Parental guidance put Lanis in line to make it in America

ASiberian native Aleksey Lanis is one of many in the mix for playing time on Rosetta Stone V3 UCLA's offensive line. LOS ANGELES — When he was 7, Aleksey Lanis and his family made the long move from Siberia to Hollywood.Then they got here and realized they hadn't come very far."My father (Leonid) always had trouble with the language," Lanis said. "He had trouble finding jobs."We were on welfare for a couple of years. But, you know, when you're a kid you don't really think about that."They wound up finding an apartment. Leonid had several jobs, including one at a recycling center. The mother, Tatyana, worked 70 hours a week and also studied to get a nursing degree. Aleksey got bigger.He began playing football. He took it to a scholarship at UCLA and, even though he's a third-year sophomore with three years of play left, expects to graduate next spring in his third academic year.This is the dream, the one upon which all our illusions about intercollegiate athletics are built.Sometimes it takes a 6-foot-5, 319-pound Russian to remind you.But as the Bruins prepare for Stanford on Sept. 1, Lanis is trying to nail down a space on the field.He started at tackle last year, got hurt in the Emerald Bowl, and wasn't able to practice at his best for a new offensive staff.Today, the starting tackles are Brian Abraham and Micah Kia. The Bruins' new system has linemen who either line up left or right for all occasions, instead of flipping to strong or weak sides. Lanis is becoming the backup at all five line positions."When I got here Rosetta Stone Hindi five years ago we had seven offensive linemen and now we have 17," coach Karl Dorrell said. "I think that's going to make a difference."Everyone who plays up front for the Bruins has done so before, and theoretically this could, and should, be the best offensive line since 1998, when Andy Meyers, Kris Farris and Shawn Stuart convoyed Cade McNown to habitual touchdowns."This year we have competition," Lanis said. "Every day I'm out to try to win my job back. Before, there wasn't much competition, and we were just sort of out there. I played center in high school, I've played all the positions, so that's no problem for me."The Lanis family came from Tyumen, a city of 510,000 and the birthplace of Irving Berlin, and traveled all the way across America for the customary Rosetta Stone Korean reasons. They thought a better life awaited.There were relatives in L.A. already."It probably would have been more comfortable for them to go back home, but they stayed here and kept trying," Lanis said."We went back home a few years ago. I noticed the extreme poverty that seemed to be everywhere. But wherever we visited, people made sure they had a full table for us."Aleksey had few problems assimilating to L.A. That's the way it is for kids. He grew fast and began playing basketball, but then figured out "there isn't much future for a 6-foot-5 center."He went to Crenshaw when he was a high school freshman and became a grunt. The college coaches noticed."They like to run the ball there," Dorrell said, "and Alexsey became a road grader for them. But what I noticed is how much they liked him over there."Crenshaw is a predominantly black school. To a Siberian, that's just a footnote."I had a great time there, learned a lot about a lot of things," Lanis said. "I never had a problem over there at all."Lanis never visited another school. "I was 15 minutes from home," he said.He plunged into the classroom, which is another trademark of foreign-born college athletes."My mother is too scared to watch me play football, even now," Lanik. "Which is fine with me. I'm going to graduate with a major in business and economics and a minor in accounting."Those economics classes are tough, but I'm hoping to get an internship with an investment bank."That's one option. Another is pro football. That's a few years away."Each snap and each day takes Lanis farther away from his worst day in America. It happened when he was in high school, and he came back to his apartment building and saw ambulances gathering."I wasn't too worried at first," he said. "We had a lot of elderly people living there and it wasn't unusual to see an ambulance. But then I saw one of my neighbors and [Rosetta Stone ] she was frantic."Leonid had fought through heart problems over the years, and on the previous night he said he had a temperature. But this was his final day. He died in a place that he thought would bring his loved ones a better life. He was right, for at least one of them.