"Homecoming King" Troy Polamalu's Return Home

football has done of so many things for me in my life it's humbled me it's taught me how to overcome adversity it's just it's just a line so many things in my life that that that I don't think anything else could have done my grandmother and grandfather they come from Toto the village of tofu in the Manila islands Troy wanted to come back to some bowl up to visit with this with his culture but also being unemployed in his career he feels like it's time to start getting back we probably flew about forty people out there coaches players NFL players all those players you know I mean it was kind of doing their own football camp they all poly coaches were kind of doing their own football camp we just kind of brought them again say hey let's just do one awesome thing let's do it all together it turned out better and then I'd ever imagined so the whole group was there in Hawaii we all got on the plane we all got to see each other so there was a lot of excitement but you know we really didn't know what to anticipate when we got there and what we got was overwhelming [Music] as they kind of like open these gates there's just a mass everyone you know who kids to adults that were just so excited you know that were coming to the island I had a tough time sleeping you know from the excitement the formalities were really awesome because I think that's embodies our cultures the kava ceremony and all the beautiful singing but I was just so excited to get to the children because I hadn't seen them yet you know throughout the kava ceremony so when that was over I was really excited to get to the stadium [Music] [Applause] Oh oh man I every day I fought back tears you know and only a few times actually I could I couldn't fight them but that first day just kind of see I mean you have literally you know it rivals these guys play each other twice a year and yet they're holding hands in prayer and someone songs and it was just a song law in its truest essence and that's what we kind of try to convey to two other children was that it didn't matter if you're from typhoon uh or Naomi or sama wanna what mattered is that we represent Samoa they play football harder than we've ever seen the IQ level wasn't where it should be had they had the football IQ to coincide with their with their passion you would have the ultimate above their bent honestly to a lot of football camps and I'd never ever seen the knowledge imparted on on football players or campers like I like I saw there [Music] the NFL players were giving so much knowledge the college coaches where it is these kids play so hard work so hard is this maintenance I'm all excited I'm losing my boy the really cool thing that I heard from everybody was that the kids were so respectable we never got the joke like oh I'm gonna beat you I'm better than you not even that you know there's just something about awesome water that really ties someone's together really ended it was really unique and especially to to see DOMA though we ran me over her ray you know guys that we compete against you know that I really are like my rivals just to to understand that there's a bond deeper than football and that was really really life-changing for me [Music] I didn't tell many people about our trip to the cannery because I'd you know to be honest I didn't know if anybody just wanted to go take a tour the tuna factory well I got to meet some of the executives there we we walked down after out of the corporate offices and then we walked into the actually the tuna factory park where they're preparing all the canned tuna and then there's just hundreds hundreds of people all in black and yellow it was mind bother I was like where you know where am I like you know why am I here and why are they all here you know what is this whole event about the Pittsburgh where the Steelers represent anything in this country we represent blue-collar workers and that is the epitome of what those workers were doing you know so it was really touching [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I've got anymore a310 like that very happy it was it was amazing [Music] [Applause] [Music] the island right in the house in a flux to be honest you know it doesn't have the best education system in fact meeting with the Department of Education the system they have now isn't very good at all part of the trip out there was to go and actually see and evaluate not only football but evaluate the whole situation you know cuz my metrics of them was it's not a one-time thing you know it wasn't like my trip back home to to wipe my hands clean and honest and I did something for the kid it's that guy you know I won't really want to make an impact football was kind of our foot in the door and of course we want the quality of a football player in the world to experience our culture we want to set a presence we want to change [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the fastest amo tradition is really based on love but it's based on discipline and is based on humility those virtues every culture could could really attach to I think if you're driven by anything other than love then it's the opposite of it it's just ego and the result of our first trip was so beautiful that's the only outcome of what authentic love could bring because everybody that went there donated their time energy everything their talents and it was just beautiful [Music]

Channel: LooseLuggage

Views: 470,970

Rating: 4.9212508 out of 5

Keywords: troy polamalu, samoa, steelers, homecoming, adam sjoberg, aaron redfield, American Football (Sport)

Id: QCbUlDMu7Hk

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 15 2012