UCLA's Chillar First Indian American in Pro Football

News Report

By Michel W. Potts, India West

May 02, 2004 - When the St. Louis Rams picked UCLA linebacker Brandon Chillar as their fourth round draft choice last weekend, he became the first Indian American to be signed as a professional player for a National Football League team.

"They said I was a natural linebacker because I'm always around the ball," Chillar told India-West. "I know that if I wasn't going to be picked up by the Rams, I definitely would have been picked up by another team."

Although he has a sports agent, his three-year contract hasn't been negotiated yet. The league minimum hovers around $300,000 for a defensive linebacker, "and since I was in the fourth round, I'll be looking at around $200,000," the 21-year-old Chillar revealed.

Once he arrives at the St. Louis Rams' training camp, Chillar hopes to make the first string defensive line-up. "That's the goal," he said. "I'm going to go in there and work hard and try to prove to the coaches that they can put me on the field."

A three-year starter who emerged as captain of the Bruins' defensive unit when he became a senior, Chillar, at 6'2" and 253 pounds, "possesses fine speed and is a student of the game. He is tough and aggressive at the point of attack, yet he can also play well in space and has great change of direction, enabling him to cover well," according to the NFLDraftscout.com Web site.

During his career, Chillar has started 35 of 49 games at right outside linebacker, recording 255 tackles (149 solos) with 12 sacks for minus 88 yards, 27.5 stops for losses of 121 yards, five fumble recoveries, three interceptions, eight pass deflections and a pair of blocked kicks.

Named Outstanding Leader and Best Play Senior during his last season at UCLA, Chillar has also made 133 tackles, the most by a Bruin player since 1989, and led the Pac-10 conference with an average of 10.2 tackles per game.

His best play ever came last year during a game against UC Berkeley. A teammate had blocked a field goal attempt, "and I picked it up and it for 56 yards and a touchdown," Chillar recalled to India-West. The game was broadcast live by ABC Television, "and I became the ABC Player of the Game, which was a pretty cool thing."

Among Chillar's best qualities on the field, as listed by the NFL Web site, is his ability to "quickly break down the plays, showing a sharp closing burst once he locates the ball." He also can "take on blockers with good body position, using his hands effectively," and is able to make a 40-yard dash in 4.59 seconds.

He does have his drawbacks. Despite his good hand usage fending off blocks coming off the edge, "he needs to use his hands better to defeat the cut blocks when working in-line," the Web site pointed out. To correct his weaknesses, Chillar, who is majoring in history, quit UCLA two quarters shy of graduation in order to train for three weeks at a pro-football training camp in New Jersey that had been arranged through an exclusive deal made by his agent.

"I went there to get even better. You can't ever be satisfied," Chillar said. "I had some gain there, so I did get better."

As far as finishing his last two quarters at UCLA and getting his diploma in history, "I'm going to do that as soon as I can," he said. "I'll have to see how busy I am with football, but I'm 90 percent down in all that time I've spent in school, so I might as well go back and finish."

Chillar, the son of Kathy and Ram Chillar of Carlsbad, left April 29 for a weekend-long mini-camp before reporting to the St. Louis Rams on June 12. At the mini-camp, "they want you to work out for them, because they haven't actually seen you play," he explained.

"They want to see what you've really got, because a lot of times they've only watched film on you. So they want to put you through their drills to see who they drafted."

Chillar won't get his first paycheck as a professional player for at least a month. The first thing he wants to buy for himself is a Cadillac Escalade "and maybe some nice clothes, but that's it," he confided to India-West. "The rest of it I want to put in the bank and invest so that I can make my life easier when I'm older."

This article originally appeared in India West @ http://www.indiawest.com, the respected West Coast weekly celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Visit the site to read more features or subscribe.