[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 14 (Tuesday, January 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H582-H584]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     COMMENDING SAMOAN NFL PLAYERS

  (Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute, and to revise and extend his remarks and include 
extraneous matter.)
   [[Page H583]] Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, on the positive side, I 
want to offer my congratulations and commendations on behalf of some 
150,000 citizens of our country whose roots are found in a group of 
islands in the South Pacific--the Samoan Islands--a special recognition 
of five outstanding Samoan football players in the National Football 
League who recently participated in the final two games that were 
televised nationally two Sundays ago.
  Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, these Samoan NFL players are--Mr. 
Suilagi Palelei, defensive end with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and also 
with the Pittsburgh Steelers is defensive lineman Ta'ase Faumui. There 
is also offensive tackle Mark Tuinei of the Dallas Cowboys and 
offensive guard Jesse Sapolu of the San Francisco 49ers. And last but 
not least, Mr. Junior Seau, middle linebacker for the San Diego 
Chargers.
  Mr. Speaker, I also want to call to the attention of our colleagues 
three of the above gentlemen have been selected as members of the NFL 
All-Pro Team this year: Mr. Seau, Mr. Sapolu, and Mr. Tuinei.
  I also want to commend Mr. Alfred Pupunu, tight end of the San Diego 
Chargers--who hails from the Polynesian Island Kingdom of Tonga.
  Mr. Speaker, because Mr. Jesse Sapolu and Mr. Junior Seau are both 
going to be playing their hearts out in this week's Super Bowl game--I 
can only say, may the best team win.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record two articles from the New York 
Times:

                    Seau Very Good With One Good Arm

                         (By Timothy W. Smith)

       Pittsburgh, Jan. 15.--As he stepped onto a podium for a 
     post-game interview session, Chargers linebacker Junior Seau 
     rolled his left shoulder slightly and then winced. The 
     grimace was quickly replaced by a smile when someone asked 
     how he felt about his first Super Bowl trip.
       ``I can't tell you, to tell you the truth,'' Seau said. 
     ``It's a time where you go through hills and valleys in the 
     course of 60 minutes. At the end of the game, it comes down 
     to that last play. You don't know whether to cry or yell or 
     smile. All I know is we're going to the Super Bowl.''
       Since the New England game on Nov. 20, Seau has been 
     playing with a pinched nerve in his neck that has deadened 
     his left arm. He has played the last eight games with one 
     good arm, and early on against the Steelers here this 
     afternoon it looked as if Seau was going to single-handedly 
     deliver the Chargers a victory.
       On the 13 plays on Pittsburgh's opening drive for a 
     touchdown, Seau was involved in 5 of the tackles--3 of them 
     solo, including one in which he stopped running back Barry 
     Foster for no gain on a screen pass. For the game Seau 
     finished with 16 tackles (12 solo) and one pass defense.
       ``I've never seen him play a better game,'' said Chargers 
     free safety Stanley Richards. ``I've seen him make more 
     tackles, but I've never seen him make more big plays. He was 
     all over the field today. It felt good being out there with 
     Junior Seau today.
       ``He had in his mind that there was no reason we were going 
     to lose this football game. You could see the intensity and 
     the fire he had from the start of the game.''
       The Chargers came in with a defensive game plan of stacking 
     eight people at the line of scrimmage to stop Pittsburgh's 
     rushing attack, which led the league with an average of 136.6 
     yards a game. They were successful in that regard, holding 
     the Steelers to 66 yards rushing.
       Seau played a pivotal role in helping the Chargers' defense 
     keep the Steelers off balance. With his speed and 
     athleticism, Seau was able to blitz and drop back into pass 
     coverage. And when the Steelers did try to run sweeps around 
     the corner, Seau was there to greet the runners.
       ``I felt the Steelers altered their game plan to pass 
     more,'' he said. ``Once you see that from a smash-mouth 
     football team, you know that they're doing something 
     different that they're not used to.''
       On the Steelers' final offensive drive, which started at 
     their 17 with 5 minutes 13 seconds to play and was down to 
     the Chargers' 9 at the 2-minute warning, Seau tried to 
     convince San Diego defensive coordinator Bill Arnsparger to 
     be more aggressive and attack Pittsburgh quarterback Neil 
     O'Donnell. That would have meant the Chargers would have had 
     to switch out of their zone coverage and into man. Arnsparger 
     held firm and stuck with the zone.
       The Chargers' defense yield a 7-yard reception by the 
     fullback John L. Williams, but produced two deflected passes 
     by linebacker Dennis Gibson, and the last one on fourth-and-
     goal from the 3 sealed the victory.
       ``I have to give him credit for sticking to that,'' Seau 
     said. ``Playing zone, if they caught the ball, we would have 
     someone to tackle them. And that's exactly how we did it.
       Seau, who aggravated his injury again in the second 
     quarter, has one more game to play before he can rest the 
     pinched nerve and get the feeling back in his left arm.
       ``It's pain, but after what happened here, it's 
     worthwhile,'' he said. ``You never play this game 100 percent 
     healthy and you should never expect to.''

                 Seau's Guilt and Pain Are Still Fresh

                            (By Tom Friend)

       San Diego, Jan 12.--His neck burns like a forest fire, and 
     his left arm sleeps on the job. Junior Seau can tackle you 
     with his pinched nerve, but he cannot maim you.
       He needs a month off, ultrasound around the clock and more 
     days at the beach with Dennis Hopper. He needs to listen to 
     his mother and send his uniform on vacation. He needs a new 
     Sunday activity, such as stopping off to see his brother in 
     jail. He needs bad directions to Three Rivers Stadium.
       But he will not miss Sunday's American Football Conference 
     title game for the world, or for his mom. She has asked him 
     to quit this contact sport since grade school, but he tells 
     her this contact sport paid for her new house, her new car 
     and the beds her children never had growing up. That quiets 
     her down. He tells her there is no harm in a little numbness 
     he can't feel it anyway.
       Junior Seau, in a nutshell, is the San Diego Charger 
     defense, and he has a private pact with himself: play or die.
       The linebacker is motivated by the thought of a Super Bowl, 
     the thought of his guilt and the thought of his father still 
     doing custodial work. Against the Steelers on Sunday, he will 
     drape a town over his head and seem inconsolable. But 
     underneath that veil, where no one else can travel, he will 
     be pumping himself up in a personal ceremony that allows him 
     to play over the speed limit.
       ``I have got to sell out,'' he said today.
       His avenue to this defining championship game has had many 
     potholes. The home he knew as a child, the one that lacked 
     bedrooms, stirred his original hunger and was an important 
     frame of reference. His roommates were a brother, a car and a 
     dishwasher.
       ``We didn't know any different,'' Seau said. ``We thought 
     everybody slept in the garage.''
       They resided in a poor Samoan section of Oceanside, Calif., 
     and jobs were to be hunted, cherished. Every Seau son--all 
     three of them--were to contribute to the family pot, although 
     Junior sparred with his father over the work edict. It was 
     Junior's preference to play high school sports--where no one 
     else could run as fast or leap as high--but it took much 
     explaining at home. Tiania Seau was a stern taskmaster 
     someone Junior was afraid to cross. He know if he was not 
     going to share in the bread-winning, he had better do some 
     winning elsewhere.
       ``I wanted to preform well for my mom and dad, because in 
     high school. I didn't have a job,'' Seau said. ``My brothers, 
     they worked at Pizza Hut or places like that, but sports, 
     that was my way of giving back.''
       Either out of guilt, or natural-born ability--or both--Seau 
     became the area's premier football and basketball player. 
     Nothing could deter him. Literally 48 hours after undergoing 
     abdominal surgery, he bled through his basketball uniform and 
     still led his team to the high school championship.
       Seau's parents, sensing their son's commitment, began 
     attending games with the entire family. Junior had enough 
     uncles, aunts and cousins to fill the bleachers, and they 
     chipped in to make him perhaps the first high school athlete 
     with incentive clauses.
       ``For an interception, they gave him $10 and for a sack, 
     $10'' said one of his high school coaches, Bill Christopher. 
     ``One day, they paid up, and he had a wad of bills that could 
     choke a horse.''
       After sitting out his freshman season at Southern Cal 
     because of Proposition 48--``If you know Junior, that's worse 
     than taking a hammer to his head,'' Christopher said--Seau 
     was obsessed with paying his family back, tenfold. And once 
     he signed a first-round contract with his hometown Chargers 
     five years ago, he retired the childhood shact he grew up in.
       ``Bought them a house and car with the first check,'' he 
     said.
       But his father still would not quite his custodial job at 
     the local high school; Seau decided then he would never turn 
     complacent, either.
       On the second snap of his first preseason game, he was 
     ejected for fighting the Raiders' Steve Wisnieski, and he was 
     feared from that moment on.
       The Pro Bowl because his annual vacation stop, he sponsored 
     a clothing line called``Say Ow,'' and he became the Chargers' 
     only media darling. On the ``Tonight Show'' this season, he 
     bench-pressed Jay Leno and said,``Jay was heaver than I 
     thought.' He also filmed a sneaker commercial on the Santa 
     Monica Pier and Dennis Hopper and called it ``the highlight 
     of my career.;
       The lowlight had to be the day his brother Tony was 
     arrested and charged with attempted murder. Tony, younger and 
     less focused, jointed a gang after struggling in Junior's 
     shadow. After shooting his way into a house and nearly 
     killing a man with a baseball bat, he is serving 10 years in 
     prison. It alternately frightens Junior and validates him.
       ``We're allowed to visit him once a week, and I try to get 
     there as much as possible,'' Seau said. ``But we're in season 
     now, and Sundays are his visiting hours. And You know what 
     I'm doing Sundays.''
       But on one particular Sunday, six weeks ago, Seau pinched a 
     nerve in his neck, apparently on one of his team-high 155 
     tackles. His left arm has deadened sporadically, since, 
     [[Page H584]] and he has essentially been a one armed 
     linebacker. Football experts have said he should sit out, 
     should move into a whirlpool turned up to top speed. But if 
     he could move his neck freely, he would shake it a thousand 
     times no. Because of the guilt, because of a workaholic 
     father.
       ``I play out of fear,'' he said. ``Fear of failure.''
       The stark result, of course, is that he may be a target on 
     Sunday--for the first time in his career.
       ``The Steelers have to decide whether or not they're going 
     to attack me with my one arm or run away from me,'' Seau 
     said. ``It's a big challenge for me.''
       And what would it take for him to sit it out?
       ``Break my legs, he said.
       

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