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USC QB Jayden Maiava is an ‘inspiration for the people of Hawaii’

November 15, 2024

LOS ANGELES — On a dot of green in the middle of the North Pacific, 13-year-old Nehemiah Gavino-Veneri trains across the blooming fields of O’ahu, hoping one day for a shot on the mainland.

Since his son first threw a football at 3 years old, Mark Veneri said, all Nehemiah can talk about is becoming a quarterback. He is a product of this generation of Polynesian dreamers, same as USC’s Jayden Maiava. Young quarterbacks, suddenly, are blossoming in Hawaii, a region of islands once pigeonholed for line-of-scrimmage talent and galvanized by the stories of “Throwin’ Samoan” Jack Thompson and Tua Tagavailoa and Marcus Mariota.

When Nehemiah was 8, then-USC linebacker and O’ahu native Maninoa Tufono hosted the boy and his father in Southern California for a private tour of the Trojans’ facilities. He showed them around the practice field. He showed them around the locker room. It was a far-away fantasy, tucked amid rows of cardinal-and-gold uniforms.

Not five years later, Maiava was named USC’s starting quarterback. Mark told his son, in excitement, when he’d heard. This was a Polynesian kid. A kid who’d grown up in government housing in Palolo Valley in Honolulu.

“He’s just like, ‘That’s USC,’” Veneri remembered Nehemiah saying. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah. That’s it. That’s the goal.’”

The goal is a little more real now, because Nehemiah knows Maiava. He was the kid, back in group training sessions at Kailua District Park, who’d step to the front of the line in drills with local trainer Keli’i Tilton. He was the older mentor, then playing high school ball, who’d give 6-year-old Nehemiah pointers on his footwork. And word has spread across the coasts back home in O’ahu, as Maiava isn’t just set to start for USC but is set to play against another Polynesian quarterback in Dylan Raiola, the texts pinging across Tilton’s phone – “Coach, is that true? Jayden’s going to start?” – from young clients.

They all grew up idolizing Mariota, the Heisman Trophy winner whose No. 8 Oregon jersey hangs from Nehemiah’s bedroom wall in the town of Aiea. They grew up idolizing Tagovailoa, who first exploded onto the scene at Saint Louis School in Honolulu. Maiava was one of them, once. Now he’s the model, the first Polynesian starting quarterback in USC history, for a group of kids who have rarely seen their identities represented behind center.

“I think it inspires a lot of Polynesian kids to play QB,” USC safety Akili Arnold said, also of Polynesian descent, “and not shy away from being that guy.”

Maiava played on the same fields. He threw, for many, with the same coach. He grew from the same soil.

So the dreamers of O’ahu will follow Maiava.

“Jayden is a source of inspiration,” Veneri said, “for the people of Hawaii.”

In Tua’s footsteps

These days, as the 6-foot-4 Maiava prepares for his long-awaited shot in the limelight, his USC receivers gush over his physical tools. A playmaker, sophomore Duce Robinson called him. He’s “got an arm,” senior Kyle Ford said.

But the UNLV transfer, like so many Polynesian kids before him, didn’t start out a quarterback. Maiava started as a linebacker in flag and middle-school ball in O’ahu, before his father and uncle pushed him to try quarterback. He played some receiver, too, and was “unbelievable,” said Tagavailoa’s father Galu, who coached a young Maiava with his youth program Ewa Beach Sabers.

“At first, I didn’t even want to play the position,” Maiava reflected Tuesday, “because I was just – I didn’t think I had what it took to play the position, obviously.”

That simply hasn’t been the standard, for decades. Polynesians have become well represented in the NFL, but have long been known as linemen, as Polynesian Pro Football Hall of Fame founder Jesse Sapolu said.

“When I was playing, you play quarterback – people look at you like you’re crazy,” said Sapolu, who was a longtime offensive lineman with the San Francisco 49ers.

Even Tagavailoa didn’t start out as a quarterback. Galu hoped his son could emulate the late Junior Seau, the hard-hitting linebacker for USC and the San Diego Chargers. It was only until Tagavailoa’s third-grade year of flag football, when his team’s quarterback got hurt, that Galu began training his son as a quarterback out of necessity. And Tagavailoa’s rapid ascent quickly helped start the “birth of a lot of kids wanting to play quarterback here in Hawaii,” as Tilton recalled, premier 7-on-7 tournaments and a wealth of quarterback trainers quickly expanding to the islands.

Maiava was influenced, too, by Tagavailoa’s journey, even catching passes from him when the former Alabama standout would return home for some throwing sessions with the Sabers. Nebraska’s Railoa looked up to him, too, a former 5-star recruit who spent his youth flying back and forth between the mainland and school in O’ahu.

In 2020, Railoa’s father Dominic, a former center for the NFL’s Detroit Lions, was inducted into the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame. At the ceremony, they ran into Galu Tagavailoa.

“I’m gonna play quarterback,” Galu remembered a young Raiola telling him. “I want to be like Tua some day, and play in the national championship.”

Galu looked at the precocious youngster, now a highly touted freshman with the Cornhuskers.

“You can,” Galu told him.

Maiava and Railoa have followed in Tagavailoa’s footsteps. And both – Maiava calling it a “privilege” Tuesday to be the first Polynesian quarterback for USC – are well aware of Saturday’s significance to their community.

“Now you get to look across,” Railoa’s father Dominic told the Southern California News Group, “and the other quarterback is from the same speck on the map as you.”

‘Stepping stone for our community’

On Saturday, the watch parties will span oceans and paved roads, several island communities gathering for watch parties.

There’ll be a group of about 10 people in Kailua-Kona, tucked on the west coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i, one resident told the Southern California News Group. There’ll be a group of about 15-20 in Pearl City, O’ahu, too. And 10 to 15 more in Tagavailoa’s hometown of Ewa Beach.

“To me, it’s a stepping stone for our community to see this,” former 49er Sapolu said.

“We’re only going to get to this point more often,” he continued. “And I’m proud of Jayden and Raiola for pushing through, and making this possible for us.”

Hawaii, ultimately, is small, trainer Tilton affirmed. Everybody knows everybody. And everybody knows Maiava, the kid who grew up one of eight siblings in Palolo Valley, where Galu Tagavailoa once grew up with Maiava’s father. It was hard to survive, a rough stretch of housing projects where gangs were rampant, Galu reflected.

But Galu made it, and his son made it, too, from Ewa Beach. Maiava made it, from O’ahu to Vegas and back again and back again, all the way to USC. That meant something, Tilton reflected, to the kids who’d trained with him on the island and seen Maiava’s journey firsthand.

“It’s very inspirational,” 13-year-old Nehemiah said, “to push me, to be on the same level.”

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Veneri and Nehemiah live in a two-bedroom townhome in Aiea, a small town just down the road from Pearl City on O’ahu. They live comfortably. But opportunity in Hawaii doesn’t come often, as Veneri said. And Nehemiah’s dream lies across the ocean, back on the same USC turf he visited when he was 8 years old.

“Even though we’re on a tiny rock,” Veneri reflected, “the dreams and aspirations of athletes are out there to get.”

So Veneri has told his son the story of Tua Tagavailoa, the kid from Ewa Beach. He’s told his son the story of Mariota, the kid from Honolulu.

And he can tell him, now, the story of Maiava, the kid from Palolo Valley making history at USC.

Orange County Register

News Details

USC QB Jayden Maiava is an ‘inspiration for the people of Hawaii’

In Tua’s footsteps

‘Stepping stone for our community’

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