Even after settling into an NFL career that improbably has stretched to five years, Matt Asiata still marvels at it all — namely, that he is playing football for a living and providing well for his wife and five children. It usually happens in the evenings, when the kids are in bed, that Asiata and his wife Tangi reflect on these things.
“We talk about it all the time,” says Asiata. “We see how fast life goes and appreciate it. We’re truly blessed that I’m still playing and I’m fortunate to be healthy.”
Only a few years ago he was driving delivery trucks and forklifts for a warehouse in Salt Lake City. For nine months he was out of football. He ran on Main Street during his lunch hour and lifted weights after work, hoping for another shot, and here he is. On Sunday he will start at running back — a position he earned only after asking a coach for a chance — for the division-leading Minnesota Vikings, one of the best teams in pro football. For now, he has set aside the dirty work and anonymity of special teams to fill in again for injured superstar Adrian Peterson.
Jerrick McKinnon, a quicker, flashier runner, was supposed to replace Peterson, but Asiata — formerly of Hunter High, formerly of Snow College, formerly of the University of Utah — has quietly outperformed him. In the last two weeks he has collected 110 yards on 26 carries — a healthy 4.2-yard average — and one touchdown, while McKinnon has run for 79 yards on 31 carries. Asiata has gotten the call as the back in passing situations, catching nine balls for 71 yards.
It is a familiar role, this business of standing in for the star. In 2013, Peterson and Toby Gerhart were injured late in the season. Asiata ran for 51 yards and scored three short-yardage touchdowns against the Eagles. A week later, he ran for 115 yards on 14 carries in a win over the Lions in the season finale.
In 2014, he got the call again when Peterson was suspended. He played in 11 games, started nine of them and became a fantasy-football juggernaut by scoring three touchdowns against both Atlanta and Washington. For the season he ran for 570 yards and nine TDs on 164 carries and collected 44 receptions for 312 yards and one TD. In 2015, with Peterson back in the lineup, Asiata returned to special teams duty, running the ball just 29 times. It is likely he will end up there again next season.
“Whatever the coaches need me to do, I’ll do it,” he says quietly, which is how he says everything. “That’s my attitude. It’s not about me; it’s about team and it’s about providing for my family.”
In any conversation with Asiata he is bound to mention family. It is his raison d’etre. Every week, during the Vikings’ day off on Tuesday, he shows up at his kids’ school to have launch with them and Tangi, as the other kids whisper and point him out. When he was interrupted by a text message last Tuesday, he replied, “I’ll call you in a bit. Having lunch with my babies.” That’s how he always refers to his children: “My babies.”
If there was one thing Asiata’s late father Pita instilled in him it is a sense of family. Part of his fierce drive to make his way in football was fueled by the desire to take care of his family financially in a way his father never knew.
Pita emigrated from Samoa to the United States in 1974, at the age of 15. He worked various odd jobs in Los Angeles to pay for his parents and siblings to join him. He married, moved to Utah in 2000 and raised five children, working several jobs to support them — construction, driving a taxi, working in a mortuary, driving a tourist bus. It often meant working graveyard shifts.
Says Asiata, “There was something he always said that really stuck with me: ‘Wherever you go and whatever you do, just be your best.’ I try to do my best, whether it’s football or just talking to people and saying hi, cheering people up, being respectful. All those things.”
Pita was driving a tourist bus on I-80 in Utah’s west desert when he died in a crash exactly three years ago today. By then, Asiata was in his second year with the Vikings, and every Friday he received a call from his father to encourage him for that week’s game.
“Play hard for your family and your father,” he would tell his son. In every game since then Asiata has worn a wristband that has “DAD” written on it. “Every time I hit the field or get on the (team) bus, I think of him,” he says. “Looking at those buses reminds me of him.”
Pita had seen his son overcome formidable setbacks and challenges every step of the way en route to the NFL. After graduating from high school, Asiata was an academic non-qualifier per NCAA rules and wound up at Snow College in tiny Ephraim, Utah. He was a husband and father by then and had been since high school.
“I wasn’t thinking about the NFL; I was just worried about getting a scholarship (to a Division I school) and wondering how I would support my family,” he says.
He spent his free time training alone in the meager Snow College weight room, which would qualify as a fitness museum at any other school. In his second season there he ran for a school-record 1,494 yards despite missing one game with an injury, and Utah and Nevada-Las Vegas offered scholarships.
Then, as now, Asiata was a solid, if unspectacular, running back, efficient, reliable, tough — and often injured. He broke his leg in the first game he played for the Utes, in 2007. The following season his 12 touchdowns and 707 rushing yards helped propel the Utes to an unbeaten season and a victory in the Sugar Bowl. A year later his season ended in the fourth game with a knee injury after a fast start (303 yards rushing). The NCAA granted him a medical hardship for a sixth year of eligibility in 2010. He ran for 695 yards and caught 32 passes.
“The injuries humbled me,” he says. “They were a gut check. They made me stop and think about my wife and kids. I put God first and then family second.”
He was barely on the radar for NFL teams. Although he totaled 24 rushing touchdowns during his career, he never came close to rushing for 1,000 yards in a season, and there were concerns about the injuries. On NFL draft day, no team called his name. He was offered a free-agent tryout by the Raiders and Vikings.
Asiata was placed on the Vikings’ practice squad, but a week later he was cut. Running back coach James Saxon encouraged him not to give up. “He told me he knew I could play in this league and to stay focused and be ready,” says Asiata. After tryouts with the Falcons and Buccaneers failed to win a contract, Asiata returned to Salt Lake City and took an 8-5 job delivering tools and moving inventory in the warehouse.
“I didn’t like it, but I had to do it to put food on the table for my babies,” he says.
Heeding Saxon’s advice, he stayed ready. During his lunch break he ran the streets of downtown Salt Lake City to maintain his fitness, and after work, tired from a nine-hour day, he lifted weights at Gold’s Gym.
“I just believed in myself,” he says. “I had the support of my wife and family. They kept pushing me to keep pushing.”
In the summer of 2012, nearly two years after he had played for Utah, he tried out for the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League, but within days he received a call from Saxon inviting him to the Vikings camp. He had convinced head coach Leslie Frazier to give Asiata another tryout. The Vikings put him at the fullback position, which of course meant he was used almost exclusively as a lead blocker for the running back. During the exhibition season, Asiata gathered his nerve and went to Saxon’s office, where he asked if he could try the running back position. “I just felt I needed to tell them how I felt,” he says. “I just wanted to give it a shot.”
Saxon granted his wish during a preseason game and Asiata earned a spot on the roster as the team’s third running back. He had just three rushing attempts in his rookie season, playing almost entirely on special teams. It wasn’t until Peterson and Gerhart were hurt a year later that he was really used on offense, and in three of the last four seasons he has either started at running back or received significant playing time there.
“It’s blessings upon blessings,” says Asiata. “I’m truly blessed to keep rolling and to have my body keep going. It’s just having the faith and my wife and kids. They mean everything.”
Asiata, who has a degree in sociology with an emphasis in criminal justice, says he frequently wonders what he would be doing if he weren’t playing football. “I ask myself that all the time,” he says. “I don’t really know. All I know is football."
He mentions that someday he'd like to use his degree in a way that benefits kids. Meanwhile, he's riding his football career as long as he can and taking care of his babies.
Email: drob@deseretnews.com