league big name Jarryd Hayne.

Considering his crash course in gridiron, the 'Hayne Plane' did astonishingly well just to make the San Francisco 49ers regular team last season – but was never built for the long haul.

Hayne's experience doesn't both Lasike, who is also a relatively new convert to his sport. But where Hayne hit the ground running, the Kiwi has four years now – and one whole year running practice NFL snaps – to get his head around it all.

"The thing that's different from Arizona until now is that I know that plays and I'm comfortable with them," Lasike - whose Bears will host the Philadelphia Eages at famed home stadium Soldier Field this coming Monday - says.

"I'm able to play faster, and don't have to think as much. I know that we're just trying to beat the man opposite us now. I'm able to process everything faster. It's still difficult – we're against all their starters too, of course."

Lasike's obviously got a long way to go before cementing his spot at the Bears. As a fullback, he could be dropped if coach John Fox decides to go with a different offense. Injury or the team's general fortunes could sway things, too.

Kiwi NFL player Paul Lasike playing college rugby for Brigham Young University in 2014. Source: Youtube.

If he can stay in the Bears mix, the other two Kiwis to crack the NFL went on to forge impressive careers. Riki Ellison – the first New Zealander – won two Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers, while Dixon played more than 150 games for the Vikings between 1994 and 2004.

Cleveland Browns defensive end Stephen Paea was born in New Zealand, but spent the majority of his life in Tonga and the United States.

Kiwi history couldn't be further from the mind of Lasike, who still remains rugby-keen and will attend the All Blacks game against Ireland in Chicago this November. He just wants to do the job, and stay grateful doing it.

"To be honest bro, I don't really think about [the history]," he says.

"I'm not like beating my chest about third Kiwi or whatever. Even Americans, all of friends who grow up with football, it's all of their dreams too.

"It's even hard for the average college football player to accomplish. That's always at the back of my head – that's why I take the field like I did the last game, as a privilege and honour."