Te’o toughed out troubles

Three years ago, everything seemed fine when Brian Te’o would speak on the phone with his son, who had just left for college. "But then I got two calls. (Notre Dame quarterback) Jimmy Clausen’s dad called me and we had a long talk. Then a call from a coach, and we had a long talk."

Manti Te’o would put on a happy voice for his dad. But things weren’t going so well for the Fighting Irish freshman linebacker. He hardly got reps. When he did, they quickly became fodder for film-room examples of how to do things incorrectly.

"After two practices I waited until everyone left the field and sat and cried on the bleachers. ‘What am I doing here? I want to go home,’ " Te’o told the Downtown Athletic Club of Honolulu on Tuesday. "I was no longer that big fish in the small pond."

Now he’s big enough to share his story of wanting — if ever so briefly — to give up. He knows it might inspire at least one person in despair to keep trying and fight through like he did, and that’s what it’s all about.

Te’o soon adjusted to college football and Notre Dame. If he needed reinforcement, he soon got it from Brian, who told him, "This ain’t Punahou and that ain’t the ILH, so you better get beyond that."

If Manti needed more inspiration at any time through the past three seasons, all he had to do was look at his teammate … the one who also happens to be his best friend from the time they were 5 in Laie, Robby Toma.

From the time he started playing football, Toma was told he was too small. When he went to Notre Dame after his offer from UCLA was pulled, a lot of people assumed it was part of a package deal with Te’o, the player some considered the most prized recruit in the country.

After that day on the bleachers, Te’o has spent the past three years proving the experts right, starting every season and attaining second-team Associated Press All-America status last fall. Meanwhile, Toma has proved them wrong. He’s more than displayed his own worth, working his way into the Fighting Irish starting lineup, catching passes and returning kicks.

Toma also spoke to the packed room at the Hukilau restaurant. "Who’d have thought 10 years ago two kids from a small town in Hawaii would be going into their senior year at Notre Dame (as starters on the football team)?"

But wait, there’s more …

Kona Schwenke, a junior from Hauula who starred at Kahuku, enters the fall slated to start at defensive end.

Three starters in South Bend from the North Shore? If they were at USC, Oregon or BYU it wouldn’t be a shocker, since every college coach west of the Mississippi already knew very well how fertile all the grounds around Kahuku are for football talent.

But it took the decision Te’o made as a Punahou senior to pave the way so far east for other local players. "I almost went to USC," he said. "I grew up a USC fan. If signing day were a day earlier, you’d be listening to a Trojan."

That’s what most people thought he’d do on signing day in 2009, choose USC.

And that’s why only those who don’t know him or haven’t followed his career were surprised when he said he’d return to Notre Dame for his senior season rather than go pro. Or that he admitted to crying and spoke about writing poems to a packed room that included many strangers.

With Manti Te’o, we’ve come to expect the unexpected.

And it’s always refreshing and rewarding.