A Vikings Journey....
Gotta love a long-shot!
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The words "sneaky little boy" aren't the ones that come to mind when you stand across from Jacky Chen.
Chen is 6-4. He's 302 pounds. He's a boulder with tattoos.
But ask Jacky or his mother or anybody else who knows him, and they will tell you Jacky's unlikely football journey never would have begun — let alone reached the NFL as an undrafted Vikings rookie — had Jacky not been a very "sneaky little boy" with a mother dead set against him playing football seven years ago.
"He tricked me to play football," says his mother, June. "I'm still not over it."
She sounds like she's kidding. But not entirely.
"I grew up in China; it's not our culture, so when I watch the game I didn't understand," June said. "This sport, it's crazy."
Jacky played offensive tackle. He was 6-4, but "240 pounds, soaking wet" his senior year. No colleges were interested except for Pace University, a Division II school where Chen played on the Westchester County campus just north of New York City.
"At our level, we have to go for the long-bodied kids who are skinny and pray we can develop them," said Conor Gilmartin-Donohue, Pace's offensive coordinator.
"Plus, he was a 6-5 kid named Jacky Chen, so he kind of caught everybody's attention," added Stephen Gruber, Pace's defensive coordinator and the guy who scouted Jacky.
Hurry-up Vikings, we ain't getting any younger!
NFL agent Joe Linta, who lives an hour away in New Haven, Conn. ended up putting Jacky on the NFL map.
Linta went home and called a bunch of his NFL contacts in scouting, asking about the guy who dominated Deshawn McCarthy.
"Every one of them said, 'Nah, not on any of our lists,'" Linta said. "He wasn't on anybody's list."
Linta has been doing this a while. He once represented three-fifths of the Vikings offensive line – Matt Birk, Mike Rosenthal and Adam Goldberg. Last year, Linta had eight clients make an NFL team after not getting an invitation to the scouting combine.
Linta got the word out on Chen, who kept playing well during a 6-4 season. Twenty NFL teams showed up on Pace's campus. The 49ers did a personal workout. The East-West Shrine Bowl gave him an invite, and he held his own.
"Going against D-I guys and Power Five guys was all mental," Chen said. "If I can do in here I can do it because I'm just as big and strong as they are."
Linta has a special connection with Jamaal Stephenson, the Vikings' senior personnel executive. Stephenson went to Brown University. Linta's son played quarterback at Brown. Ten minutes after the draft ended with the Vikings selecting no offensive linemen, Chen was on the team.
"It wasn't some arduous negotiation," Linta said. "I could have gotten Jacky in a couple of places. The Vikings liked him. Jacky is the consummate practice squad player who can develop into a guy who definitely can play in this league if they are patient with him."
https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-vikings-jacky-chen-undrafted-free-agent-pace-university-offensive-lineman/600278612/
Now Jacky Chen, 22, is one of eight Asian Americans in this year's NFL rookie class. June is proud of that feat and probably knows deep down that Jacky's independent streak can be traced to his parents and an American dream that comes true every morning when they open their restaurant, Tao's Bao, in Stony Brook on Long Island.
"We were young, naïve, out of mind when we come here," June said. "Just go far away from home. Just get away from your parents. Be free."
Jacky's girlfriend, Kayla, is pregnant. June wasn't happy at first.
"I wanted to kill him," is how she put it. "In my culture, if you don't get married, you don't have children."
But …
"I'm falling in love with the baby that's going to be here very soon," she said.
It's a boy. And he might have the perfect birthdate for the next generation of free-spirited Chens.
"The due date," Jacky says with a proud-papa smile, "is July 4th."
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