After parents' deaths, Ngata moves on

&dateline;WESTMINSTER, Md. — Haloti Ngata's family and friends, nearly 100 strong, surrounded him on the day his future came into focus. The Baltimore Ravens had just made the 6-foot-4, 340-pound defensive tackle the 12th overall pick of the NFL draft.

It was the happiest and saddest of days; Ngata's dream came true, but the two people who helped him nurture it — his father, Solomone, and his mother, Olga — weren't there to celebrate. When Ngata steps onto the field during the Ravens' season opener on Sept. 10 in Tampa, it will be the first time he has seen an NFL game in person. It also will be the first time he will play football without one of his parents watching.

"Being a professional, you kind of carry your life in a professional way; being mature, not letting things bring you down," Ngata said two weeks ago during a break from training camp at McDaniel College. "That's what great football players do, great athletes do. They get through adversity and still become great players."

The Ravens are hoping Ngata becomes the latest in their line of marquee defensive players; they thought so highly of him that they traded up one spot in the draft in order to grab him, and they have penciled him as a starter. His combination of size (most notably his strong, thick legs) and athleticism (he was a standout rugby player) has impressed the coaches.

If Ngata does fulfill his promise, those family and friends will have played a significant role. Ngata lost both of his parents in the last four years, but he found others for support. His uncle and namesake, Haloti Moala, and his high school coach, Larry Wilson, have become surrogate fathers. His new teammate and fellow Polynesian, offensive lineman Edwin Mulitalo, has become something of an older brother to the rookie, 22.

"He's got a very good support system behind him," Baltimore defensive line coach Clarence Brooks said of Ngata. "He's got people besides his own family, people who have been with him a long time and who love him. They want the best for him. He's an easy kid to like."

Said Ngata, "I've been blessed with great people."

Ngata's father died in December 2002 in the family's home state of Utah when the truck he was driving slipped off an icy freeway ramp and flipped over. Nine months later, Ngata blew out his knee in the first quarter of the University of Oregon's season-opening game against Mississippi State.

"That was the worst," Ngata said of the one-two punch of losing his father and then football. "I think that's when I hit rock bottom."

Ngata considered quitting football and returning home to help support his mother, whose health had declined following Solomone's death. But she insisted her son remain in school, and over the next two seasons, he became one of the Pacific-10's most dominating defensive players. Oregon's coaches kept him out of the team's spring game one year because they had no one who could block him, and he was too disruptive to the offense.

He decided to enter the NFL draft following an all-American junior season, mainly because he wanted to be able to take care of his mother, who entered the hospital in early January for kidney dialysis. But on Jan. 12, six days after Ngata declared for the draft, she died of cardiac arrest.

Ngata, who was in Houston training for the NFL combine, returned to Salt Lake City for the funeral, and then flew back to Houston to resume training the next day. Moala, Olga's brother, followed him a day later after receiving a teary, late-night call from Ngata and wound up staying with Ngata in Houston for a month.

"As difficult as his parents' deaths were, the silver lining in the clouds was that it gave him more determination and motivation," said Wilson, who coached Ngata at Highland High School in Salt Lake City. "He sees this as a way to keep his parents alive; part of what he is playing for is to honor his parents. They were so proud of him and loved football and loved watching him perform. You saw the resolve in him harden almost overnight; you saw that determination and maturity emerge."

Now the focus is on supporting his family. Ngata, who signed a five-year, $11.9 million contract on July 29, has three brothers (Finau, 26, Solomone Jr., 24, and Vili, 20) and one sister (Ame, 18), and he has pledged to help them with whatever they need — but not necessarily with whatever they want.

"He's real giving," Vili said.

"With Polynesians, family is everything," said Mulitalo, whose parents were born in American Samoa. Ngata's parents were born in Tonga. "If we don't have family, if we don't know where we're from, then why do anything? So when we work, when we come out here to play — my purpose is my children, and obviously my name, the Mulitalo name. I'm sure he feels a great sense of responsibility for his name, for Ngata."

Ngata knows the pressures and expectations that come with being a first-round draft pick. An NFL rule limits rookies to attending one minicamp while their school is in session, and because Oregon's graduation ceremony didn't take place until June 17, Ngata was forced to miss five weeks of offseason camp.

Because Ngata wasn't allowed in the Ravens' training complex, Wilson — who coached under Jim Fassel (now the Ravens' offensive coordinator) at the University of Utah in the mid-1980s — went in his place. Wilson spent three days in Owings Mills, Md., in mid-May; he sat in on every meeting, watched every practice while standing in Brooks's shadow and met with the Ravens' strength and conditioning coaches.

When Wilson went back to Salt Lake City, he structured Ngata's workouts, scheduling specific times in the classroom, in the weight room and on the field. Sometimes Max Moala, Ngata's cousin and a linebacker at Weber State, worked out with them. Other times it was Ngata and Wilson out on the field working on techniques.

"I didn't like that very much," Wilson said with a laugh. "He beat the heck out of me in pass rush drills."

Every day, Brooks sent Wilson via overnight mail a DVD that contained a video of that day's practice, along with whatever the Ravens were practicing the next day.

"We tried to keep him mentally up to speed," said Brooks, who flew to Utah in late June to check on Ngata's progress. "He's a fantastic kid and a smart kid. He's our number one pick, and we expect him to come in here and not be totally lost. So we had to help him. I think it worked pretty well."

Ngata said the plays have been easy to pick up, thanks to the work he did with Wilson. He's trying to learn as much as he can, as quickly as he can; during camp, he stayed after practice for short tutoring sessions with Michael McCrary and Rob Burnett, the two defensive ends on Baltimore's 2000 Super Bowl championship team.

He's also trying to get used to his new life as a professional athlete, one living about 2,100 miles from home.

At one point, Wilson was going to retire from teaching, leave his wife behind in Salt Lake City and move to Baltimore to help Ngata adjust to his first year as a professional. Moala and his wife, Noah, also discussed moving to Maryland to be near Ngata. But those plans were abandoned in early May once it became apparent Ngata was ready to move to the East Coast on his own.

"We made those decisions right after his mother died, at a time of emotional distress, when we didn't know how Haloti would take it," Moala said. "But since January, he's grown up...."

Ngata said, "I like this opportunity, me on my own. I can see the real world by myself. I can use all of the lessons that my uncle and my parents taught me."