Shrine Classic: A Family Affair for Cousins : Carson, Banning Stars Will Be Together Again When South Takes the Field

Football rivalries cut deep into the tightknit neighborhoods of Carson, where it’s not uncommon for family members and friends to play against each other in high school.

Arnold Ale and Titus Tuiasosopo are familiar with that.

The distant cousins, who are as close as brothers, played flag football together at Carnegie Junior High School in Carson before district boundaries and tradition brought an end to their on-field alliance.

Ale attended Carson High. Tuiasosopo, because his family lives east of the San Diego Freeway, followed three older brothers by attending Banning High in Wilmington.

“It was hard when we graduated (from junior high) because we wanted to play together,” Ale said.

Three years and five Carson-Banning games later, Ale and Tuiasosopo will get that chance, if only for a short while. The two All-L.A. City defensive standouts will play for the South in the Shrine All-Star game at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Rose Bowl.

“It’s going to be different,” Tuiasosopo said. “Everybody is excited, not just me and Arnold. The community is saying, ‘Titus and Arnold are going to be on the same team.’ I know it’s going to sell tickets.”

After the Shrine game, Ale and Tuiasosopo will join forces again for an all-star contest pitting teams from the L.A. City and San Diego sections on July 30 at Mesa Community College in San Diego.

Then it’s back to being rivals. Ale, a 6-4, 210-pound linebacker who was named to several prep All-American teams, will play at Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. Tuiasosopo, a 6-2, 255-pound defensive tackle, is bound for USC.

The cousins have Nov. 26 circled on their calendars. That’s the day Notre Dame meets USC at the Coliseum.

“Right now, USC is my rival,” Ale said. “It’s not like Banning and Carson yet because I haven’t been there. I still like USC, but when it comes down to playing them, it’s going to be different.”

Ale and Tuiasosopo seem prepared for the challenges of college football and life away from home. Both have brothers to serve as models. Leroy Ale is an inside linebacker for Oregon, and Navy Tuiasosopo, a former lineman at Utah State, is a backup center for the Rams.

“I’m going in with a serious mind and humbleness,” Tuiasosopo said. “I can’t come in and think I’m going to change the team around. It’s going to be like coming in as a sophomore in high school. All your laurels are gone. You have to prove yourself all over again.”

While Tuiasosopo will travel 20 miles on the Harbor Freeway to USC, Ale must become acclimated to the Midwest.

“It’s going to be hard for me because I’m going to be far away from my parents for the first time in my life,” he said. “It’s part of growing up. I have to experience a new environment and new things. I can’t stay in L.A. all my life.”

Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz said freshmen rarely have problems adapting to the Catholic school. Of 1,804 freshmen enrolled at Notre Dame two years ago, all but six returned for their sophomore year.

“We’re the only football team in America to lose more football games than students,” Holtz said. “The reason is in the dorms at Notre Dame. A larger percentage of homesickness is overcome because of the family atmosphere in the dorms.

“It ought to be a great experience for (Ale). Not only for him to be coming into a different environment, but also to be bringing a different environment with him. We expect him to bring that Samoan background.”

Ale is the first Carson player to sign with Notre Dame, which makes Ale proud and uneasy at the same time.

“It’s going to be hard socially,” he said. “There are no Samoans out there, nobody I can talk with. But the people are nice. That’s what I liked about it. I had people inviting me to dinner for home-cooked meals, and I’m not even at the school yet.”

Ale will room with linebacker Michael Smalls of Eisenhower High in Rialto, the only other Notre Dame recruit in the Shrine game.

Tuiasosopo is one of six USC recruits in the Shrine game, which features 64 players selected from across the state. Fifty-seven have signed with major colleges.

Robert Richards of Thousand Oaks, co-coach of the South, said Ale and Tuiasosopo figure prominently in the defensive plans. Both will start, Ale at weakside outside linebacker and Tuiasosopo at right tackle, and they also might see action at tight end.

“I liken Arnold to Richard Dent of the Chicago Bears or Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants,” Richards said. “He’s a great athlete with great speed and quickness. He’ll be a big factor in pass coverage and pass rush.

“Titus, emotionally, is going to be the leader of our defensive squad. I get the feeling that he has a love for football.”

Ale and Tuiasosopo nearly became college teammates. Ale was leaning toward USC, but on the first day of the national signing period he committed to Notre Dame at the urging of his parents.

Needless to say, Tuiasosopo was disappointed.

“The day before he signed, he called me and said, ‘USC, I’m coming, I’m coming.’ I felt good. But then he said he wasn’t coming and had made his decision for Notre Dame.

“It’s going to be a serious learning experience for both of us. The only thing different is that Arnold will be doing it in 20-below-zero weather.”

Tuiasosopo laughed and waved his hand at Ale, who grinned and shook his head in response to his cousin’s dig at the climate in South Bend.

“I would have loved to play with him in college,” Ale said. “But I’ve accepted it. I know I made the right decision. I’d like to thank my parents for guiding me the right way.”

Then, feeling a need to get in a dig at USC, Ale added: “Notre Dame is strict academically. They give you the maximum of classes. They don’t let you slide like some schools.”

In high school, Ale proved he was as serious at hitting the books as opposing quarterbacks. The National Football Foundation honored him as a scholar/athlete.

However, most of his honors came on the football field. Ale lived up to his nickname of “Samoan Sackman” by setting Carson school records for most sacks (22) and negative yardage accounted for (-222) in a season. He was named The Times South Bay Lineman of the Year and was selected to the all-L.A. City 4-A team.

While Ale enjoyed a highly successful senior season--Carson finished 11-1, reached the City 4-A finals and was ranked as high as No. 2 nationally by USA Today--Tuiasosopo’s prep career ended in disappointment.

Under first-year Coach John Hazelton, who was fired after the season and replaced by Joe Dominguez, Banning struggled to a 6-4 record. The Pilots were badly beaten by Carson, 35-7, and lost in the first round of the 4-A playoffs to Cleveland, 17-14. It marked the first time since 1974 that Banning, winner of eight of the previous 11 City titles, failed to reach the second round.

Looking back, Tuiasosopo said Hazelton’s and Banning’s downfall was in not sticking to the basic strategies of previous Coach Chris Ferragamo, now the coach at Harbor College.

“I learned a serious contrast in coaching,” he said. “I’m not saying Hazelton was a bad coach. He was a great coach. But I don’t think he was ready to be a head coach on any level. He came in and he didn’t know Ferragamo’s philosophy. Ferragamo was so basic. It was like the old USC days: ‘We’re just going to run over you.’

“Hazelton came in thinking: ‘Banning has been winning all this time, they must have something sophisticated. So I’ll make something that is even more sophisticated.’ But he made something beyond what anybody understood. I had a hard time understanding his defense, and he had all these little sophomores and juniors trying to understand it.”

For 51 weeks of the year, Tuiasosopo and Ale are best friends. The week before the Carson-Banning game is a different story.

“During the season, after a game, we’d meet each other at a burger stand and talk about our games,” Tuiasosopo said. “If the next game was Banning-Carson, no one goes to that burger stand. During the Banning-Carson week, if I see him in the market, I just wave. That’s how intense it is. He might be driving right next to me on the road and I would just turn and look away.”

Said Ale: “We don’t get together during that week. We don’t talk to each other. We just get ready for that game.”

In the last three years, Ale and Carson won three of the five meetings against Tuiasosopo and Banning. The cousins remember one instance when they met head-on in a game, during their junior year when Ale was playing outside linebacker and Tuiasosopo was playing tight end.

“I’d say he got the better of that collision,” Ale said. “That’s when I weighed 170 and he was like 230.”

Tuiasosopo’s versatility--he played defensive tackle, linebacker, tight end, fullback, guard and punter last season--gave him a wide variety of choices when colleges came calling.

Pittsburgh recruited him as a tight end. San Diego State wanted him to be its fullback. Hawaii said he would start at linebacker as a freshman. In the end, however, he picked USC, where competition on the defensive line figures to be fierce because of the return of three starters: junior tackles Tim Ryan and Dan Owens and sophomore nose guard Don Gibson.

“I knew that when I made my decision, but it’s a challenge,” Tuiasosopo said. “Four of the schools I took (recruiting) trips to said I could start the first year. But, inside, I think USC was the right choice. I was afraid if I signed somewhere else, I’d lay back and get big. USC never mentioned once that I was going to start.”

Holtz said Ale has a chance to play as a freshman at Notre Dame. The Irish return only four defensive ends, the position Ale figures to play.

“We’re probably one of the few schools in America that plays true freshmen,” Holtz said. “(Ale) has a chance to make an impact. We don’t look on him as a freshman. We think he’ll be a fine addition over four years.”

Ironically, Ale and Tuiasosopo said their worst recruiting trips were to the schools they eventually chose. And that’s taking into account the fact that Tuiasosopo witnessed a shooting during his visit to Pittsburgh.

It rained the weekend Tuiasosopo visited USC, and Ale said he didn’t enjoy the cold weather and small-town atmosphere at Notre Dame.

Nevertheless, Ale picked the Fighting Irish over USC and UCLA, the team he cheered for as a youngster.

“The UCLA coaching staff is nice, the area is nice and the school is nice, but something just didn’t hit me inside,” he said. “I grew up as a UCLA fan, but when I got older something changed.”

What hasn’t changed is the fact that Ale and Tuiasosopo will remain rivals for four more years.

For the next two weeks, however, they will have a special opportunity to play together.

“At first, I was thinking about not playing in the Shrine game,” Ale said. “Then I realized it’s an honor to play with my buddy. This may be the last time we play together. Just to get that feeling will be great.”