Manti Te’o - more than just a football star
A true scholar-athlete, the Notre Dame-bound Punahou star is grounded, well-balanced, devoted to his family and faith, and would be a success in life with or without football. A Devout Mormon, Manti Te’o Chose Notre Dame Over Brigham Young Manti Te’o is special. Sure, he’s a great football player, but it goes much deeper.
By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
E-mail this story | Print this page | Archive | RSS |
Del.icio.usboth father and son vehemently deny. But whatever the source or whatever the truth, Manti felt used.
“It was kind of weird. Everything was fine until I narrowed my decision down to UCLA, USC and Notre Dame. Then all the rumors started. I took offense to it because my name was the only one put out there. At this point I knew I made the right decision.”
Any coach expecting a pushover was in for an awakening. Though young, the Punahou senior went about it as a business. Manti made clear his non-negotiable priorities: Whichever school he signed with would have to allow him to go on a church mission for one year, and they would honor his scholarship even if he were to get hurt and could no longer play. With those two items secured, he began his academic search.
“That was my personal responsibility,” he says, “to find out about their academic program, specifically in my major, and how the academic and football programs go together. Then I started to narrow down my choices.”
Manti says he’ll major in either graphic design or architectural engineering.
Of all the schools showing interest, it was the school he signed with that was the real long shot. A coach had called his counselor to see if there was any interest. It seemed clear that Notre Dame wasn’t about to send anyone across the country to waste time on a kid who wasn’t serious. The Irish staff was, in part, challenging the young man. It’s a common and often necessary ploy. He hadn’t had any real plans to attend the school, but he said yes to the query just to keep his options open. All others he was seriously considering were on the West Coast, closer to family. Notre Dame was far away in Indiana and the cold, but the Irish got to work.
Assistant coach Bernie Parmalee hopped on a plane and made the weekly flight to Hawaii to watch Manti in action. “It was very selfish of me, but it was his commitment to me that he’d come down every week. And that just showed for someone from South Bend to fly to Hawaii every week - I made that flight and I don’t know how he made that flight every week - showed a lot of dedication and shows you how much they care.”
The Irish kept close tabs. He was invited to watch practice as Notre Dame got ready to take on UH at the Hawaii Bowl, and head coach Charlie Wiess even flew in for a visit, which resulted in a strange first meeting.
“The first time Coach Wiess came down, he was sitting in Coach Kale’s (Ane) office, and all he did was say hi, and I’m thinking, ‘What, you came all the way down there and you don’t want to talk to me?‘But, he says, ‘I can only say hi and it’s nice to meet you, thank you and I’ll see you later.‘Everyone is saying how much we want you, and coach Charlie Weiss is saying nice to meet you, have a good day at school and he left. That was so weird.”
Unbeknownst to the recruit, Weiss’s visit happened during a down period when coaches aren’t allowed any contact with recruits. It was all the coach was able to say.
“For me, that said at least they are going to be honest with me,” Manti says, “and that’s what I needed.”
Manti’s visit to South Bend was memorable, to say the least. The fall colors he had hoped to find were covered by an early snowstorm. The team lost to Syracuse and fans pelted the players with snowballs, but by that time the star recruit had already gone inside in search of warmth. Though his future coach worried how his warm-climate recruit would react to the weather, the impact had already been made.
“I grew to love the place,” Manti says. “That’s the tradition you feel, and you see it when you drive on the side of the highway and you’re like ‘Dang!’ The tradition really caught me. People say tradition is about living a fairy tale, but that’s a lie. It’s very real.”
Even with such an impression, the final decision didn’t come easy. It was back and forth. One day it was Notre Dame and the next USC. And what if he made the wrong choice?
“They say it’s a four-year decision, but it’s actually a 40-year decision,” he says. “Wherever you go is going to shape you into the person you are going to be.”
Manti leaves for the Midwest in June, and he’s getting ready not by running harder or moving more weight, but by staying close to home.
“Reality is kicking in,” he says. “I’m leaving my family, and my high school years are ending quick, all the important things in life. I’m going to miss my family a lot, so I’m spending a lot of time at home. I’m trying to treasure all my time with my family.”
Page 2 of 2 pages for this story < 1 2
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (1) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
