How a leap of faith led Tyrone Taleni from Samoa to USC for a sport he under no circumstances played

Right until his cousin, Bernard Afutiti, frequented from the mainland practically 5 yrs back, the idea of actively playing higher education football experienced never happened to Tyrone Taleni. And why would it? Taleni did not know soccer. He’d neither played nor invested any time watching the activity. Confident, football could be ingrained into the cultural fabric of close by American Samoa, but on his home island of Savai’i, the western-most island in impartial Samoa, rugby was continue to king.

When it came to rugby, Taleni was a purely natural. In his little mountain village of Vaiola, they performed most days when university was out and the chores had been accomplished, sending punt just after punt soaring about unspoiled paradise. Around the a long time, his family had carved out their individual slice of this island oasis, living off the land, tending to hen and cattle and pigs on a family homestead, exactly where cacao, taro, bananas and mangoes grew plentifully.

His relationship to the village ran deep, but just after investing two a long time on a mission in Arkansas, Taleni returned to Vaiola in 2017 unsure of his upcoming ways. That’s when Afutiti and his spouse, Crystal, came to the island for a stop by.

It was Afutiti, a former school soccer player, who to start with floated the plan, planting a seed that would ship Taleni careening down an unlikely route in an unfamiliar sport. Afutiti figured his cousin’s rugby expertise could possibly translate. Never ever in his wildest dreams did he consider that conversation would, decades afterwards, direct Taleni to USC.

He knew Taleni experienced styles on getting a medical professional, to assist bring improved professional medical accessibility to Samoa. But pursuing that system meant leaving the island for a greater training in the States, and college or university was high priced. “He didn’t want to set any additional burdens on his mothers and fathers,” Afutiti says.

So Afutiti instructed football: “I instructed him it was in all probability his ideal way to earn a cost-free instruction,” he stated.

Taleni instructed his cousins he would pray on it.

A number of months later, Taleni boarded a plane to California. He has not been back to Samoa due to the fact.

“I was all-in,” Taleni mentioned. “I did not know considerably about football at the time or how the instruction procedure operates out right here, or everything like that, but just the concept of him expressing, ‘Come out listed here and attempt college, attempt football, you never ever know what may occur,’ I was very thrilled. … I guess, you could say it was a huge leap of faith, leaving every thing and not being aware of what could take place.”

A couple additional leaps of religion would be expected just before Taleni identified himself sitting down throughout from Lincoln Riley in his business office past January, which includes a massive a single from USC’s mentor. Taleni was not precisely a verified commodity. He played fewer than 100 snaps of Electric power 5 soccer about two yrs at Kansas Point out, wherever Riley first observed him when he was Oklahoma’s mentor. Some thing in his film had presented Riley faith.

“When you commenced to investigation him, the worker, his journey in soccer, it variety of made perception. The snaps he did play, we saw some factors that we believed have been intriguing,” Riley mentioned. “But the far more we located out about him, we ended up self-assured in the kind of kid we were being bringing in here.”

Sitting with the coach and her cousin in Riley’s workplace, cousin Tutasi Asuega-Matavao could barely comprise herself. She requested the coach if she could snap a selfie to commemorate the occasion, substantially to Taleni’s chagrin.

Their whole family had developed up as avid USC lovers. Now Taleni was a Trojan? Significantly?

“It nevertheless blows our intellect,” Asuega-Matavao said. “Like, how is this child doing this?”

USC defensive lineman Tyrone Taleni participates in a team follow session on March 31, 2022.

(USC Athletics)

That improbable tale commences at Mt. San Antonio Faculty, a group university 25 miles east of downtown L.A. in Walnut, wherever Taleni showed up one working day, approached the coach and asked for a shot. He figured, why not?

Bob Jastrab obliged. The team necessary bodies, and in his practically two many years as mentor, he’d observed a few longshots like Taleni thrive.

“It’s on their own dime,” the Mt. San Antonio coach explained, “So we give anyone an possibility. Each when in though, there is a guy exactly where it’s like, ‘Where have you been all of my life?’ ”

But that was not Taleni — at least, not at initially. His athleticism was obvious, but he struggled to begin with to get snug in his uniform. He did not like the shoulder pads, the cleats, the mouthguard. The helmet felt awkward. He ripped out as substantially of the leg padding as attainable.

It took time to get acclimated. At home, everything was distinctive. On the soccer subject, anything was new. He grayshirted that 1st period at Mt. SAC as he realized the finer factors of actively playing on the defensive line, a situation he took on purely since coaches set him there. Though Jastrab approximately improved his placement just after observing Taleni punt at observe.

“He could actually rocket it,” Jastrab explained. “It was like, ‘What are you accomplishing participating in the line? You can participate in on Sundays as a punter.’ But that didn’t previous very long.”

Soon enough, Taleni would settle in together the defensive front. By the close of his initial total period at Mt. SAC, his probable was rapidly getting apparent. Provides arrived in from colleges these as Western Illinois, Robert Morris and Texas El Paso. Then came the offer from Kansas State.

“I requested my cousin when they called, what do you assume of Kansas Point out?” Taleni recalled. “I experienced no idea.”

“We were stunned,” explained Ula Matavao, an additional of his cousins. “Like holy cow, a Ability Five faculty recruiting you soon after a person yr?”

Taleni dedicated that February. A couple months afterwards, he moved 1,500 miles east to Manhattan, Kan.

Kansas Point out defensive finish Tyrone Taleni sacks Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels in the course of a recreation in October 2020.

(Peter G. Aiken / Getty Visuals)

This time, the distance would don on him. The pandemic built the changeover even harder. “It was a definitely extended calendar year,” Taleni remembers.

The bitter cold of a Kansas winter season was but an additional adjustment, manufactured worse when the bike he’d acquired to experience all around campus was stolen.

“Still,” Asuega-Matavao explained, “he under no circumstances the moment complained.”

He brought a equivalent angle to soccer, and the work commenced to pay out off. He appeared in 3 video games throughout the 2020 season, then 7 in 2021. The development was palpable, but the distance was however weighing hefty when he returned to California immediately after that time. A visit from his sister, whom he hadn’t seen in numerous many years, further solidified all those emotions.

Taleni contracted COVID-19 just before he was scheduled to fly to Texas for Kansas State’s bowl game, and in the moment it felt like a signal. He selected to enter the NCAA transfer portal, location his sights on a vacation spot nearer to California.

Nevertheless there had been no assures in the portal. His encounter was minimal, his manufacturing confined. He’d notched just five tackles and two sacks over two seasons. The portal was crammed with likewise unproven potential customers looking for a new property.

“I understood there was a opportunity of not receiving picked up,” Taleni claimed.

“It was an additional huge leap of faith,” Afutiti added.

But once again, his religion would be rewarded.

USC defensive lineman Tyrone Taleni requires component in a apply session on March 22, 2022.

(USC Athletics)

The connect with arrived pretty much immediately.

Not several could understand Taleni’s journey very like Shaun Nua, USC’s new defensive line coach. He’d left American Samoa to stay with relatives in Arizona, where by his college job began at a junior faculty. He grew into an all-conference player at Brigham Youthful and a Super Bowl winner with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and as an assistant school coach in the several years right after, Nua became a staple of the Samoan soccer neighborhood. So a lot so that Taleni’s relatives knew just who he was on listening to he arrived at out.

Nua and the relaxation of USC’s employees would go over and beyond to make Taleni truly feel at home, his household explained. When he visited the campus, USC laid out a smorgasbord of acquainted food items — piles of rice with teriyaki beef and chicken, kalbi beef along with creamy macaroni salad.

Sitting down down with Riley, the mentor recalled Taleni’s general performance as a reserve defensive lineman in a activity towards Oklahoma two many years before.

“Let’s be on the identical aspect now,” Riley instructed him.

His spouse and children warned Taleni not to make the mentor hold out. So they established up a simply call for Nua to talk with Taleni and his moms and dads around Facebook Messenger. Chickens from the relatives farm squawked in the background as Nua spoke to Taleni’s mother and father in their native language.

“Having anyone who is aware of my mom tongue, who knows where I arrived from, having him discuss to my loved ones, it was a extremely unique minute, a single I’ll always keep in mind my whole life,” Taleni reported.

Nua experienced no plan Taleni planned to commit in the course of the call. For Taleni, it was a fantastic possibility to lastly carry his dad and mom into his budding football vocation.

They’ve nonetheless never noticed him engage in the sport he picked up practically four decades before. Pandemic journey limitations have remained in place for the island, building touring to and from Samoa at any level above the earlier two many years extremely hard.

“It’s my aspiration to provide them out listed here,” Taleni reported.

He and his loved ones have faith it will not be lengthy prior to that working day comes. And faith has definitely served Taleni effectively.

“That’s the working day all of us are waiting for,” Asuega-Matavao reported. “The borders will open, and we’re heading to toss the most significant occasion USC has at any time witnessed.”