“This is a cruel and difficult profession,” then-University of Hawaii football coach Norm Chow felt moved to publicly and heartfully lament in 2013.

The words, coming as they did two weeks before Christmas, with Tony Tuioti, the young father of seven children, one of two assistant coaches let go in the wake of a 1-11 finish, only underlined the pain felt all around.

Which is why there were a lot of warm smiles and, no doubt, some celebratory fist pumps of shared joy the last couple of days around here when news circulated that Tuioti had been hired as a defensive line coach at Nebraska.

It was the latest and biggest rise up the coaching ladder for the 42-year-old Tuioti, another triumph over what had befallen him earlier. One that comes with the icing of a two-year contract and a nearly $100,000 annual raise.

At Big Red, where there is a lot of green to be spent on football at one of the highest levels of college competition, Tuioti will have an annual salary of $375,000, eclipsing even the substantial $276,500 salary he was listed at while at Cal the past two years. At Nebraska his base salary will be nearly as much as some Football Bowl Subdivision head coaches and more than many Championship Subdivision head coaches, according to USA Today’s annual listing. UH’s Nick Rolovich was listed at $425,004 for 2018.

Tuioti was an honorable mention All-WAC defensive lineman at UH in the late 1990s and where he earned two degrees. Over the space of eight years in a couple of stays under three head coaches in Manoa, Tuioti worked as a graduate assistant, recruiting coordinator, player personnel director and assistant coach.

Interspersed in there were coaching jobs at Kalaheo High here and Silverado High in Las Vegas as he added a second master’s degree in education and sought to carve out a career in coaching as he and his wife, former Rainbow Wahine volleyball player Keala Nihipali, grew their family.

They thought he would always be part of the UH family. “In my mind, I was going to stay at UH for a long time,” Tuioti said Wednesday. “I used to tell George Lumpkin (a veteran of 35 years at UH as a player and coach) I was going to be the next George Lumpkin.”

Instead, the day he was let go “I still remember quickly picking up my wife and gathering the kids from school before they could hear the news. We went out to Ted’s Bakery on the North Shore and sat down. I told them, ‘Dad is not going to be working at UH anymore.’ They couldn’t understand why.”

At that point, he said, “I had two choices: Go find a job in another line of work or stick it out.”

But coaching football was his passion, so Tuioti powered on, persevering, steadily climbing, always learning.

“I tell my players and my kids that life is peaks and valleys and you learn the most in the valleys,” Tuioti said.

Through some friends, he caught on with the Browns in 2014, spending two seasons in Cleveland.

And, then, there was a stint in player personnel at Michigan, where he was a popular addition. An Ann Arbor, Mich., sports bar and restaurant, the Brown Jug, even proclaimed a menu item in his honor.

But Tuioti wanted to get back on the field coaching and instructing his guys in the trenches, even if it meant a step down, so after a year he took a job at Fresno State. He barely had time to unpack and find Bulldog Lane before Cal Berkeley came calling.

When Tuioti came out of college it was tough for young players of Polynesian ancestry to get a foot in the door as coaches in major college football, much less make headway. But Tuioti is one who has persisted, paid his dues and, as the competition to recruit Polynesian players intensifies, is seen as reaping the rewards.

Now, it is back to the Big Ten, where he will have a hand in the challenge of rebuilding the Cornhuskers.

“I’ve been blessed to travel to some awesome places and meet some great people,” Tuioti said. “Working at Nebraska for coach (Scott) Frost was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. In hindsight I might not have gotten these opportunities if things didn’t (happen) at UH.”

When Chow let Tuioti and defensive coordinator Thom Kaumeyer go he said, “Thom and Tony are friends of mine and good coaches and good men who worked extremely hard these last two years. I thank them and wish them well as we all move forward.”

In Tuioti’s case, it has been forward and, definitely, upward.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.