This One’S For Daddy As First Start Looms At Stanford, WSU’S Tuupo Comes Of Age

Monty Tuupo, this is the story of your son, Tupo.

Tonight, he sits in a hotel room just up the San Francisco Bay from you.

Tomorrow, he will play football on a field not 5 miles from your house. He will be at Stanford, the university after which you named your first born, his older brother.

It will be his first game as a Division I middle linebacker. His first time to hit and be hit. His first time to tackle. His first time to battle with his Washington State teammates.

But tonight, your son worries: My shoulder blade, the one that broke four months ago and shattered my dream of being a starter, will it hold? Am I ready for my first college game? Am I good enough? Am I prepared?

But then his thoughts drift to you. He thinks of how you made it and he will, too.

You see, he is more like you than either of you want to admit.

He, too, is stubborn and strong. And he, too, carries the Bible in one hand, a belt in the other and deep family pride in his heart.

Yes, during those 20-minute meetings you insisted on having every night, his eyes may have wandered and his body may have shrugged. Sure, he was obstinate. The “black sheep” is what your other son called him.

But weren’t you, too, in your youth?

And the thing is, he did listen to you. He listened well.

“Work hard.” That’s what you always told him. “Work hard and you will be rewarded.”

Your son has worked hard, Mr. Tuupo. Oh, how he has worked hard.

But first he had to get past the tears.

You have to understand he felt he failed you that day he got hurt.

It was a freak thing, really. The running back went one way. The offensive lineman went another. Your son was stuck in the middle. Right where he was supposed to be.

That’s when he heard that pop.

You know what that sounds like. Kind of like your knees before those two operations.

“At that moment, I thought it was all over,” Tupo said. “This was it. The end of my career.”

He was scared to call you.

“As I was dialing the numbers, I just kept think about what he was going to say; ‘How the hell could you do this? What were you thinking?”’

Your son knew how much this all meant to you: The scholarship, the education, the chance to play football.

He didn’t want to disappoint you.

He still remembers the last time he did. You probably do, too. Eight years ago? Father’s Day?

“Everybody was having dinner at the Sizzler because it was Father’s Day and I was at this little store in the mall and I saw these baseball cards,” Tupo said. “I didn’t have the money, so I just put them in my pocket.

“When I walked out of the store, this man pulled me over and said he was going to call the cops. I was so scared, I didn’t want to tell him that my father was having dinner just over there, so I tried to call his bluff. It didn’t work.”

Now, do you remember? How the man came and got you and told what your son had done?

And you played it just right.

“My father, he didn’t say a word. And that was the worst. I knew how disappointed he was in me.”

God, he’d seen you sacrifice so much for him over the years, so he wasn’t going to disappoint you this time.

You’d left American Samoa, your family, your business, your life, just so he could have a better life in the United States.

He’d listen and watch as you lost your years to 3 a.m. alarms and 12-hour days.

There were days when you were so sick he didn’t want you to go to work. There were days when nobody thought you could go.

“He used to crawl to the car he was so sick sometimes,” said Stanford. “He always said, ‘If I can get to the car, I can go to work.”’ Now, here was your son calling in sick.

Think of the fear he must of felt. The intimidation.

But you surprised him.

“Everybody gets hurt,” you said. “It’s part of the game.”

But you had to know your son wouldn’t accept that.

“No way,” said Stanford. “Tupo, he thought he was invincible.”

So he never let you know how much it hurt. He’d already redshirted last year as a freshman. Now he was missing this year too.

Yes, you talked to him every night, but you taught him so well about swallowing and dealing with pain that he never really let you know everything.

So he never talked about how he had to try and sleep sitting up because the pain in his shoulder was too great to lie down. Of course that never worked. A few minutes here and there were all he got for two weeks.

“Never more than four hours a night,” he said. “And that was never a straight four hours.”

He was alone, in pain and scared.

You’d always told him “Team. This family is a team. It is us against everybody else. We have to stick together.”

But he didn’t much feel like a part of your team. He was 800 miles away from you and the family. And his new team, the Cougars, they were marching on without him.

“He didn’t talk about it, but you could see it in his face how disappointed he was and how much he wanted to be playing football,” said WSU safety Torry Hollimon. “He got pretty low. It’s hard not to.”

Finally the shoulder began to heal. He told you how the doctors were wrong. He was going to be back this year. You knew he would. Of course he would. He’s your son.

He pushed it, just like you have so many years. An extra rep here, a little more stretching there. Just enough, so he would know he was making progress.

And then two weeks ago, he called.

He told you how the doctors had cleared him to play.

“I’m proud of you, Tupo,” you told him.

Now, on the eve of his first collegiate game, he thinks of you.

Because: “My father is the most inspiring man I’ve ever met.”