Makana Garrigan and Sam Atoe stood there at midfield Saturday, facing the stands at Cathedral High School in Los Angeles with 59 other Pacific Islanders, all of them in a single line, in football uniform, the game just moments away, when they began the Haka. In unison, they stomped their feet, vigorously crossed and uncrossed their arms, chanted, stuck out their tongues in an exaggerated style, opened their eyes wide. As pregame shows go, it doesn't get any more distinctive or personal. Think of the baritone voice of James Earl Jones propelled with great vigor through a megaphone.
"There was so much energy," said Garrigan, a wide receiver/safety from Casa Grande. Now, days later, Garrigan admitted, he still gets goose bumps just from the re-telling of it. The Haka is a posture dance, its origins from the Maori of New Zealand. It can be used as a welcoming gesture or as a ceremonial rite. Most commonly, it is displayed before a football game by Polynesians.
"To intimidate our opponents," said Atoe, the running back/linebacker from Maria Carrillo.
This time, however, it was done not to intimidate but to celebrate a culture. This was the First Annual Polynesian All-American Classic football game, a collection of the best senior high school talent in America with Pacific Island heritage. And it was quite a collection, 61 players from nine states. At least 23 of them have verbally committed to Division I NCAA universities. Atoe was one of them, having verbally committed to San Diego State on Sunday before last. Garrigan has been offered a full ride to both Fresno State and UC San Diego, is being pursued heavily by others, and will wait just before National Letter-of-Intent Day on Feb. 2 to make a decision.
It's a wise decision, considering what happened on the fifth play of Saturday's game.
Atoe took a pitch from the quarterback and took off to the right as if to run. Garrigan, at wide receiver, blocked his cornerback for three seconds and then released downfield on a streak. Atoe's pass found him perfectly.
"I felt someone behind me and so I changed direction," Garrigan said. "A bit later I felt someone else behind me and changed direction again."
Garrigan made it 50 yards before being tackled. He caught five passes for 75 yards. You would think that 50-yarder would be the game's highlight for him. It wasn't. It was being with his brothers, 60 of them, 61 kids with that same island DNA in them, 61 kids that really needed no introduction, an island culture, small in numbers, strong in shared identity.
"It was like I had known everyone for at least five years," Garrigan said.
"It all happened so fast," Atoe said of his five days in L.A. "I wasn't ready to go home."
How could Atoe? At halftime, Hawaiian reggae star J Boog was singing on the sideline. Within seconds a dozen players from the Black and White team gathered at midfield, formed a circle and began dancing. Atoe was one of them.
"It was so cool," Atoe said.
It was so cool when 49ers guard Mike Iupati met with the players on Thursday, the player with Samoan heritage who told them to go to college, get an education and be proud of who they are, be proud of their origins, be aware of who they represent.
Like Iupati had to say anything at all. The pride of an Islander who plays football is like the eternal flame, it never goes out. Probably because it never can. Not after everything that's happened. Not after the reputation they have earned in both college and pro football. Pacific Islanders make up just 0.3 percent of the American population. Yet 63 of them are playing in the NFL and at least 200 of them are on NCAA D-I rosters. ESPN statisticians calculate that a kid growing up in American Samoa is 40 times more likely to play in the NFL than a kid growing up on the mainland.
"When I talk to college scouts," said Casa Grande football Trent Herzog, "it'll come up in conversation: &‘I got a player who has the blood.' The college guy will just nod, smile and ask me for some tape. Everyone in college football knows what &‘they got the blood' means. It means a player who is respectful, honest, tough, with the heart of a warrior, who will do anything for you."
Sounds like the perfect definition of a football player, when phrased like that.
"Yep," Herzog said.
To get a sense of that engine that drives a Pacific Islander in football, a simple image can bring it into quick clarity.
"When I step on the field," Atoe said, "I feel it."
The surge. The electricity. The hot wire. The feeling of being plugged in, of belonging nowhere else. The feeling of home, actually.
"It's indescribable, really," Garrigan said. "It's like something inside me just clicks on."
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