Big boys to Big Men

The first day Wesley Nagaseu stepped on the Waipahu High School campus, word began to spread.

"Who’s that big guy? Is he a new teacher?"

Bryson Carvalho, an education aide and assistant football coach, wasn’t surprised. He’d seen Nagaseu, already over 6 feet tall and 215 pounds as a freshman, on the field. In the bleachers. The weight room. Grinding away, toiling under that smothering, merciless Waipahu sun in the spring, the summer. He hadn’t played a down of football for the Marauders yet, and he was giving everything he had.

"When he was in eighth grade, I saw him playing football for one of the Big Boys teams," recalled Carvalho, who coached a rival team featuring future star running back Victor Moananu. "He laid him (Moananu) out. I asked, ‘Where does he go to school?’ "

Nagaseu was at Waipahu Intermediate then. Arriving at Waipahu High and learning the way of the Black Flag under then-head coach Sean Saturnio, he became another modest, dedicated Marauder. A leader.

His ascent was as swift and powerful as his play at linebacker and running back. Playing for a Division II program that reached the state final and lost to ‘Iolani a year ago, he drew enough attention to earn Star-Advertiser All-State third-team honors from coaches and media.

This fall, the 6-foot, 250-pound senior has taken his game to another level, a relentless force of nature at middle linebacker who’s rated fourth at his position statewide by this publication’s high school sports blog, hawaiiprepworld.com. When your football idol is Ray Lewis, there’s only one way to play the game: full throttle. Nagaseu just does it a bit more quietly.

"He’s a very quiet person. Emotionally, you hardly see him out of his shell," head coach Eric Keola said. "Once in a while, on the field, he’s a leader, but off the field, he’s quiet."

Jonathan Nagaseu is a 5-10, 191-pound linebacker, and he gets his edge now and then on big brother Wes. His favorite NFL team, the San Francisco 49ers, is off to a great start, but their lone defeat has been to Minnesota, Wesley’s favorite team.

Besides church and family — they have three younger brothers, diapers to change, food to cook — football is the constant. It’s one of the pillars that keep the brothers tight, tighter than ever since Filemoni Nagaseu, 40, died in his sleep in April.

A father of five, he doted on his children. The driver to every practice. The encourager. The disciplinarian. The singer. He had been a 6-2 athlete at Nanakuli, often academically ineligible, Wesley said. But Filemoni pushed his own children to strive. The oldest two sons kept their hair long and fierce, like their dad, but recently, Filemoni had sheared it all off. That made Fofoga, their mother, quite happy.

"We were planning a big party for his birthday in May," Wesley said.

But when he died that April evening, life turned upside down. Wesley had already left home and was at the Punahou Relays with the track team. Then came a phone call, and immediately, he was on the way back to Waipahu in a coach’s car.

"He told me before, when I’m gone, you’ll have to be the man of the house," he remembered. "He knew he was going to be gone soon."

Jonathan was home that morning, and when their mother called him into the bedroom, everything went into slow motion.

"I felt him. He was just cold," he said, recalling that his father wasn’t feeling well earlier. "The night before, he’d been heating up."

Jonathan’s plans for that day had been simple. He had a Big Boys football game to play. But he didn’t know what to do.

"I called Coach Bryson," he said, before deciding to play in the game. "It was like everything slowed down. I got hit on one play and I didn’t even remember how I got on the ground."

But he finished the game — the first time he put on the helmet and pads and dad wasn’t there.

Filemoni had been on painkillers for about five years going back to a work-related accident that left his back broken. Some days were tolerable; other days were brutal.

"His dream was to see us play football. He wanted to see me make it to the next level," said Wesley, who has a 2.9 grade-point average and is close to becoming an NCAA Clearinghouse qualifier. He just took the SAT again on Saturday.

But the dream remains. The love for the game is stronger than ever. Filemoni Nagaseu was buried in a cemetery in Pearl City, resting in a coffin of silver and blue — a salute to his favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys. In fact, the third child, a freshman at Waipahu, is named Dallas.

Wesley wears a custom, navy blue dog tag. On one side is his father’s name, and on the other, the Cowboys star.

Thinking back to April, Jonathan and Wesley are still, clearly, in shock. They knew their dad was sick. His weight loss and struggle were constant. But their family and friends rallied around Fofoga and her ohana. The Black Flag family rallied, too, and the brothers worked out harder than ever.

It became a mission, even if 20, 30 or 40 of their peers refused to do the offseason work. Come August, they would regret not paying in sweat. No sweat in the summer, no spot on the roster.

"Some of them grumble. They say, they had family stuff to do," Wesley said. "But everybody has family stuff."

It’s impossible to get Wesley, who has scholarship offers from New Mexico State and St. Francis (Pa.), to utter a single word that would make bulletin board material. He says he’s looking forward to the playoff game at Moanalua on Friday. Mention Waipahu’s 2-6 overall record, the many narrow losses, and he’s just glad the Black Flag gets a taste of the postseason, especially with the Marauders in Division I (OIA Red).

"We just want to ride to the ship," Nagaseu said.

The ship?

"The championship."