Wai'anae grad grows into NFL prospect

By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer

Nine years after he first played football at Wai'anae High, Ben Unutoa has been transformed from a 6-foot-1, 160-pound long snapper into a 6-5, 280-pound NFL-prospect tight end.

Wai'anae's Ben Unutoa may have a shot at playing in the NFL.

When Unutoa turned out for football in 1993, his junior year at Wai'anae, he was a stringbean who had never worn pads before.

Assistant coach Leo Taaca taught him to snap the ball on punts and placekicks so he could get on the field.

"He was a really good kid and a great team player," Taaca said.

By the next year, Unutoa had grown to 6-3 and 205 pounds. He started at tight end and league coaches chose him as an O'ahu Interscholastic Association Red Conference all-star.

"We knew he had great potential," Taaca said. "He was a good basketball player, too."

Unutoa graduated cum laude (with honors) in 1995 ... and disappeared.

Although he was born and raised in Hawai'i, it seemed as if no one here knew what had become of him. "I heard he had gone to a JC," Taaca said, "but I never heard anything more about him."

Until three weeks ago, when Taaca, now the athletic director at Wai'anae, received a questionnaire from an NFL team asking about Unutoa.

He is now called "Big" Ben Unutoa and he is an All-Southern Conference tight end at Kentucky State.

"He's the one player on this year's team who has a legitimate shot at the NFL," Kentucky State coach Donald Smith said.

Unutoa has not lived in Hawai'i since he graduated from Wai'anae. He went to Foothill (junior) College near San Jose in 1995, but arrived too late for football camp so he just took classes. In 1996, he started at offensive left tackle.

"Offensive tackle just wasn't my position," Unutoa said. "I put football and school on the side and worked the next three years as a skycap at San Francisco International Airport."

In 1999, inspired by the achievements of his cousin — running back Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala of the Pittsburgh Steelers — "it finally came back to my mind that I could still play. I still had that feeling. I wanted to get to Chris' level."

He enrolled at City College of San Francisco and earned regional all-star honors at tight end on the Rams' national junior-college-rankings championship team in 1999.

Unutoa couldn't move on to a Division I program because the NCAA's five-year clock started when he enrolled at Foothill in 1995. Division II Kentucky State was the only school that offered him a full-ride, Unutoa said.

He had one more delay in his career. After making all-conference in 2000, Unutoa came up two units short of the 24 he needed that school year to play in 2001. "When we found out, we (the staff) cried together," coach Smith said. "We had built our whole program around him."

The news came two weeks before the season-opening game. "They came on the field and told me that I was ineligible," Unutoa said. "I thought I was straight. I was so upset I didn't even go to home games. I wanted to see myself on the field."

This year, Unutoa is ready, Smith said. "He's working like I've never seen him work before. ... He sees and understands what he needs to do." His eligibility is unquestioned (his GPA is above 2.5).

"His first love is tight end," Smith said, "and we're trying to get his 40 time down. But he blocks so well that the NFL can move him to tackle if they need to."

If professional football doesn't work out, Unutoa has an alternate plan. "I will get my degree (in physical education) and go back to Wai'anae and coach," he said.

Leo Taaca would like that.

EXTRA POINTS: Appropriate for the location, the nickname for Kentucky State men's teams is "Thorobreds." The women's teams are called "Thorobrettes." ... The surface of the Kentucky State football field is bluegrass.