WINDSOR, Conn. – Klaus Alinen watched as his son boarded a plane to America for just the second time in his life. It was January 2021, and this was the last time he was going to see his son in person for months, maybe even a year or longer.

Olaus Alinen, a native of Pori, Finland and living in Vaasa at the time, had only visited the country once in his life. That came as a 2-year-old when Klaus spent a season as a tight end on the Atlanta Falcons practice squad. Alinen had no real memories, familiarity or experiences of any kind in the United States other than having his toddler feet touch American soil.

Here he was, though, hopping on a jet at 17 years old that would take him to Windsor, Connecticut to enroll in Loomis Chaffee School, a collegiate prep academy on the East Coast where football head coach Jeff Moore – now the tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator at UMass – had made the 6-foot-7, 315-pound offensive tackle a mammoth recruiting priority.

The decision was finalized, the airfare bought and the future planned.

Klaus held confidence despite the unknowns.

“The major thing for him was that the first day he left Finland for the States,” Klaus said, “he was just in control. He was himself. And he needed to be that adult now who makes all those adult decisions himself.”

Klaus should have felt nervous about his son shipping off to another country, no? Why didn’t he seem worried or concerned?

To dig up those answers, to understand why they are so revelatory and potentially predictive of the future college success Olaus Alinen will have at Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia or Miami, first go back to the journey he started more than five years ago…