‘The humblest kid that I’ve ever met’: The other side of Nico Iamaleava

The line would begin to form minutes after Nico Iamaleava’s high school football games ended.

Starstruck young kids would surround the ballyhooed quarterback to ask for a picture or autograph. Even opposing players would approach Iamaleava with a cell phone or Sharpie marker.

“Whether he had a good game or not, he’d stay until the last kid was gone,” said Felipe Aguilar, Iamaleava’s quarterbacks coach at Warren High School in Downey, California. “He was always humble, always respectful. He never let his fame affect who he was.”

Across college football, Iamaleava is best known as the face of all that is broken about the sport in the NIL era. The former Tennessee quarterback triggered an avalanche of anger and vitriol with his apparent holdout during spring practice last April, reportedly in pursuit of a raise from $2.4 million to $4 million and upgrades to his offensive line and receiving corps. Outrage turned to schadenfreude a week later when Iamaleava entered the portal after Tennessee did not meet those demands and then transferred to UCLA at a pay cut.

Those close to Iamaleava bristled when ESPN’s Paul Finebaum labeled the family “greedy” and when ESPN’s Rece Davis described the quarterback as “extraordinarily ungrateful.” They fumed when Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke begged UCLA not to take a “toxic” quarterback who was “all about the money” and “not about the team.”

Iamaleava’s former high school football and club volleyball coaches paint a very different picture of the two-sport phenom. The softspoken, respectful kid that they know seldom left practices without telling his coaches goodbye and that he loved them. He so badly wanted to help Warren’s football team win that he played through a fractured index finger that doctors said would sideline him for 4-6 weeks. Warren coaches had to plead with him to slide to avoid helmet-rattling hits rather than lowering his shoulder to fight for an extra yard or two.

“Nico is not a greedy, selfish guy,” former Warren head football coach Kevin Pearson told Yahoo Sports. “He’s the opposite of that.”

Added Warren running backs coach Rocco Houston, “It bothered the hell out of me seeing what people were saying about him because it was so far from the truth. Nico is one of the humblest kids that I’ve ever met in my life.”

Iamaleava the family

The first time Kevin Pearson learned about Iamaleava, they were on opposite sidelines. Warren had scheduled a 2019 preseason scrimmage against Long Beach Poly, one of Southern California’s most storied football powerhouses. Warming up on Poly’s side of the field before the scrimmage was a 6-foot-5 quarterback, slender as a Q-tip but with a cannon of an arm.

Turning to one of his assistant coaches, Pearson said, “Oh my gosh, is that their starter?”

“No man, that’s a freshman,” the assistant coach responded.

Pearson made a point of introducing himself to Iamaleava’s dad that day and telling him that his son “was going to be special.” It wasn’t exactly a recruiting pitch per se, but, as Pearson puts it, “You never know what’s going to happen in this world of football.”

Proof of that arrived after the 2019 football season when the Iamaleavas abruptly decided that Poly was no longer the best fit for Nico. Big Nic, as everyone calls Nico’s dad, called Pearson without warning. He and Nico wanted to tour Warren’s campus and set up a meeting.

Pearson swears he considered turning Nico and Big Nic away because he’d already promised another promising transfer first crack at Warren’s starting quarterback job. Other Warren coaches talked Pearson out of it because Nico was too talented a prospect to let slip away.

“Coach, you didn’t bring him in — he came in,” Pearson remembers his assistants arguing. “You can’t turn down kids if they want to come to the program.”

Pearson soon discovered that Nico hailed from a uniquely tight-knit, fiercely competitive family. Big Nic, in Pearson’s words, was the “alpha,” a hulking physical presence who instilled toughness and discipline in his kids. His wife Marleinna was one of the “sweetest, most nurturing people” Pearson had ever met. Their eight children were fast turning Iamaleava into one of the most recognizable last names in Long Beach-area football and volleyball circles.

Eldest siblings Matt and Nicaylah were volleyball standouts at Poly who played collegiately at Long Beach State and Cypress College, respectively. Nico’s younger brother Madden was blossoming into one of the Class of 2025’s most coveted quarterback prospects. Their four younger sisters were each showing promise in volleyball at one level or another.

The most physically gifted of all the Iamaleavas might have been Nico, the rare 6-foot-6 quarterback who boasted top-tier arm strength, exceptional escapability and an uncanny knack for making the first potential tackler miss in the open field. He so convincingly beat out Warren’s other transfer quarterback entering his sophomore year that at one point Aguilar turned to Pearson and said, “This isn’t even close.”

As lethal as his right arm was dropping back to pass in the pocket, it was just as dangerous on a volleyball court. Nico would often go weeks without playing high-level volleyball, then rejoin his Rockstar Volleyball club team and regain his timing and feel in a matter of minutes.

“Nico’s ability to control the ball at that size and athleticism was very unique for someone who wasn’t playing a lot of volleyball,” Team Rockstar founder and former U.S. men’s national team assistant coach Matt Fuerbringer told Yahoo Sports. “He could have made the U.S. national team one day if he kept playing. That’s the ultimate prize in our sport, and he definitely had the potential to do that.”

Off to Tennessee

Prioritizing football became the obvious choice for Nico as the five-star prospect rocketed up the recruiting charts even as the COVID pandemic delayed his sophomore season. Florida State, UCLA, Texas A&M and BYU were among those that offered scholarships before Nico played his first varsity football game. Offers from the likes of Georgia, USC, Oregon, Tennessee and Ohio State arrived soon afterward.

It would have been easy for Nico to get complacent or big-headed, but that wasn’t how he was raised. He’d wake up at dawn to go run hill sprints. Or he’d spend his lunch period with Aguilar dissecting video of himself from practice. Or he’d stay on the phone with Pearson deep into the night discussing what looks an upcoming opponent might throw at him.

In addition to his work ethic, Nico’s coaches rave about his toughness.

“Too tough,” Aguilar said with a chuckle.

He drove the Warren staff crazy with his unwillingness to avoid big collisions that put his body at risk. That finally caught up with Nico in a playoff game at the end of his junior season when he sustained a second-quarter concussion after plowing into an opposing safety.

Warren led by two scores when Nico went down. The Bears lost 42-35.

“We had to teach him how to slide and avoid some big hits because that was his thing,” Aguilar said. “He’s a competitor, but you’ve got to know when to say when.”

That was very nearly the last game Nico played in a Warren jersey. That March, Big Nic abruptly yanked Nico and Madden out of school and sent them back to Poly for the last few months of the 2021-22 school year. Others at Warren say Big Nic had a falling out with another coach and didn’t reconsider until over the summer when that person left for another job.

“Big Nic is the head of the household,” Aguilar said. “He makes all the decisions.”

“He’s going to do what he thinks is best for his family no matter what,” Pearson said.

In retrospect, that saga feels a bit like a harbinger of impulsive moves to come.

Madden started the first game of his senior season at Warren before he and receiver Jace Brown vanished from the school’s roster. They enrolled at Poly a week later only to be denied athletic eligibility in all sports because the California Interscholastic Federation deemed their transfer to be “athletically motivated.”

A few months later, on the first day of the college football early signing period for the 2025 recruiting class, Madden and Brown backed out of their commitment to UCLA. They flipped to Arkansas, according to Big Nic, despite never even visiting the school.

Nico appeared to have found stability at Tennessee when he led the Vols to a 10-win season, a College Football Playoff appearance and an upset victory over No. 7 Alabama in his debut season as a starter. He wasn’t as consistent as he needs to be, but the flashes of upside affirmed his NFL potential.

Then, two days before Tennessee’s spring game last April, everything changed. A very sudden, very public, very messy divorce from Tennessee left the Vols scrambling to land a quarterback and Nico hunting for a new home.

Nico vs. The Narrative

The theatrics started with a report from On3’s Pete Nakos that Nico and Tennessee were in active contract negotiations ahead of the 2025 season. Big Nic escalated the situation a few hours later on social media when he denied the report, took a verbal shot at Nakos and lashed out at Tennessee for leaking the story.

The morning after Big Nic clicked send on that post, Nico was a no-show at practice and the Tennessee staff was unable to reach him. That’s when Tennessee coach Josh Heupel decided that the Vols were done with Nico, pointedly telling reporters the following day, “There’s no one that’s bigger than the Power T.”

Most big-time programs already had their quarterback for the 2025 season by April, so Nico had limited options as a transfer. He chose UCLA, which already had Appalachian State transfer Joey Aguilar penciled in as its opening-day starter but considered Nico to be a major upgrade.

After months of silence from both Nico and his dad, the quarterback at last faced reporters for the first time last month at Big Ten media days in Las Vegas. Standing inside the Mandalay Bay, sporting a powder blue suit, black-rimmed glasses and large diamond earrings, Nico tried to rebrand himself as something other than “greedy,” “toxic” and “ungrateful.”

Peppered with questions about his exit from Tennessee, Nico reiterated to reporters, “I don’t really focus on NIL.” He insisted that he prioritizes football and academics and leaves the rest to his parents and his business representatives.

Nico claimed that “false reports” about his financial demands made him uncomfortable remaining at Tennessee. He said he chose to transfer to UCLA to be closer to his mom, dad and his seven siblings.

“In our Samoan culture we’re always together,” Nico said. “I think that’s the main thing for me, the driving factor for me to come back home.”

When he steps inside the Rose Bowl on Saturday night to make his UCLA debut against Utah, Nico will unveil a No. 9 jersey that is meant to be a tribute to his seven siblings and two parents.

All eyes will be on him, including those belonging to more than 20 family members expected to attend the game.

His tumultuous Tennessee departure behind him, Nico has a chance to reestablish himself as one of college football’s elite quarterbacks and as a future NFL draft pick. Even after all the criticism he endured last spring, everything is still out there for a 6-foot-6 20-year-old with a rocket arm, nimble feet and something to prove.

“I still think he’s going to be a first-round pick,” Pearson said. “I’d be surprised if he didn’t go in the top 10. I’ve been around him so long. I know him so well. I still have a lot of confidence in him.”