With a total of two receptions in his one season of college football, tight end Fendi Onobun arrived at Rams Park in late April about as raw as rookies come.

"I just remember coming in after the draft for the rookie minicamp. ... I was like, ‘Man, what'd I get myself into?'" Onobun said Monday after the Rams' first official regular-season practice.

That Onobun was still around for that practice is the culmination of what he described as an "unexplainable" journey. "It's an unbelievable story, and it's just the beginning," he said. "I'm really, really excited."

The 6-foot-6, 249-pound Onobun played basketball at the University of Arizona, mostly as a reserve forward behind future NBA performers Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger.

After completing his degree, he was considering continuing basketball in Europe. But recalling an overture he received from the football staff at Arizona during his sophomore year, Onobun decided to "roll the dice and see what happens."

He enrolled at the University of Houston and joined the football team. He hadn't played football since he was a seventh-grader at O'Donnell Middle School in Houston.

Onobun got into 11 games, mostly on special teams, for the Cougars. He caught two passes for 33 yards. But the Rams were blown away by his athleticism during a private workout and took him in the sixth round of the draft (No. 170 overall).

That gave Onobun four months to make enough progress to prove that he was worth keeping, at least on the practice squad. He did more: He made the 53-man roster.

"It was pretty evident that (Onobun) has some skills; he's an athlete," coach Steve Spagnuolo said. "Then when you said, ‘OK, let's see when he gets the pads on,' he showed enough in pads that he deserved and earned his way on the 53.

"Now, he still has a long way to go. He knows that. ... We'll just keep on pushing and hopefully at the end there we have a refined tight end."