SEATTLE — It was a moment Taniela Tupou will neither forget nor ever quite understand.
Early in 2013, Tupou and some University of Washington teammates were summoned to an assistant coach’s office, there to receive some disheartening news. The staff, under then-head coach Steve Sarkisian, had determined those players were unlikely to see significant action in the future. Therefore, they should consider transferring to another college football program.
Put another way, please leave.
Though the message came from an assistant, Tupou had no doubt that it was “from the top.” That is, Sarkisian.
For someone who grew up loving football and was a highly recruited college prospect, the news was both shocking and hurtful. For a time, Tupou said, “I was in a rut. I didn’t want to (transfer). This was my home. … It was a real humbling experience. You go from being at the top to going all the way down to the bottom.”
But with the guidance and support of Kawai and Mosese Tupou, his mother and father, he determined not only to stay, but to embrace a demotion to the scout team.
“The best thing I could do was just to have a positive attitude,” said Tupou, a defensive lineman who grew up in Marysville and was a 2011 graduate from Everett’s Archbishop Murphy High School. “My mindset from then on was that I was going to give it my all. They weren’t taking my scholarship away, so I was going to come out and work (hard), go to class, and make sure I dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s so they’d have no reason to kick me off the team.”
More importantly, he also vowed “to get a degree from the University of Washington, no matter what. So even if I didn’t play, I’d still walk out of here a winner.”
But then a funny thing happened. After the 2013 season — one in which Tupou played sparingly, and mostly in mop-up action — Sarkisian and his staff left for USC. Soon after, Chris Petersen was hired as Washington’s new head coach. And the change in regimes meant a clean slate for Tupou, who was given the chance to compete anew for a primary role.
Two years later, he has seized that opportunity. Tupou, a 6-foot-2, 288-pound fifth-year senior, is a defensive starter for the Huskies and a guy “who kind of sets the tone for our group (of defensive linemen),” said UW defensive line coach Jeff Choate. “He’s just a great leader. He had to kind of wait his turn and that can sometimes be a hard thing to do. … But it speaks a lot for the commitment he’s made to our program.”
Having arrived with Petersen in December of 2013, “I certainly can’t speak for (decisions made by) the previous staff,” Choate said. “All I can speak to is what he’s meant to us. And he’s everything of what this program is about. … Whatever happened in the past, he wasn’t going to let it define him or affect him. He’s moved on and tried to do his best, and I’ve just really been impressed with him.”
Tupou — his friends and coaches call him Tani — can only smile and shake his head as he reflects on a UW journey that has been, in his words, “a winding road the whole time.” But for all the disappointment, frustration and at times even tears, he insists he is not bitter about the experience.
“I’m happy,” he said after a recent practice. “I’m excited and truly grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given. … I love my teammates, I love my coaches, and I’m just blessed to be here.”
Washington’s next game will offer Tupou a chance for payback of sorts. The Huskies travel to Los Angeles to face the Sarkisian-led Trojans. And although Tupou is not the kind of person to bear a grudge, he also admits that he would very much like to play well.
“It’ll be really fun,” he said. “Even though things ended up the way they did with those coaches, I’m still very blessed and thankful that they even offered me a scholarship here. If it wasn’t for Coach Sark offering me, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Tupou will graduate in the coming months with a degree in Comparative History of Ideas, a program that allows him to explore his Polynesian roots. He hopes to play in the NFL, but beyond that “my career plans are definitely still evolving.” He would love to be a college strength and conditioning coach, but has also considered police work.
But in the meantime he is focused on finishing a senior season that is already more than he could have imagined a few years ago.
“I look back on my journey here and it’s been crazy,” Tupou said. “But one thing I’ve learned about college football, and it’s something I’ve tried to preach to the young guys here, is that everything takes time. It’s a process. You just have to be patient and wait for your opportunity to come.
“And then once your opportunity comes,” he said, “you have to seize that moment.”
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