AHMED HASSANEIN’S JOURNEY to the doorstep of the NFL started on a balcony seven years in the past in Cairo round a hookah.
With the roar of Cairo Worldwide Airport within the distance, Hassanein joined his two sisters, brother and nephew buying and selling puffs within the sixth-floor penthouse they grew up in overlooking the Heliopolis suburb.
As they handed the hookah, Hassanein’s sisters, Gigi and Aziza Ibrahim, instructed Hassanein’s older brother, Cory Besch, about Hassanein’s life over the previous decade after transferring from California at age 6. Hassanein had forgotten the right way to communicate English, had behavioral points that triggered him to be expelled from college, and was being raised by his mom, who he stated had a substance abuse dysfunction.
“She was a really, very abusive individual,” Hassanein instructed ESPN. “Like beginning with habit, with medicine and all that stuff, and she or he was actually verbally abusive and bodily abusive.”
By all of it, Hassanein took solace in sports activities together with breakdancing, soccer, swimming, basketball, boxing, jujitsu, pingpong and CrossFit. He turned the top-ranked CrossFit athlete in Egypt and top-of-the-line in Africa. It additionally helped him domesticate a powerful work ethic.
Besch, who was 30 on the time and making his first journey to Egypt in 20 years, hadn’t seen Hassanein in a decade. After listening to from his siblings that night time — June 26, 2018 — Besch began formulating a plan to get Hassanein, then 15, again to the US.
“I used to be like, ‘Properly, what if he got here and lived with me and performed soccer for me?'” stated Besch, who coached at Loara Excessive College in Anaheim, California.
It was a serious pivot for Hassanein, who was set to attend Riverside Preparatory, a army college in Gainesville, Georgia.
“I bear in mind Aziza telling me, ‘It should be actually arduous, and it’ll be one of the troublesome stuff you’ve ever performed as a result of the tradition shock goes to be there, you are going to lose all your mates, you’ll be able to’t communicate English very properly,'” Hassanein stated.
“And I used to be like, ‘I can do it.'”
Throughout a household trip at a resort on the Purple Sea later that week, Besch helped persuade their father to let him transfer away 7,500 miles. A month later, Hassanein was on a airplane to Los Angeles.
Quick-forward to immediately and — regardless of preliminary language limitations, lack of soccer data and taking part in the game for the primary time as a sophomore in highschool — Hassanein is on the verge of turning into the primary Egyptian to be drafted into the NFL. ESPN draft analyst Matt Miller has the previous Boise State defensive finish, who’s 6-foot-2, 267 kilos, going within the sixth spherical at decide No. 216 in his newest mock draft.
“It was surreal to assume that we simply dreamed this to avoid wasting Ahmed and get him to the U.S., like ‘Undertaking Mission: Get Ahmed to the U.S.,’ after which it was ‘Mission: Get Ahmed into Faculty,’ and now it is ‘Mission: Get Ahmed into the NFL,'” Gigi stated from her house in Cairo.
“Nevertheless it’s all surreal as a result of who would’ve thought that Ahmed can be nice at being a defensive lineman in American soccer when actually seven years in the past, he was simply sitting on the balcony praying that somebody would … get him out of this distress.”
THE CULTURE SHOCK was actual for Hassanein when he moved in with Besch in August 2018.
All the pieces from the meals to the language to high school was totally different. After which there was soccer.
All Hassanein knew in regards to the sport was what Besch had posted on social media, most just lately taking part in in a second-tier Austrian league from March to June 2018, simply earlier than he visited Egypt.
“Folks run and hit one another,” Hassanein recalled. “That is all I do know.”
When Hassanein arrived in California, Besch gave him a crash course, explaining all the things from the right way to placed on his pads, helmet and mouth guard to the game’s guidelines.
“All the pieces from line of scrimmage to downs to your function and duty on the protection,” Besch stated. “And I do not assume all the things was defined explicitly since you do not ever return and clarify the X’s and O’s in highschool, proper?”
Hassanein did not know the right way to get in a stance or the right way to catch a ball, stated Mitch Olson, Hassanein’s head coach at Loara. His college’s soccer program was in one of many decrease ranges in California and did not have the assets different colleges round them had. Every coach was in command of a number of positions, and a lot of the children did not play soccer earlier than ninth grade as a result of there wasn’t a youth program within the district.
“It is like the child acquired pulled off of Mars and began taking part in soccer,” Olson stated.
Nonetheless, Olson noticed the potential within the 16-year-old sophomore. He lined up Hassanein, then 6-foot-1 and 210 kilos, at defensive sort out on the junior varsity group for the primary recreation of the season earlier than transferring him as much as varsity. It was, by all accounts, an experiment.
Hassanein had at the very least one penalty each recreation due to his unfamiliarity with the foundations. There was a recreation by which he grabbed a quarterback’s face masks to carry him down and one other by which he tripped the quarterback, who was about to scramble by him. He remembered throwing gamers, kicking individuals and flipping them like in jiujitsu.
“I used to be on the market simply doing no matter,” Hassanein stated. “I used to be simply on the market being bodily. See ball, get ball.”
In fall 2018, Hassanein was watching highlights of former Los Angeles Rams defensive sort out Aaron Donald.
“What highschool does he go to?” Hassanein requested his brother.
“And he was like, ‘Bro, that is the NFL, that is the Nationwide Soccer League.’ I used to be like, ‘OK, I need to go there.’ And he was like, ‘Bro, you do not have a D-line coach at your highschool and you do not have a sled?'”
It did not matter to Hassanein. After speaking to his brother and Olson, and watching movies, he devised a plan: Hassanein started waking up at 5 a.m. day by day to work out earlier than college. After college, he’d go to observe — both soccer or basketball, relying on the season — after which return to the gymnasium for 3 to 4 hours an evening.
All the pieces began to click on for Hassanein halfway via his sophomore season.
The important thing, Besch, Olson and defensive coordinator Jonathan Rangel determined, was to let Hassanein’s pure power make up for no matter method he lacked. It labored.
Finally, Besch began taking Hassanein to camps, the place he was dealing with — and outplaying — prospects from prime highschool packages round Southern California akin to St. John Bosco and Mater Dei. The night time earlier than one camp, Hassanein studied pass-rush strikes on YouTube and carried out them the subsequent day.
Schools seen the three-star go rusher. On Aug. 27, 2020, as his senior season was postponed till the spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hassanein acquired a direct message from Spencer Danielson, now Boise State’s head coach, who was then teaching the line of defense. He liked Hassanein’s movie.
Hassanein instructed his brother, who could not consider it. Besch performed soccer with Danielson at Azusa Pacific College. Hassanein relayed that data to Danielson, and so they hopped on a Zoom name to clarify the state of affairs.
Hassanein had scholarship presents from Fresno State, Duke, Kansas and Colorado earlier than ultimately selecting Boise State.
Had Hassanein’s life adopted his preliminary plan of going to army college, wanting again, he thought he’d return to Egypt after 4 years. As an alternative, he was residing out a dream he by no means knew he had.
“It meant the world to me that any individual believed, and my brother at all times believed in me, however it gave me affirmation that I can do that,” Hassanein stated. “I took it as a problem as a result of I had plenty of relations say, ‘You are going to come again in two weeks. You are by no means going to succeed. You possibly can’t even communicate English. How the hell are you going to play soccer?’
“And I actually made it. I took it as, ‘OK, watch this.'”
DANIELSON STOOD OUTSIDE Boise State’s soccer facility on a June morning in 2021 with a hope and a prayer.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, neither Danielson nor any of his coaches had been in a position to recruit Hassanein in individual, so the primary time they met him was when he stepped out of the automotive that day. Sitting behind Danielson’s thoughts was the truth that Besch was 5-foot-8, 150 kilos in school.
“I am ready for him on the entrance of the power like, ‘Please be 6-3. Please be 6-3,'” Danielson recalled to ESPN. “If he pops out and he is 5-9 and Cory acquired me, I will be actually sizzling.
“And he pops out and he simply seems like a Greek god. I am like, ‘Sure.'”
His first yr on campus, Hassanein appeared like among the Broncos’ juniors and was lifting extra weight than plenty of the upperclassmen, Boise State edge coach Jabril Frazier stated.
From a soccer standpoint, Hassanein was very a lot a freshman.
“He did not know what was happening,” Frazier stated. “However he performed at a excessive stage.”
Danielson’s method of rectifying that was together with his “Soccer College,” a weeklong program main into fall camp for all of Boise State’s incoming freshmen. It lined all the things from the width of the sphere — 53.3 yards — to the verbiage Boise State’s coaches desire to the basics of tackling to A, B and C gaps.
For Hassanein, school soccer was a completely new recreation. In highschool, he relied on his pure skill to dominate. Not a lot in school. He needed to account for the way the offensive lineman throughout from him lined up and blocked in each potential situation and what sort of offense he was dealing with on a weekly foundation.
It was primarily Soccer 101 for Hassanein.
“It was actually eye-opening,” he stated.
In 20 video games over his first two seasons, he had two sacks. Then, going into his junior yr in 2023, all of it clicked. Hassanein completed with 12.5 sacks and was talked about among the many nation’s greatest go rushers.
Heading into his senior season, he was coming off labrum surgical procedure and spent the spring watching his personal movie and breaking down his video games whereas he rehabbed. Hassanein had 9.5 sacks in 2024, giving him 24 for his profession, the fourth most in class historical past.
“I at the moment have him projected as a late fifth- to early sixth-round decide as groups are at all times on the lookout for pass-rush assist,” ESPN draft analyst Jordan Reid stated. “Hassanein will probably be part of particular groups early on throughout his profession whereas he searches to earn a job as a contributor on protection.”
Hassanein is on the verge of creating worldwide historical past. When he does, it will likely be an emotional second for individuals who helped him on the journey.
“The journey that dude made and the center that he needed to do, the issues that he did to get to the place he’s, it’s storybook, man,” Olson stated. “It truly is. It is a frigging film.”
He is aware of he isn’t the largest or quickest, however he says he thinks his power will assist him turn into a disruptive go rusher on the subsequent stage.
Danielson described Hassanein as “one of the violent run defenders we have ever had right here,” pointing to the Broncos’ first defensive play of the Fiesta Bowl towards Penn State.
It was first-and-10 from the Nittany Lions’ 28-yard line when Penn State tight finish Tyler Warren went in movement from left to proper, overloading the facet closest to Hassanein. It was a run and, with a working begin, Hassanein bulldozed Warren again 4 yards, throwing him to the bottom within the course of.
To Danielson, that play is all the things groups have to find out about Hassanein.
“As soon as he will get there, he’ll be everywhere in the coaches about being higher, getting higher, getting assist,” Frazier stated. “Give him a yr to 2 years within the NFL and you will be listening to his title rather a lot.”
