Chasing Heisman

Manti Te’o’s road to New York City as a finalist at the Heisman Trophy presentation Saturday didn’t really begin on a road at all.

It was equal parts gravel, dirt driveway and well-worn grass in a Laie front yard.

There, under the painstaking tutelage of his father, Brian, Te’o put in the long, arduous workout hours from age 9 that helped make him Hawaii’s first born and bred Heisman invitee Monday.

The Notre Dame linebacker will join quarterbacks Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M and Collin Klein of Kansas State in the 78th Heisman Trophy competition. Te’o would be the first purely defensive player to win the award.

Word came while Te’o was in Charlotte, N.C., on Monday to receive the Bronco Nagurski Trophy as the top defensive player and shortly after he was announced as winner of the Butkus Award, which goes to the top linebacker. They are two of the eight major awards for which he is a finalist after helping lead the Fighting Irish to a 12-0 record and No. 1 spot in the polls.

"Every day I pass my driveway, I think about those days we’d work out," Brian Te’o said. "I think about the amount of work and sacrifice he put in to be where he’s at now. And it was a tough, tough road for him."

When his friends sauntered off to the beach, Te’o did drills. While they played video games, he sweated with wind sprints, sit-ups and agility drills, often after regular football practice.

"I can imagine, for young kids, watching your friends go off and have fun while you are lifting (weights) or doing isometric exercises can be hard," his father said. "But he did it."

Said the son, "If you want to do something, why not work to be the best?"

Back then there was little thought of a Heisman — only "as a fictional character" on video games, he said.

At that point "our goal was just to get him a Division I college scholarship and, possibly, play for UH," Brian Te’o said.

TE’O cast a dominating shadow over prep football his senior year (2008) in leading Punahou School to its first state championship. A must-see-to-be-believed combination of size (6 feet 2 inches, 230 pounds), speed, power and instinct, he managed 129 tackles, 11 sacks, three forced fumbles and three interceptions.

The only question was how he would measure up with the best nationwide.

"We played a Seattle team (in preseason) that was pretty good but not at the top," Punahou coach Kale Ane said. "So when he was picked for the Under Armour All-America Game in Florida, it was a chance to really compare."

After two days of practice in Orlando, Fla., Ane said they had their answer.

It wasn’t only what their eyes told them, but what USC-bound quarterback Matt Barkley said. "They (the media) interviewed Barkley and asked him who the most impressive defensive player was, and before they even finished asking the question, Barkley said, "Manti."

The most remarkable thing, however, was how Te’o related on a personal level. "Everybody wanted to be around him, to hang out with him," Ane said. "After two days he had the kids up there doing the haka."

It was a glimpse of what would follow at storied Notre Dame, where he became a student body favorite as a freshman for his humility and warmth as much as his clavicle-rattling tackles.

"It takes time to move from not being part of the national championship discussion for over 20 years to be right at the point of being able to be a national champion," Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly told reporters Monday. "You need somebody that can galvanize the team and somebody to get them to believe that they can do it. (Manti’s) actions, the way he played and the way he led did incredible things for our football program."

For all that Te’o has done in returning the Fighting Irish, who were not in The Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll, to relevance, he is also expected to have an impact back home.

Only two Hawaii-born players — Saint Louis School graduates Herman Wedemeyer and Jason Gesser — have been Heisman contenders. Wedemeyer, a running back for St. Mary’s (Calif.), was fourth in the 1945 balloting and sixth in 1946. Gesser, who quarterbacked Washington State to the Rose Bowl, finished seventh in 2002.

UH’s Colt Brennan was sixth in 2006 and third in 2007.

Not until 1981 did the Heisman Trophy administrators begin inviting the leading candidates to New York as finalists.

"Yes, getting there is an honor; it’s a testament to hard work and dedication, but at the end of the day, it is about showing kids from Hawaii that if you put your mind to it and work hard enough, anything is possible," said all-star outfielder Shane Victorino of Maui. "And not just in sports."