Lofa Tatupu Comes Full Circle

Standing inside Heritage Hall on the campus of USC, waiting for his soon-to-be coach, Lofa Tatupu rocked nervously from one foot to the other.

He had waited years for this moment, without any certainty it would arrive. Now he stood in the same place his father, Mosi, once stood, anticipating the arrival of Trojans coach Pete Carroll.

A door opened and Carroll practically bounded toward Tatupu, hand outstretched.

“He came in and shook my hand and said, ‘Congratulations, you’re a Trojan,’ ” Tatupu said after a recent Seahawks practice. “It’s still one of the best days of my life. It was a feeling of disbelief. I didn’t expect a scholarship. I just wanted the opportunity to play.”

Coming out of King Philip High in Wrentham, Lofa Tatupu wanted more.

He wanted what his father had. He wanted Saturday afternoons in the fall with 80,000 people cheering him. He wanted a chance to play for national championships. He wanted to be seen and, most important, he wanted to play against the best.

“I wanted to play in front of big crowds, not just the 10,000 or so we got at Maine,” Tatupu said. “The NFL? Well, I wasn’t sure about that.”

Tatupu was considered too small for the big time, a recurring theme in his life. He was maybe 215 pounds. And almost no major schools showed an interest.

“I wasn’t 6 feet tall, so everyone looked at my films and said, ‘He isn’t tall enough.’ Even my father told me I was small,” Tatupu said. “He didn’t want me to get discouraged by it.

“He kind of let me be and let me find my own way. But he knew how determined I was and he knew I wasn’t going to listen to what people were saying.”

After getting ignored by the big schools, not to mention a lot of smaller schools, Tatupu went to the only place that offered him a scholarship, the University of Maine.

But he never stopped dreaming big.

He looked at other small linebackers who made it in the NFL - Dat Nguyen, Dexter Coakley, London Fletcher - and got inspiration from them.

“I’m the same size as them and I looked at them and tried to figure out what separates them,” Tatupu said, “and it’s their mental capacity for this game. So I tried to study as much film as I could and put myself on their level in the classroom and tried to get an edge somehow. I still do. I wasn’t the prototype, but the best athlete isn’t always the best football player.”

Mosi Tatupu, who died last February, starred as a fullback at USC, then played 13 seasons with the Patriots [team stats]. Mosi got those Saturday afternoons his son desperately wanted. He got that recognition.

And even though he had his doubts, Mosi worked so his son could have those same chances, that same career. He put together a highlight tape from Lofa’s freshman season at Maine and, unbeknownst to his son, sent the tape to Carroll and to then-USC linebacker coach Nick Holt.

Holt loved what he saw on tape, then took the tape to Carroll and said, “We need to look at this guy.”
Mosi also called Carroll. And he called Carroll again and again.

“At the time we were really scrapping for players,” Carroll said. “On the tape Mosi sent us, Lofa didn’t start in any of the games, but when he got in, he made almost every tackle. We couldn’t tell how fast he was. We only knew he was making a bunch of plays.

“We were hoping we could pull the trigger for Mosi, because we love him and all of that, but when we saw how small Lofa was we thought, ‘Oh boy.’ But we had scholarships, so we said, ‘Let’s just do it.’ I just hoped it was going to work out. Knowing the history and knowing how loved his father was, we knew how big a deal it was for Lofa, but we had no idea what we were getting.”

At worst, Carroll figured, he was doing a favor for a former Trojan. At best, well he got the best. He got a defensive leader in the middle of the football field.

“He just had this marvelous savvy,” Carroll said. “We fell in love with him and he became a great player. He was one of the best linebackers who ever played there.

“He learned very, very quickly. He made sense of stuff. He was just a natural at playing the position, just as he’s been here. I’m thrilled we gave him that scholarship. Not just for Lofa, but for Mosi too. I know how proud Mosi was of him.”

Tatupu redshirted in 2002, his first season at USC.

“He did a phenomenal job on the service team,” Holt said. “But we knew as soon as he started practicing that he was going to be a good player. He just had it. He understands football.”

Now after five NFL seasons and three Pro Bowl invitations, Tatupu has been reunited with his college coach. Today against San Francisco will be their first game together as player and coach in an NFL regular season.

“He’s absolutely the same guy that I had down there and it’s refreshing to know that it wasn’t just an act,” said Tatupu. “To have him back up here is fun.

“He still has his way of doing things. He keeps it light. Everybody here is having fun. It’s good to see that it wasn’t just an act. It wasn’t just for college. He knows how to win.”

And Tatupu, who left USC with one season of eligibility remaining, is the same player he was at USC, only now he weighs 250 pounds.

“He’s made the same transition here that he made from Maine to SC,” Carroll said. “When he was deciding whether to stay (at USC), I was battling for him to stay. I thought nobody would know about him. The buildup wasn’t there for it. But he told me, ‘I know I can do it.’ ”

Tatupu was asked last week if he thought he still owed Carroll for taking the chance and offering him a scholarship. He smiled.

“I was very appreciative of the opportunity,” said Tatupu, Seattle’s second-round pick in 2005. “Definitely some things had to go my way to get to where I am now and it started with that scholarship. But I also like to think I had a hand in helping Pete win those two national titles.”
In other words, Tatupu has paid his debt to Carroll, something his once-and-future coach readily acknowledges.

“He was a great Trojan,” Carroll said.

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Junior Achievement

After his first practice with the Seahawks, Junior Siavii was walking like he needed to sit down before he fell down.

“I tell you, they practice hard here,” said Siavii, who was added to the 53-man roster on Monday after being released over the weekend by the Dallas Cowboys. “We were really going out there.”

He huffed and puffed one more time before adding, “They practice harder here than in Dallas.”

But after plopping his 6-foot-5, 315-pound body into an overmatched chair just outside the locker room at Virginia Mason Athletic Center, the Samoa-born Siavii was all smiles. That’s because the physical toll of one practice was a drop of sweat in the bucket compared to the emotional exhaustion and soul searching he experienced after having microfracture surgery on his right knee in 2005.

“When I hurt my knee, to be honest, I thought I was done,” he said. “I kind of lost my faith.”
That’s when former Chiefs teammate Ronnie Cruz intervened. Cruz, a running back, also was coming off a knee surgery.

“I’ve never seen somebody who had so much faith when they’re hurt,” Siavii said. “He was starting at the time and then he buckled his knee. We hung out a couple times, and the only thing I heard from him was just the faith he had.

“I woke up the next morning and thought about giving it a go. It was kind of like a sign that God was telling me, ‘The only reason you’re not playing anymore is because you chose to.’ ”

That’s when Siavii decided he would chose to play again. The Cowboys gave him that chance in 2008, but he didn’t stick after spending the offseason and training camp in Dallas. Last season, when given another chance, he played in all 16 games for the Cowboys.

“When I came back and started practicing with the Cowboys, I knew I could play in the league,” he said.
How is it that a man his size goes by Junior? It’s a given, because his given name is Saousoalii Poe Siavii, Jr.
Born and raised in Pago Pago American Samoa, Siavii (SEE-uh-vee-ee) came to the United States in 1997 and lived a nomadic life in Salt Lake City until he was talked into giving the sport of football a try. That led to him ending up at Dixie State Junior College in St. George, Utah; then Butte Community College near Chico, Calif.; and finally the University of Oregon for two years.

That stint with the Ducks led to Siavii being selected in the second round of the NFL draft by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2004. Then came the knee problems that led to the microfracture surgery, which left Siavii spiritually bankrupt.

“When my knee went, I blamed God,” Siavii said. “But I found God after a year of agony with the knee and doubting myself. When I found Him again, I found out that the knee wasn’t really anything. Everything that happens in the world has nothing to do with God punishing anybody. It’s all our fault.

“So for me, instead of blaming him for what happened, it was be a man. Stand back up. Go out there. Give it another shot. Stop whining. Stop complaining. Just go out there, give it your best and see if they like you or not. Sell what you’ve got and see if anybody likes it. If nobody likes it, at least you gave it your all.”

The Seahawks liked what he was selling, which was a true nose tackle who also has some athletic ability. The club released Kevin Vickerson, a 333-pounder, to add Siavii.

 “Vick was a big, strong man; he did some good things for us,” Schneider said. “But in terms of pure players, they’re both strong point-of-attack players. They’re both big men.”

Siavii also packs a bit of a nasty streak. Asked during an interview with Cowboys.com what he liked about playing nose tackle, he offered, “I like being close to the ball. I get to hit that dude quick.”

But in the same interview, he also flashed his softer side, admitting that he watches the occasional kids’ movie. “I like the ‘Kung Fu Panda’ movie,” he said. “I’m a big dude but I’m a kid at heart.”

So here Siavii is – a 31-year-old kid at heart – trying to continue his career in the Pacific Northwest, where it first blossomed at Oregon.

“I’m ready to do whatever they tell me to do,” he said. “It’s kind of like a family team. Everybody is kind of helping everybody else out. It’s kind of like Oregon. Everybody loves everybody. When we’re on the field, everybody is trying to push each other. Everybody is playing hard.

“It’s a good thing.”

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Lofa Tatupu Faces First Season Without His Father

The sadness sits heavy upon the son.

Especially now, in the first week of this first football season without his father.

Lofa Tatupu was named after Mosi, his dad, and this game has always bonded them.

"It has been tough," Lofa says, "Not to be able to call him during camp. I might tear up. I'm sorry."

He stops to swallow the lump in his throat. The pause is heartbreaking.

Mosiula Mea'alofa Tatupu. That is the full name of Seattle's starting middle linebacker, named for his father,

15-year NFL veteran Mosi Tatupu, who died in February.

Their middle names were different, but he was his father's son. Dad coached him in high school in Massachusetts, and when Lofa went looking for a college to transfer to after his freshman year at Division I-AA Maine, Mosi kept knocking on the door at his alma mater, USC, to convince Pete Carroll and the Trojans' coaches to give Lofa a shot.

But now Mosi is gone, passing one evening back in February. He went downstairs for a nap like he did every evening. A friend came down and found him on the couch holding something in his hand.

It was a prayer bead, one that Lofa's mother, Linnea Garcia-Tatupu, had given Mosi years before. The friend who found Mosi had never seen him holding it during his nap until that night.

"Almost like he knew," Lofa said.

It is a peaceful image from a tragic loss. Mosi, who suffered from high blood pressure, died from a massive heart attack. He was 54.

And so the son prepares for the first season without his father.

Lofa Tatupu, 27, is coming back from a torn pectoral muscle that ended his 2009 season after six games. The real uncertainty is whether he can return to the Pro Bowl form he showed his first three years in Seattle.

He was a star from the start in Seattle, a second-round pick in 2005 who solidified a position that had been a revolving door and made the Pro Bowl each of his first three seasons.

But the past two seasons have been riddled with injuries, from the thumb he broke in the 2009 season opener to the knee that was periodically drained, to the pectoral muscle that was torn off the bone.

Can he get back to playing at that level?

"Honestly, if I don't make another Pro Bowl, yeah that's upsetting," Lofa said, "But that's not the bowl I'm worried about."

He is back in the role that he feels most comfortable. The underdog. This is a player whom New Hampshire's coaches deemed too small coming out of high school.

He had to go to Maine before deciding to transfer, and even when USC took notice of him, the Trojans wanted him to walk on until they found out Oregon was going to offer him a scholarship.

Now, he is the heart of Seattle's defense, the one that Carroll is counting on to hold the linebackers together.

"By far, he's the guy that runs that group," Carroll said.

But Tatupu never lost that feeling of being overlooked and underestimated.

"You always got to have that chip, that edge," he said. "I never lost my edge."

If anything, it's sharpened by the loss of the father he is determined to honor this season. That's what he told his dad on the phone.

"Last time I ever spoke to him, I told him I was going to make him proud," Lofa said. "And that I loved him."

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Seahawks' Tatupu to Donate to Tsunami Relief

Seattle Seahawks defensive star Lofa Tatupu is donating up to $10,000 to aid disaster relief efforts in the Pacific Rim region.

Coach Jim Mora said Wednesday his three-time Pro Bowl middle linebacker is volunteering to match the first $10,000 that fans donate in a collection drive started by the Seahawks and Medical Teams International.

Tatupu's father, former NFL player Mosi Tatupu, was born in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and Lofa Tatupu says he still has family there. Last week, a deadly tsunami hit the U.S. territory, as well as neighboring Samoa and Tonga.

The Seahawks are inviting fans to donate on their way into the stadium for Sunday's home game against Jacksonville.