Tropic of Football

The tiny island of Independent Samoa (pop. 200,000) is literally brimming with elite football talent. According to one statistic, athletes of Samoan descent are forty times more likely to play in the NFL than any other demographic group. Some of the brightest stars include Jesse Sapolu, Junior Seau, Troy Polamalu, Marcus Mariota, and Tua Tagovailoa. The most recent member of this fraternity to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame (HOF) was Polamalu in 2020. Wearing a vibrant purple lei draped over his newly pressed gold jacket, the ex-Steeler safety cited his Polynesian roots as the reason for his football success: “I come from a culture where discipline, humility, and respect are not only the foundation to our survival but the key to our existence. I am a first-generation American Samoan.” Samoan precocity raises questions about what accounts for this gridiron density. Is it because of a genetic predisposition, exotic fruits that build strength, or callused hands from rugged island occupations?In Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans to the NFL, Rod Ruck argues that the proximate reason for Samoan aptitude is their culture, fa'a Samoa—in the way of Samoa. Fa'a Samoa's values were underscored by Polamalu in his HOF speech: humility, pride, dignity, respect, and discipline. Coupled with these cultural principles were two mutually reinforcing developments in Samoan history: the arrival of Christian missionaries beginning in the nineteenth century and the US military during World War II. Infusing native culture with Christian discipline and military deference produced athletes who placed the team or collective, a reference to the island's historic mutualism, above that of the individual. They also refused to fail lest family and culture lose face. This ethic was combined with physicality, athleticism, and no fefe (no fear).Using an impressive set of interviews, Ruck arranges his book into chapter-long profiles of players who are emblematic of this convergence of Samoan culture and history. Before Troy Polamalu, there was Jesse Sapolu. Born in 1961, Sapolu grew up in Toamua, a few miles from the current capital in Apia, where he received instruction in fa'a Samoa. As a middle school student, he was imposing, six feet tall and over 200 pounds, but a heart condition relegated him to standing by his teacher during recess. Mocked by other boys for the seeming uselessness of his body despite his physical gifts, Sapolu resolved never to complain about injury if given a chance to play. Following his parents, Christian missionaries, the young man moved to California and then Honolulu, where his father became pastor of the First Samoan Congregational Christian Church in Kahili. Despite an enlarged heart, Jesse starred at Farrington High School and the University of Hawaii, where he was recruited by maverick coach Dick Tomey. A hilarious vignette from the book is an account of Tomey's visit to the Reverend Sapolu's church, where he sat in the back without understanding a word until Sapolu's sister alerted him that the service was over and that her father was giving the financial report. Jesse anchored the San Francisco 49er offensive line in four Super Bowls. Now he is island royalty, a matai, or king.Ruck warns, however, that the cultural taproot of Samoan prowess may be contributing to a public health crisis. In an affecting chapter, he describes the odyssey of former San Diego Charger Junior Seau, a rare athletic talent from Oceanside High School in San Diego, whose descent into pain and anxiety led to his suicide. Notwithstanding the effects of concussive blows, Samoans are perhaps the most obese people on the planet. The statistics are truly grave and football, with its emphasis on wide bodies, is partly to blame. Ruck also, however, decries the consequences of the globalization of processed foods, declines in physical work, and rising government dependency. His sincere concern for Samoa echoes the warnings of Robert Louis Stevenson against Westernization at the turn of the twentieth century. To reverse the island's health maladies, he calls for a return to its cultural roots: independency, collective action, and physicality.Ruck previously probed the role of culture in the explosion of baseball in the Dominican Republic, and his study of Samoans and football is incisive, thoughtful, and a pleasure to read. Other books purport to identify the sources of football obsession in places like western Pennsylvania, according to Ruck's facile phrase, the “fertile crescent” of the sport, but few have the same analytical heft as Ruck. This book should interest scholars of global sport and the Americanization of a Polynesian community

College football · Football · Political science · Law · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society

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