There's an overlooked member in every group.

Think of Al Davis of the University of Hawai'i's "Fabulous Five" basketball team, José Carreras of "The Three Tenors," and Vermont.

Of all of the UH football team's offensive linemen, senior left tackle Tala Esera receives the most do-I-know-you stares.

"It doesn't bother me," said Esera, who played Jason Williams to defensive lineman Jonathan Mapu's Dwyane Wade at Kahuku High School, and has since been overshadowed by more recognizable offensive linemen at UH.

"When he was at Kahuku, he was on the same defensive line as Mapu," UH coach June Jones recalled. "Mapu was getting all of the attention. But when we looked at Mapu's films, we noticed Tala. We knew Tala was a player."

Jones and Mike Cavanaugh, who coached the UH offensive line at the time, believed Esera was miscast as a defensive lineman.

"Cav and I both thought he could be a player on the offensive line," Jones said. "We weren't going to switch him (from the defensive line) right away. We want our players to make their own choices. But we were in a bind (in 2003), and we switched him (as a second-year freshman), and it worked out."

Esera has developed into the Warriors' most durable offensive lineman. After redshirting in 2002 — he made all of the road trips that year — Esera has started 33 of the past 34 games at left tackle.

"It goes back to his toughness," Jones said. "Everybody has to play through ow-ies. He knows that. He's gone through (injuries to his) wrists, shoulders, elbows. He keeps on ticking."

Last year, Esera was named to the All-Western Athletic Conference second team. After this season, Esera should draw interest from the National Football League. Left tackles usually place high on a pro team's wish list.

"It depends on how well he plays this season," Jones said of Esera's draft status. "He has to have a good year. If he does, good things will happen."

Esera, who is married and has two daughters, trains every day at UH. He took a break to answer questions from The Advertiser.

On his hairstyle:

"I'm just changing it up. I'm going with a different style because lots of guys grow it out. I thought I might as well dread it up before I cut it. Not too many Samoan guys with dreads. I try to be different. I've been trying to dread it since the beginning of last season. It's almost been a year."

On the Warriors being featured in the NCAA Football '07 video game:

"It's pretty fun, (although) it never looks like us. They always make (Polynesians) look white. They'd better get my dreads right, too."

On his new tattoos, which cover both feet and ankles:

"It's an individual style. I pretty much designed (most of) it myself. The rest was designed by Jack from Big Fat Tats. It's different designs. It's mainly Samoan designs, but it has some Maori and Tongan designs in it. That represents my daughters. I've got two daughters. My daughters are Tongan, Samoan, Maori and Caucasian.

"The (right) leg was 10 hours of tattooing. This (left) leg was eight hours of tattooing. We used a needle.

"This one on my (left) arm was done the old-fashioned way (by tapping a dye-tipped stone onto the skin). I got this in Samoa when I was 10 years old, traditional style, tapped on. That was pretty sore. It was a long time ago, so I forgot. (The band design) sort of grew with my body. It's a thin design now. When I got it, it was proportionate."

On his wife:

"She's half Tongan, half Maori, and she's all beautiful. She's my high school sweetheart. I (first) saw her walking around (Kahuku High) School.

"I never really proposed. She said, 'You know what? We're going to get married.' I said, 'OK.' "

On his daughters, 3-year-old Talia, and 4-month-old Maia:

"My wife just liked those names. They're Polynesian-ish. I was there (in the delivery room) for both of them. For Talia, my first one, it was kind of stressful. She was born three months premature. She was only two pounds something. She's good now. She grew healthy, and she's real strong now, and she's a brat. She was only in the hospital for about a month. Now she's taller than the rest of the kids in her age group.

"For Maia, (my wife) went into labor one month early. It was better (than the first birth), but it was still early.

"I cannot go a whole day without seeing my daughters. I've got to see them, or else I really miss them."

On managing football, school and family:

"It's hard, man. Money is kind of thin. But we make it."

On moving back to the North Shore:

"I lived in town — me and my family. But I hated living in town — dealing with parking, and driving, and traffic, and noise. We lived in Waikiki, Century Center. We stayed in an apartment. It was a nice place. It was me, my wife and the first daughter. When we were going to have our second child, that's when we wanted to move. We didn't like it. And the kid got bored a lot. We lived down the road from all of the strip clubs. We moved away from that.

"I was born and raised in Hau'ula. Hau'ula is good. It's slower, much more relaxed. It was nice going back. We've lived in La'ie this past year, right next door to my wife's father's house. Living in La'ie is much better. Living in the country is way nicer."

On his Mormon faith:

"That's been a big thing lately. I'm converted. I was only baptized, like, two years ago. It's because of my family. My wife was raised in the church. When we started our family, I felt stronger about raising my children in the church. That was mainly why I wanted to join the church. It wasn't one instance (that increased my faith). Slowly my testimony grew."

On playing football at Kahuku:

"I played football since my freshman year in high school. I never played before. You can ask anybody who played football (with me) my freshman year, for Kahuku junior varsity, I was horrible. Oh, yeah. I would get stingers all of the time. I didn't know how to hit. I couldn't do anything. And then as the years went by, I got better. I was playing d-end, and then d-tackle as I got bigger.

"In Kahuku everybody goes out for football. Everybody. It's the best. Everybody is into football down there."

On being recruited by UH:

"I was kind of overshadowed (by Mapu). It was OK. I got a scholarship to come here. It was the only place I got offered."

On redshirting as a freshman in 2002:

"I was getting reps in practice (at defensive tackle) because we were short that year. We had Isaak Sopoaga, Lance Samuseva and Abu (Ma'afala). It was me and those three guys. We really didn't have anybody else.

"My true freshman year, I went on all of the road trips, even though I redshirted. That was fun. I would go on the road trips, but I wouldn't have to worry about anything. I was there to cruise, go shopping, cruise the hotel."

On switching to the offensive line as a second-year freshman:

Coach Cav(anaugh) moved me over. I was like, 'Whatever.' I knew coach Cav was a good coach. I wanted to play for him. There was nothing hard about the move. It helped (as an offensive tackle) that I was coming from the defensive side."

On Cavanaugh leaving last year to coach at Oregon State:

"I'm mad because he was such a good coach as far as technique and getting us ready for games. But it's all right, I guess. One thing we don't miss is his screaming, or yelling, or nagging. That's all part of his coaching."

On his potential to be an NFL draft prospect:

"If you look at all of the tackles who get drafted, I'm probably too short. I'm only, like, 6-3, barely. All of the tackles who get drafted are 6-5 and above. I'll probably have to play guard or something. Right now I weigh 310. You have to be really good (to be drafted as a 6-3 tackle)."

On the daily drives between the North Shore and UH:

"This morning we woke up at quarter after 5. We left La'ie at 5:30. We drove all the way down here just so we can lift at 6:30. I've driven back and forth so much, I'm so used to it. I could drive with my eyes closed. Me, (quarterback) Inoke (Funaki) and (free safety) Leonard (Peters). That's our crew. We call ourselves the 'Morning Shuttle Boys.' Whoever drives one day, another guy drives the next day. We take turns. Every once in a while somebody has something to do in town, so he drives himself and skips a day."

On living with a medical condition:

"I still have a heart murmur. It's a leaky valve. When your heart pumps blood out, the valve, it doesn't close all the way, so it lets some blood back in. It's like an off-beat kind of thing. They said eventually I'll have to have surgery to replace the valve when it gets bad. But it's good now. It doesn't bother me at all. I don't worry about it at all. I have to check up on it every six months. I've known this since my freshman year at Kahuku. It was always a mild heart murmur. I check up on it every six months, and everything is still good. It hasn't gotten any worse. It hasn't changed.

"I must have missed (the first few days of UH's) camp my first three years because of the heart murmur. It's the process. Come camp time, I would get the echocardiogram. I guess the results came in slow the first few years. They didn't want me into practice until they got an official result. But I knew I was OK. I don't feel anything from it. I don't have any symptoms from it."

On being the team prankster:

"We do more of the fun-type stuff, things you can laugh off later, (especially) on the airplane, when guys sleep. Usually on all airplanes, they have tampons and maxi pads (in the bathroom). When they're sleeping, I like to take the maxi pad and stick it on them and take pictures. When they're sleeping, they'll have a maxi pad on their head or chest. It's pretty fun. We get whoever is sleeping nearby. I've got a picture of David Farmer.

"We do fun stuff like mob guys. Me and Marques Kaonohi and (Dane) Uperesa and Samson Satele, we'll bum rush guys into their room, and flip their beds over while they're laying in it. Then we run out of their rooms.

"They do a lot of things to me, like mob my locker. I don't really care (because) I'm probably the No. 1 guy who causes trouble."

On this year's team:

"I think we'll do awesome. We're going to outscore everybody. I love the offense."

On quarterback Colt Brennan:

"Colt is a cool guy. You can tell the pressure doesn't really get to him. He's always trying to keep cool. It's pretty fun. We love it.

"He hooks us up (with pizzas after each victory). I know one game we didn't do so well, and he still bought us pizza."

On the difference between Brennan and his predecessor, Tim Chang:

"Timmy was a good quarterback, too. Timmy and Colt are both good quarterbacks. Timmy always got the ball out. Colt, as you know, likes to scramble. That's cool. That's OK. If I'm blocking a guy good, and then he starts scrambling and I'm still holding my block, that makes us look good. But if it's one of those times, when you're waiting for the ball to get out, then that could be bad. You never know what he's going to do. Hopefully, that will make us better players, make us hold our blocks forever."

On his hobbies:

"I like cars. I like to try and fix up my own cars. I like to fix up the interior by myself. I've got a Cadillac '89. It has 20-inch spokes. My dad gave me the car. I painted it. My dad had to fix up the suspension because it was really soft. The rims looked like they were scraped. I'm still fixing it up. Come season, it'll be ready."

On what life would be like without football:

"If I weren't playing football, I would be working for June Jones. I would wash his car and mow his lawn. I'd get paid big bucks for that since he gets paid so much."

Reach Stephen Tsai at stsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.