The tap on the van window came in the middle of the night, the officer telling them the park was closed. Jake Muasau, then 12, sleepy-eyed, saw the flashlight shine through as the policeman peered into the rear of the Windstar van where Jake and his older brother Louie were sleeping.

Their mother, in the driver's seat, said everything was all right.

The boys, in hushed voices, pleaded for her to tell the truth. Tell the officer they had no place to go, no bed to sleep in. Their mother’s pride would not relent. Everything is fine, she told the officer instead, and she pulled out of the park. Low on gas and short on money, they took off, not knowing where they’d land up.

“We’d just ride on faith,” Muasau remembers.

Jake Muasau is now 22 years old, is now carried by conviction. A Troy Polamalu lookalike, from the traditional Samoan long hair to the number 43, Muasau, is an undrafted rookie linebacker with the Giants who has already survived one gantlet — a minicamp in May that weeded out dozens of young players.

Now in training camp, he is sidelined with a hamstring injury, and the odds of his making the team decrease with each missed practice. Friday’s preseason opener went on without him.

It has been a wild, tortuous trail. A star recruit, he was set to become a Nebraska Cornhusker when high school security guards caught him with prescription drugs in his tube sock. He was selling the pills, a desperate decision, he said, to bring in money.

Swiftly, the scholarship offer was rescinded, sending him on a detour through a junior college, then to Georgia State’s first football team alongside Louie, who is a year older. In the spring, Giants general manager Jerry Reese first watched Muasau’s highlight video, a montage that showed a 6-1, 243-pounder roving easily from sideline to sideline. As soon as the April draft was over, Muasau was on the phone with the Giants, the only team to offer him a tryout.

"I feel blessed, first and foremost, just to have this opportunity," Muasau said. "Thinking back to it now, going through those times, it was by the grace of God that my family got through it and still be sane."



A troubled childhood

He was not yet a year old when his father, Liuavano Mataaga, a pastor, moved the family from Tacoma, Wash., to Southern California to help his brother develop a Samoan Assembly of God church. Tribulation followed.

Soon Muasau’s family began a cycle through rundown apartments and the homes of strangers. They took to their first van, a 1985 red Astro, when Muasau was about 6, somehow the boys managing to attend school throughout the turmoil.

The troubles of Jake and Louie, and their older brother, Matthew, were rooted in their parents’ personal struggles. The boys would find their mother, Asoiva, staring at the ceiling, muttering to herself. She would create imaginary friends at time; other times she became violent. Twice, his father was arrested for domestic violence, Muasau said.

“People would ask, ‘How are you a pastor if you’re putting your hands on your wife?’ ” Muasau said.

“My mom’s disability and us being poor just added fuel to the fire.”

For a time, they lived with another family in an uncle’s garage, but the family could not find a foothold.

Jake was 11 in 2001, and the family living in Phoenix, when his father was diagnosed with throat cancer. His voice box was removed, and the boys would feed him bottles of Ensure, a nutritional drink, through a tube. Once heavier than 200 pounds, Liuavano became frail. At the same time, Matthew, five years older than Jake, went to jail for criminal trespassing.

The family’s odyssey seemed like it would never end, when Asoiva decided to move them three hours south to Sierra Vista.

The boys were promised a house. Instead, the family checked into a Motel 8 and within two weeks were living out of the Windstar.

Sometimes the three would ride through the local park, sleeping in the van or on park benches. The boys used rags to wash, and they would brush their teeth at water fountains. They scrounged for any extra food left behind in the school cafeteria.

Then the police officer came tapping. Two nights later, on the side of the road with an empty gas tank, they heard another tap.

It was the same officer. The next day the boys were sent to child protective services and put in a group home. Their mother was sent to a home for battered women.

Then their father died, the same day Matthew was released from prison. Muasau was 13.

"That was the changing point in our lives," Muasau said. "That's when we decided to really move forward and try to do something right for this family."



A way out

They found football.

At Buena Vista High School, Muasau played wide receiver and safety, and gained notice at combines across the state. By the end of his junior year, he verbally committed to Nebraska. The attention affected him.

“I became arrogant. I became cocky,” Muasau said. “I became someone I’m not. I tell people I was to the point where I thought I was going to the NFL out of high school.”

He had a productive senior season, but his family was scraping by. Selling the drugs on campus, he pocketed $60 to $70 a day. Already struggling with his SAT scores, his scholarship to Nebraska was rescinded.

“Once the letters stopped coming in, once the coaches stopped calling, once the recruiting was all done with, it really settled into him like, ‘Man, I’m not going Division 1, I’m not playing in the NFL, I’m not going to do anything,’ ” Louie said. “It took for him to go through it.”

With limited options, Muasau joined Louie at Phoenix College. Muasau was quickly converted to linebacker, where he starred with his brother. But after the two seasons, the only offers he received from Division 1 programs were as a walk-on.

When Louie went on a visit to Georgia State, a school set to begin its first football season later in 2010, he showed coaches his brother’s highlight tape. The school offered both brothers a scholarship.

Before games, the brothers, known as the Polamalu twins, would lead the team in the Haka, an ancient war dance. Muasau was named defensive MVP both seasons.

“Every game I anticipated him making a play that was going to help turn the tide for the defense,” Georgia State linebackers coach Jason French said.

A new chapter

In the leadup to April’s draft, Muasau’s teammates were invited to all-star games and private workouts, while he seemingly was ignored. Until the Giants called.

“We cried on the phone and it just seemed like all that hard work paid off,” said Louie, who will attend graduate school at Georgia State in the fall.

After minicamp in June, Muasau went to Arizona as a member of the Giants.

His mother, diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder two years ago, was waiting.

“She was definitely in such a beautiful place when I saw her,” Muasau said. “She was excited to say, ‘Oh, NFL boy!’ It was really good to be with my family and share that moment with them.”

Jorge Castillo: jcastillo@starledger.com