Texas LB Liona Lefau showing the Longhorns his Hawaiian hospitality while opponents get island toughness
Multiple Longhorns visited Lefau’s Hawaii home in May, now they’re cheering his development at LB
When linebacker Liona Lefau smashed into the backfield for a Texas safety last Saturday, the loudest ovation was likely heard thousands of miles west in Kahuku, Hawaii.
It’s not easy for Hawaiian-born football players to make it big on the mainland. Lefau wasn’t just an ordinary player, though. At 6-foot-1, 225 pounds, Lefau was an all-state defender who won the 2022 Marcus Mariota Award and was Hawaii’s No. 1-ranked linebacker by 247Sports.
Last season at Texas, Lefau played in all 14 games on special teams. The sophomore is now growing on defense, making 13 tackles so far with four tackles for loss and two sacks, not to mention that impressive safety against Louisiana-Monroe.
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“I would just say my confidence is up a lot,” Lefau said Saturday. His name is pronounced lee-ONG-gah leh-FAU. “Thanks to my teammates, of course, we push each other each and every day.”
Other than Lefau’s family, his biggest fans are in the locker room. Lefau invited his teammates to come to Hawaii last May to work his football camp at Kahuku High School, located on the north shore of Oahu. David Gbenda, Morice Blackwell Jr., Anthony Hill, Colton Vacek, Juan Davis and Vernon Broughton all made the trip to experience Hawaiian culture and Lefau’s family hospitality.
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“I had the experience to see where he came from and the community he has surrounding him, and just to see the amount of love and care and selflessness they all had for each other,” Gbenda said. “Just to see what he was brought up of, it just allowed me to understand him personally and reinforced what I already knew about him — a great person who come from humble beginnings, but also had a great village around him to raise him.”
Gbenda had never been to Hawaii, so for him, it was all new. Experiences like that helped Gbenda and the rest of the Longhorns better appreciate Lefau’s work ethic that got him to UT and formed an incredible bond.
“Got to experience the culture, got to go to the beach,” Gbenda said. “Got to see the Polynesian culture, what they're about, and also experience everything that goes into it, with the history and just the different traditional ways.”
Said Hill: “It felt pretty good. It kind of made us a little bit closer. The fact that we were kind of seeing his origin, seeing his home story, some of his family, it was real nice.”
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Lefau told a local news station in May that he grew up attending other Hawaiian players’ football camps. Lefau knew he had to give back whenever he could.
“It was big for me to come back to my roots to give back to the community that gave me so much and brought me up as a young kid here on the north shore,” Lefau told KHON-TV in May. “Trying to inspire kids and give them knowledge that me and some of my teammates and other boys from different colleges learn throughout the process that these young kids are hopefully willing to take one day.”
Lefau has brought Hawaiian culture to the Texas locker room. Whenever the crowd disperses, Lefau takes over the music and plays things with a “more chill, islandly vibe,” Gbenda said.
Asked to describe Lefau’s personality, Gbenda said, “He shows it off in basically how to treat other people.”
“For him, for his culture, family and respect is a really big thing. He respects everyone,” Gbenda said. “He cleans up. No job is too big for him, and even when he was going home, he still did the same things. He was still the same person.”
The Longhorns can always use excellent people in addition to standout players.
“Our defense, we’ve been doing a pretty good job trusting each other and being able to play fast and physical, but we know that we can do better each and every week,” Lefau said Saturday.
“We're going to come back on Monday and do whatever we can to get better. There's a lot to fix. We were able to make a lot of plays today, but there's always plays out there that we leave and we can always come back and fix.”
