Why the 49ers fell in love with safety Talanoa Hufanga: Hes an old-school badass -

Talanoa Hufanga used to climb to the top of an 8-foot door that led from the garage into the family’s house. His mom and dad were stunned to find him perched up there — he was only 2 years old and could barely reach the doorknob.

He learned to drive stick shift in elementary school so he could help out on the family’s farm. He was a superstar four-star athlete who cleaned pig pens and baled hay before leaving for school. He was the big man on campus at Crescent Valley High in Corvallis, Ore., who sat in the stands and cheered on even the school’s most obscure sports teams — and drew a crowd of classmates because everyone loved him and followed his lead.

In high school, he’d put his cellphone in a basket on the family’s kitchen island every night at 9 and wouldn’t touch it again until the next morning. That was the family rule, and any buddies who stayed at the house had to do the same. Inside the house, you interacted with the family, not the phone.

When at USC, he was one of two student-athletes the school tapped for input when looking for a new athletic director. In the run-up to the draft, he trained with Pro Football Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu, who is so reclusive and selective about whom he takes on as proteges that it was akin to getting Jedi training from Yoda.

No, there is no one quite like Talanoa Hufanga, which is precisely why the 49ers were so happy — no, ecstatic — to draft him in the fifth round last month. The team loves all eight of its draft picks. Hufanga, however, seemed to fire up the scouting staff the most.

“He was a favorite of a lot of people,” assistant general manager Adam Peters said.

Peters noted the USC safety was one of two selections — quarterback Trey Lance was the other — the 49ers marked as “gold helmet” players entering the draft. The designation is rare and has as much to do with character and how a player might enrich team culture as it does with on-field ability. And those who know Hufanga say character — who he is at his core and how he treats those around him — is what makes him exceptional.

“When I was at other events, he would come to them,” said Craig Ellingson, who spent 42 years as Crescent Valley’s athletic director. “Whatever the event was, you could tell that he had an impact. And that was modeled to him by his parents his whole life. And he just took that on — building up other people and complimenting them. He’s just one of those special people. People are drawn to him.”

To understand Hufanga, you have to know his father’s story.

Tevita Hufanga grew up in the village of Pea on Tonga’s largest island, Tongatapu. His family raised cows, pigs and chickens and grew everything from bananas to watermelon to yams. There was no tractor in the yard or television in the house. Children were expected to help — mainly weeding and tending to the animals — before heading off to school, and there were plenty more chores when school let out.

On the island, boys played two sports: cricket and rugby.

One day his mother returned from a visit with relatives in San Diego with a football. Tevita and his cousins figured you kicked it like you would a rugby ball.

“We were trying to kick it around with bare feet,” he recalled with a laugh. “And that really hurt. I didn’t realize the ball was that way, that it was not soft like the rugby ball. So that tells you how much I knew about football.”

When he was 18, Tevita moved to San Diego with the rest of his family and began taking classes to learn English, which wasn’t spoken in Pea. He got a job and met his wife, Tanya. They had two boys, T.J. and Talanoa, and in 2007 they bought a four-acre farm outside of Corvallis.

Tevita has a full-time job with Hewlett-Packard. The family doesn’t need the farm for extra income, but they still work it as if they were living in Tonga and grow many of the same vegetables— watermelon, cucumber, squash — grown in the South Pacific. The family consumes some of what’s produced, Tevita sells a few items in the local farmer’s market and donates more to local food banks. The rest he gives as gifts to friends and neighbors.

Talanoa Hufanga working on his family’s farm. (Courtesy of Tevita Hufanga)

Mostly, the farm represents a way of life for the boys. Tevita’s also taken them, individually, to his home village on Tonga to visit with relatives and to appreciate what hard work truly looks like. Talanoa made his trip before going into high school.

“It’s families working together and it’s hard work,” Tevita said. “It’s manual labor. They don’t have a tractor. I want my kids to know that hard work is worth it whatever they do. They learned a lot from it.”

Farm life also proved to be a good outlet for their youngest son’s relentless energy.

Two-year-old Talanoa didn’t just climb up the side of doors, he climbed up everything. He stood at an early age, walked soon after that and when he learned to run, he never slowed down.

How to get a perpetual-motion boy to stop and fall asleep?

Tevita found a solution a few blocks from the house: a fenced-in high school track. While Tevita walked the oval at his own pace, Talanoa ran it and, little legs pumping, would lap his dad several times. But eventually — mercifully — the child’s eyes would begin to droop.

“It was every single day,” Tevita said. “And as soon as we get home, man, he’s out!”

When a young Talanoa Hufanga started showing interest in football, the local store had only two jerseys available — 49ers and the Cowboys. He chose the 49ers. (Courtesy of Tanya Hufanga)

“Let Talanoa run” also became a theme in high school.

Hufanga spent only a few weeks on the freshman football team before being moved up to the varsity. When he got into games as a freshman it was only for a quarter. Any longer and the contest would get lopsided.

“He would get them out to a big lead — a three- or four- or five-touchdown lead in the first quarter — and then we’d hang on for dear life,” said his football coach, Scott Sanders.

During his final two seasons at Crescent Valley, Sanders revamped the defense so that Hufanga was free to roam, ball hawk and make plays. Ellingson, the school’s athletic director, wondered sometimes if Hufanga should have been out there. It wasn’t that he was any bigger than the other boys. It was that his athleticism and intensity were on an entirely higher plane and — CRACK! — produced collisions so loud you could hear them a half-mile away.

“His athletic ability and passion — I’ve never seen that combination at the level he had. It was almost like …” and here Ellingson searches for the right word, “it almost wasn’t fair. He probably should have been playing in college sooner. It was fun to watch, but like I said, it was kind of unfair at times, I felt like.”

Opposing coaches felt the same way. They heard the impacts and figured there must have been helmet-to-helmet contact.

“And (the hits) weren’t even close to that,” Sanders said. “Then he gets kicked out of a game. So then we have to appeal and say, ‘Hey, look at the film. Where’s the helmet to helmet?’ And it was just because he hit the kid hard and the shoulder pads popped.”

Hufanga wasn’t a dirty player. Far from it. In fact, his coaches considered him a prince.

Sanders noted that when Hufanga was at his height of popularity — getting 40 text messages a day from college coaches, which is what led to the Hufangas’ cellphone rule — he’d turn around and find his star safety working with the school’s freshman players.

“And what does that do for your team?” Sanders said. “Now you’ve got every kid in the school wanting to play football because it’s Talanoa, everyone loves him and now he’s a player-coach. He’s someone who lifted up the whole school.”

Talanoa Hufanga was a star on and off for the field for Scott Sanders at Crescent Valley High. (Courtesy of Scott Sanders)

Mike Stair taught Hufanga social studies and coached him in basketball. In the classroom, Hufanga was disciplined and respectful but also “a little bit of a jokester,” Stair said.

“Not disruptive or anything like that,” Stair said. “But he’d be willing to crack a joke at the right time. Or you could have a little bit of banter back and forth with him. He was also incredibly respectful to his peers. I think some kids in the situation he was in — their heads might get pretty big. But I would say Talanoa was at his finest when he was interacting in the classroom and working with kids who maybe didn’t have the best life. And I think he made their classroom experience a little more positive.”

Moving from classroom to hardwood was a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hufanga.

He was just over 6-feet tall but was the most voracious rebounder on the court. When Hufanga first started playing for him, Stair said, he was a strong defender. He was determined to improve, however, and pushed himself to become someone the other team’s top players would seek out after the game.

“Because they knew they had gone against one of the best competitors they’d ever faced,” Stair said.

The coach recalled a game against Crescent Valley’s crosstown rival during which Hufanga felt as if he failed to provide backside defensive help, which led to an easy basket. He responded by taking the ball up the court and calling for a pick and roll. Two steps inside the free-throw line, he took off.

“You could tell the kid from the other team thought about coming in and taking a charge, but then decided, ‘I’m getting out of this guy’s way,'” Stair recalled. “And (Hufanga) just hammered it down. That’s who he was. When he did get beat, he tried to do something immediately to respond to it.”

Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch saw the same qualities when they watched Hufanga play safety at USC.

“Hits like a linebacker,” Shanahan said on the day he was drafted. “His mentality is he’s an old-school badass, as we say.”

Hufanga’s linebacker-like qualities may be part of the reason he lasted until the fifth round. That is, he’s a bit of a tweener. Teams that needed a safety likely were turned off by Hufanga’s 4.61-second time in the 40-yard dash while those looking for linebackers noted that, at 199 pounds, he’s 20 pounds lighter than even the smallest guys at the position.

He also has the injury history of someone who catapults his body into receivers, running backs and tight ends. That includes a pair of broken collarbones, a shoulder sprain and a concussion in his first two seasons at USC.

Sanders, his high school football coach, said he and others urged Hufanga to be a bit more analytical — “You don’t have to blow somebody up every time,” he advised — heading into the 2020 season. The safety listened. He played in all six games and either tied or set career highs in forced fumbles (two), pass breakups (five) and interceptions (four).

“Everything started falling into his lap,” Sanders said. “And that’s when I really think he matured as far as the knowledge of the game.”

That was the case during 49ers’ recent OTAs practices as well, including when Hufanga stripped receiver Trent Sherfield of the ball following a catch at the sideline and then took off with it down the field. In fact, with fellow safeties Jaquiski Tartt, Tarvarius Moore and Marcell Harris dealing with various spring injuries, Hufanga was in line to start working with the starters when OTAs abruptly ended last week.

Tartt and Harris should be back for training camp and the 49ers recently signed veteran Tony Jefferson, who also could step in at strong safety. That means Hufanga’s most realistic role as a rookie is as a special teams ace, something college stars don’t usually envision immediately after the draft but which Hufanga already has embraced.

“This is a big, big statement but it’s something I’ve always preached: Being a special teams Pro Bowler in my first year is a goal of mine,” he said. “I think a lot of guys get caught up in trying to play right off the bat. I understand there’s a level to it and I just want to be the best I possibly can be. I’m just grateful for this opportunity.”

The quote caught the ear of special teams coordinator Richard Hightower, who’s intent on revamping the 49ers’ coverage units after a down year in 2020. It also registered with those back home in Corvallis, who said the statement was vintage Hufanga — confident and humble at the same time.

“How many pros say that?” Ellingson said. “It’s not selfish. It’s just that he wants to be the best at what they ask him to, whatever it is. And that’s how he’s always been.”

(Top photo: Josie Lepe / Associated Press)

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