Ben Moa is a guy the University of Utah football team can be proud of — both for his accomplishments on and off the field. Moa, who willed the Utes to a triple-overtime victory over Air Force on Saturday, is a devoted husband and father who is active in his church and plans to someday use his college degree to get a job helping troubled youth.
Contrast that with Ben Allison, a heralded U. recruit out of Ogden High who, himself, was a troubled youth. Allison ran in gang circles and spent what would have been his junior high days locked up due to his crimes. He was shot and nearly killed in a gang-related incident at a wedding after his freshman year at the U. and was later kicked off the team when he was busted by campus police for stealing from the Ute locker room.
The two stories appear to be polar opposites.
Except that Moa and Allison are the same person.
Ben Allison was born in San Bernardino in 1981, the son of an African-American father and a Tongan mother. He spent his early years in California, but, since much of his mother's family lived in Utah, he'd visit the Beehive State occasionally.
After one of these trips to Utah, Allison stayed much longer than he'd planned.
In Salt Lake City for a family reunion when he was 12, Allison and others in the T.C.G. (Tongan Crip Gang) engaged in some criminal mischief and got caught. He doesn't care to go into detail, but the offenses were enough that "I got locked up for three years. I didn't get out of the lock-up until I was 16."
From 13 to 16, Allison lived at the Mill Creek Youth Corrections Center in Ogden. There he went to school, ate, slept, exercised and got into more trouble. There were plenty of fights.
"We'd get in fights almost every day, but then we'd get put in lockdown — 23 hours in, one out," he said.
When he finally was released, Allison stayed in Ogden, living with foster parents Mace and Lomia Tuatagloa for his two years of high school, partially in an attempt to keep away from the trouble that he could get into with the T.C.G. in Salt Lake City.
His junior year of high school was the first time he'd ever played organized football — and he took to it quickly as a defensive lineman and tight end. He also excelled in basketball and track, but it was football that got college recruiters' attention.
In the end it became a choice between BYU and Utah. Allison, in fact, verbally committed to former Cougar assistant coach Norm Chow to go to BYU, where he would have been a teammate to his cousin, Cougar running back Fahu Tahi. Instead, he changed his mind and decided to accept Utah coach Ron McBride's scholarship offer.
As an academic non-qualifier in 1999, Allison went to classes at the U. but was unable to play for the football team. Big things were expected of him, however, starting in the 2000 season. He was big, strong and fast for his size, with a 34-inch vertical jump.
Allison, by this time, had met U. student Christina Nuno. After a short courtship, they were married in Nuno's hometown of Modesto, Calif.
Three weeks after their marriage, Allison and his new wife were at a family reunion/wedding at the National Guard Armory in West Jordan. Shortly after midnight on the early morning of Aug. 26, 2000, a gang-related fight broke out in the parking lot of the armory. While trying to help his cousins, who were involved with the fight, Allison was shot in the chest.
"I thought I might die," he said.
The 9mm bullet went through his right side, through his lung and into his back — where it still resides. He was airlifted to LDS Hospital. Allison was visited by coaches and teammates in the hospital, where he made a surprisingly quick recovery. Within a week he was back on the practice field, watching his teammates and playing catch on the sideline.
It proved too much, too soon. Allison had to go back to the hospital when the wound was reopened, and he had to have blood and fluids drained from his lung.
"Doctors told me that if I'd been half-an-hour later getting to the hospital, I would have died, drowned in my own blood," he said.
The gunshot wound kept him out for the 2000 season as a redshirt — but he never made it to the end of that season. In November he was kicked off the team by McBride after getting caught stealing items from teammates in the Ute locker room.
"We love Ben as a team member, but when this happened, I had no choice but to dismiss him from the team," McBride said at the time.
"He thought his football career was over," said Allison's wife, Christina.
Ben and Christina moved to Modesto to be with her family — and to get out of Utah.
"I hated Salt Lake," Christina said. "I was glad to go because there were so many problems for Ben here. It was good for him and us to get away from it all."
After Christina gave birth to the couple's first son, Sione, she talked Ben into giving football another chance. Ben, a new father who was trying to turn his life around, walked into the coaches' offices at Modesto Junior College and was eagerly accepted on the team.
Allison became a star at Modesto during the 2001 season, helping the team to a 9-2 record and a bowl victory. He finished the year with 45 catches for 612 yards and six touchdowns and was named second-team All-American.
All the big schools took notice. Allison was offered scholarships to Pac-10 powers such as USC and Oregon.
Folks in those places, of course, wouldn't have known about his troubles at Utah. Plus, his wife, for one, didn't want him to return to Salt Lake.
Yet Allison felt he had some unfinished business. McBride offered him a scholarship and — after some careful consideration and prayer — Allison accepted.
"Coach McBride had given me all those chances, and I wanted to set things right," he said.
"When we moved back here I was sad," Christina said. "I cried for a long, long time. But at the same time, I understood why Ben felt he had to come back."
Allison then decided to do something else to put his past behind him. He had his surname legally changed to his mother's maiden name, Moa.
"I wanted to be a Moa in honor of my Tongan grandfather," he said. "If I get the chance to play in the NFL, I want to do it with my grandpa's name."
In addition to getting his football career jump-started in Modesto, Allison was working to get his life in order — including in a spiritual sense. He was a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but, obviously, he hadn't been living up to the standards he'd been taught as a youth.
"I had to get things right with the Big Man Upstairs," Moa said.
With the help of his wife, he did just that. On Valentine's Day in 2002, Ben and Christina's marriage was solemnized in the Oakland LDS Temple.
Moa, after all his success at junior college, failed to make much impact for the Utes last season. He caught just 14 passes for 126 yards and no touchdowns.
But new Ute coach Urban Meyer's offense seems to be tailor-made for Moa's abilities. He has scored six touchdowns already, including three as a running back in Saturday's win over Air Force. He also threw a pass to Matt Hansen for the game-winning conversion in the third overtime.
Moa strongly believes he has what it takes to play football professionally.
"This year is not the end of my football career," he said.
But when he does finish his playing days, he plans to use his degree in sociology/criminology to help kids who get into the same type of trouble he did.
"I want to help kids, maybe be a youth corrections officer," Moa said. "Because when I was locked up I would tell the counselors, 'You don't know what I'm going through.' Kids wouldn't be able to say that to me. I've been there. I will know how to relate to them."
As for now, the kid he most relates to is his 2-year-old son. Sione is about to become a big brother, too, as Christina Moa is seven months pregnant.
"Ben is a great dad," Christina said. "He's just like a little kid in a man's body. He gets down and plays with Sione and watches cartoons with him. And Sione wants to be just like his dad."
Christina would like it if Sione becomes like Ben Moa.
It would sure beat him being like Ben Allison.
E-MAIL: lojo@desnews.com