Lo van Pham honored to be first Asian American official

By ROB MAADDI
AP Pro Football Writer

Lo van Pham’s journey to the NFL began when he fell in love with sports upon arriving in Texas after living in refugee camps with his family. More than 40 years later, van Pham is set to become the first Asian American to officiate in the NFL. Before he was introduced to football in America, van Pham and his parents and two brothers survived traveling the jungles of South Vietnam and bounced around refugee camps in Laos, Thailand and the Philippines for about three years. He was too young to remember much of that experience but his parents filled him in as he got older.