Kicker · Chicago Bears
Gabriel Plascencia
Rookie
His father carried the Mexican flag to every game. His son just signed with the Bears.
Fabian Plascencia came to the United States from Mexico at 23 with nothing lined up and a construction trade to fall back on. He built something anyway. And then, for years, he drove to every college game his son played — home and away — and stood in the stands with a Mexican flag.
That image is the whole story, really. Everything else is just how it got there.
Gabriel Plascencia grew up in Oakland, in a family where soccer was the first language. His father had played professionally in Mexico. Two of his brothers played at the college level. Gabriel played through his senior year of high school at Bishop O'Dowd, and if you had watched him then, you would not have been watching a kicker. You would have been watching a soccer player.
The left foot came from all of that. He credits the soccer background as the foundation of everything that followed in football — and what followed was not a straight line.
After high school, he landed at College of San Mateo for a JUCO year. A preferred walk-on offer from Mississippi State came in January 2022, and he took it — committed, enrolled, arrived in Starkville. Then, about a month in, he entered the transfer portal and went back to San Mateo for a second JUCO season. Most recruits don't survive a detour like that. Most recruits don't have to.
When the next offer came, he had options, including one from Kentucky and the SEC. He picked San Diego State instead. The reason, per his own account, traced back to youth soccer tournaments he'd played in Del Mar as a kid, a childhood connection to that part of California, and a deliberate calculation about what his life looked like outside of football. He chose San Diego, and San Diego is where the left foot got noticed.
Before the NFL came calling, Plascencia was already building something parallel. A hundred hours of community service in the Bay Area. Food drives. A clothing brand he started back in high school. And work as a kicking coach in Northern California, training the next group of kids who might have a left foot and no one paying attention to it yet.
He signed with the Chicago Bears as an undrafted free agent in May 2026. No draft call. No theater. Just a phone call and a contract, same as it comes for most of the players who make it this way.
Fabian Plascencia crossed a border at 23 with nothing, worked construction, and drove to every game with a flag. His son just signed an NFL contract. Oakland to San Mateo to Starkville to San Mateo to San Diego to Chicago — and a father in the stands for every stop he could reach.
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