I remember I was sitting in my office when he and his parents walked in and said ‘Hi coach, we just moved into the area.’ He was kind of quiet and didn’t say a whole lot, but obviously he was a good-looking athlete. It took just the first day or two of going through a workout before you knew he was something special. – Former Bingham High head football coach Dave Peck, on Star Lotulelei
SAN JOSE — There was a time when Star Lotulelei was a long way from his current $10 million football job with the Carolina Panthers, a time when he was making around $10 an hour moving couches and tables.
He was 18 years old, not going to school, working for a furniture company in Salt Lake doing what he called “back-breaking stuff” and finding himself getting fat and out of shape. It was a job he hated, frankly, and that’s when he realized he wanted more from his life.
“I learned the hard way that football was what I needed to be doing,’’ he said. “Football’s not easy, but I have a lot more fun doing it.”
Lotulelei was also inspired by watching his younger brother, Lowell, now a defensive tackle for the University of Utah, playing freshman football at Bingham High where he also had played.
“Just going and watching my brother play, I was starting to miss it,” he said. “So I went down to Snow (College) to play football.”
From Snow, he went on to star at the University of Utah and now the 6-foot-2, 320-pound Lotulelei finds himself on one of the world’s biggest sporting stages as a starting defensive lineman for Carolina in the Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos.
Sunday afternoon at Levi’s Stadium in nearby Santa Clara, Lotulelei will be chasing quarterback Peyton Manning and the rest of the Broncos, trying to lead Carolina to its first Super Bowl championship.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,’’ he said earlier this week at the Super Bowl Media Day. “Maybe when I’m standing on the sideline Sunday it will hit me, but right now I’m trying to have fun and approach this like a regular-season game.”
Ask Lotulelei the origin of his first name and he can’t tell you, except that his father was named Starlite by his grandparents.
“I don’t know, I’m going to have to ask him,” he said earlier this week. “I’m starting to get that question a lot. I just know my name is Star Jr.”
Lotulelei, who is the seventh of nine children of Star and Pesatina Lotulelei, was born in Tonga before moving to the United States as a youngster.
Growing up with six older sisters had its advantages for young Star.
“I didn’t have to do many chores. I took out the trash and mowed the lawn and that was about it. It was great,” he says with a laugh.
His family moved from Utah County to South Jordan before his junior year of high school.
“I remember I was sitting in my office when he and his parents walked in and said ‘Hi coach, we just moved into the area,’” said former Bingham High head football coach Dave Peck. One look at young Star and Peck knew he had hit the lottery.
“He was kind of quiet and didn’t say a whole lot, but obviously he was a good-looking athlete,” Peck said. “It took just the first day or two of going through a workout before you knew he was something special.”
At the time, Peck had enough good players to play guys on one side of the line or the other, but he made an exception for Lotulelei and Jordan Pendleton, a future standout for BYU, and let them play both offense and defense. Lotulelei was a tackle on each line, but preferred playing defense.
In 2006, behind Lotulelei and Pendleton, Bingham High, which had sent players like Bruce Hardy and Kevin Curtis to the NFL, won its first state football title in more than 60 years.
Lotulelei had scholarship offers from Oregon, Utah and BYU among others and initially accepted a scholarship to BYU. However, he didn’t qualify academically, so with few options, he ended up in the furniture-moving business for a season.
When he got motivated to get back into football, he played for a year at Snow College, before coming back near home to play for the University of Utah.
He quickly became a star there, starting as a sophomore and earning all-Pac-12 honors as a junior. At that point, he was tempted to turn professional, but decided to stay one more year.
“He made the decision to come back and I think it’s paying dividends," said Utah coach Kyle Whittingham. “His draft stock went up, he received his degree and the NFL career he’s having now is just phenomenal. I thought he was the best defensive interior lineman in the conference (as a senior) and in the country as well. He’s a tremendous talent.”
Lotulelei earned first-team All-America honors at Utah and was drafted in the first round by Carolina, 14th overall, and soon after signed a four-year, $9.6 million contract. He started all 16 games as a rookie when he was named to several all-rookie teams and 13 of 14 games last year when he missed two games because of a foot injury.
This year, Lotulelei has been a starter again and his numbers are down, partly because his job has been to clog up the middle and he's often been taking on two blockers, allowing the rest of the D-line to find room.
"They double-team him and when they double-team, I got the one-on-one and I gotta make the play,” fellow defensive tackle Kawaan Short told Sporting News earlier this year.
Although he has a quiet demeanor, Lotulelei has become one of the team leaders in just his third year with the Panthers. Former Utah teammate Brian Blechen has been a member of the practice squad all year and has frequent interactions with basically the same guy. I got to Carolina and the whole locker room already respected Star and I’m pretty sure he got the respect the same way he got it at Utah. He rarely talks but when he does say something people listen. He’s great — everyone here loves him.”
Lotulelei and his wife, Fuiva, a former Snow College volleyball player he met in Ephraim, are the parents of three children, two girls, 6 and 4, and a boy, Star III, who turns 2 in May. They all came out to California on Monday and will stay with friends in the San Francisco area as they await the big game.
Star brightened up when talk of his family came up and he looks forward to spending more time with them once the season is over, back at their home in South Jordan.
When he’s not playing football or spending time with his family, Lotulelei loves playing video games on his Xbox console. His brother, Lowell, calls him a “video–game addict.”
Usually a soft-spoken type, Lotulelei got excited when a foreign reporter asked him about his favorite video games at media day. Unlike other athletes who play football or soccer games on video, Lotulelei prefers role-playing games like Assassin’s Creed and Sky Rim, while another of his favorites is Grand Theft Auto.
“That’s all I do in my off time — spend time with my family, play video games and just relax,’’ he said.
For now, there’s that big game on Sunday, where big No. 98 will be in the middle of the action, a long way from those days moving furniture.
Of his upcoming Super Bowl experience, Lotulelei said, “My whole career has been like a dream come true, so this is just icing on the cake.”