Cassh Maluia
Great article on Cassh Maluia in The Athletic
https://theathletic.com/1824728/2020/05/20/cassh-maluia-path-to-patriots/
It's way too long to post the entire article, but here's the first third. Worth a look if you're a subscriber:
The minutes were winding down on Cassh Maluia’s football career.
It was Nov. 13, 2015, and Paramount (Calif.) High School was getting blown out by La Serna in the playoffs. Maluia, a senior quarterback, linebacker and safety, had drawn no scholarship offers or even any interest from college programs.
Maybe he’d enroll in a local junior college and hope for the best. But nothing could be guaranteed.
That was until the kid from Compton changed the entire scope of his life. Maluia blocked an extra point in garbage time — a meaningless play in the box score, but one that set him on an unexpected path to become a Patriots sixth-round draft pick this April.
The origin of that journey was wild, maybe almost unbelievable.
“He has a never-give-up kind of attitude, and it’s ended up paying off big time,” Paramount coach Matt Howard said.
Wyoming head coach Craig Bohl was in the crowd that night, but not for Maluia.
Rather, Bohl was scouting Paramount running back Edward Vander, an uber-talented recruit with some red flags who mentally checked out after an early fumble. Vander only got four carries in the loss, leaving little reason for Bohl to stick around.
Bohl stayed anyway.
To put that decision in context, Bohl was recruiting another player a year earlier at Reedley College when he stumbled upon quarterback Josh Allen, who ultimately committed to Wyoming and is currently the Buffalo Bills starter. Bohl had good reason to believe in seeing things all the way through.
Maluia wasn’t hard to uncover that night in the playoffs, even before he sprung off the edge to block the extra point. He accounted for all three of Paramount’s touchdowns, throwing one and running for two, while also racking up 10 tackles.
“It so happened that Cassh was the best player on the field,” Howard said. “Offensively and defensively, he was all over the field. After the game, (Bohl) was like, ‘Who’s No. 7?’ I said it was Cassh Maluia. Then it just kind of took off from there.”
Bohl was impressed by Maluia’s athleticism but wanted to be more thorough with the unknown prospect, so he returned to Wyoming to study more tape.
“The more we found out about him,” Bohl said, “the more excited we got about him.”
‘He’d … run people over’