Mike Iupati  Michael Iupati ( ; born May 12, 1987) is an American football guard for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). A native of American Samoa, Iupati went to high school in southern California, played college football at Idaho, and earned consensus All-American honors. Iupati was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft; he played five seasons with the 49ers and four with the Arizona Cardinals. Born and raised in Vaitogi, American Samoa, Iupati's family moved to Garden Grove, California, after he finished junior high school. He is the son of Aposetolo, a former mechanic at Los Angeles International Airport, and Belinda Iupati. He attended Western High School in Anaheim, where he began playing football under the guidance of Odell Harrington, the school's half-Samoan football coach. His first chances to play came in his sophomore year, when senior Fili Moala injured his foot two games into the season. Playing lineman on both sides of the ball, Iupati received all-state and all-conference honors and served as a team captain. As a junior, he had 80 tackles and 12 sacks, and earned a first-team All-CIF selection. Iupati also competed in wrestling and track & field ( in the shot put). Considered only a two-star recruit by both "Rivals.com" and "Scout.com", Iupati was not ranked among the best offensive lineman prospects in the nation. Only a few schools offered him scholarships, among them Arizona and Texas–El Paso. However, those schools backed off because of Iupati's poor academic record, caused by a language barrier (English is his second language). Not having a high enough SAT score or sufficient grades, Iupati was planning to attend junior college until Johnny Nansen saw him in 2005, at a junior college's barbecue hosted for potential recruits. Nansen, then an assistant at Idaho under head coach Nick Holt, offered him a spot with the Vandals the next day and spent considerable time trying to convince Iupati and his family that the Western Athletic Conference university on the Palouse was a better choice than junior college. Iupati attended the University of Idaho in Moscow, and played for the Vandals from 2006 through 2009. Because of academic problems, he was ineligible to play as a true freshman in 2005 and therefore unable to receive a scholarship or financial aid.