Why BYU’s Kalani Sitake went home — for the first time since birth
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Plenty of college football coaches long have used the sport’s summer recruiting dead period, from late June throughout July, for vacation; BYU’s Kalani Sitake seized an opportunity to go back in time.
A native of the Polynesian islands of Tonga, the 50-year-old Sitake had not visited his homeland since his family first moved from the island chain to Hawaii.
“Born, not since I was born,” Sitake told USA TODAY Sports at Big 12 Media Days. “We left a few months after my birth to Hawaii.
“I haven't been back there since I was a baby.”
Sitake, who during his playing career at BYU served a Latter Day Saints mission in inner-city Oakland, also turned his homecoming into a journey of giving back.
A group of 50 representatives of BYU, including assistant football coaches Fesi Sitake and Sione Po’uha, made the almost-20 hour, four-leg journey from Provo, Utah, to Tonga, for a week. The group flew from Provo to Dallas to Fiji, a 13.5-hour flight, and then on to Tonga’s Fua’amotu International Airport.
The BYU contingent helped with the grand opening for the We Are One Tonga Center to help position Tongan residents for remote-technological work, specifically data entry; the islands have approximately 100,000 residents.
“We went out for the whole purpose of doing some service work and connecting with my roots, basically seeing where my dad's from and my mom and everybody,” Sitake said. “That was the main purpose.
“But, we took some players and had a group of about 50 of us there. We opened up an employment center and did some really cool things. We tried to promote education on the islands and do service work. It was great. I'm going to go back again, every year I'll be back there.”
Sitake said the Cougars players — Joe Brown, Raider Damuni, Lucky Finau, Maika Kaufusi, Sione Moa, Viliami Po’uha, Payton VanSteenkiste as well as football relations director Jack Damuni — also helped conduct youth sports camps with the Tongan community.
Though most of his family has since relocated to the United States, Sitake did reconnect with some relatives. Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, whose Fighting Irish visit Sitake’s Cougars on Oct. 17, also logged time earlier this year in Korea; the Korean-American Freeman’s mother, Chong, is from South Korea.
“It was cool; a lot of different things, all positive things,” Sitake said of the cultural and emotional impact. “It was all positive things. It was… it was a really cool moment.
“We’re just trying to help take some remote jobs, data entry, stuff like that to try to increase the economy there in the islands. Not a bad week of vacation.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why BYU’s Kalani Sitake went home — for the first time since birth
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