Wrestler Fulfills Own Ultimatum : Inglewood: Danny Katoa doesn’t waste his time anymore with fights at school, gangs or failure. Instead, he concentrates on success in sports.

Danny Katoa has a simple resolve--if it wastes his time, walk away.

Katoa, a 17-year-old junior at Morningside High School, realized early that running around with gangs was a waste of time.

So he got out.

Katoa was prepared to give up wrestling just as easily after he had a disappointing season as a sophomore. He didn’t place at the Southern Section 3-A finals, and he knew that he should have.

“I set one goal this year: If I didn’t win CIF, I wouldn’t wrestle anymore,” Katoa said.

It seems to have been an ultimatum that inspired him. In fact, it has been quite a year for Katoa.

He placed second in the Southern Section Masters Meet last Saturday, qualifying him for the state meet Friday and Saturday at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.

Katoa is the first Morningside wrestler to qualify for state.

Last year, Ronnel Lone, now a junior, won the 165-pound division at the 3-A finals but didn’t place at the Masters. Morningside wrestling Coach Joey Robinson says Lone couldn’t wrestle this year because of academic problems.

Katoa advanced to state by winning the 191-pound division at the 3-A finals two weeks ago and then by placing second at the Masters Meet. He has a 40-4-1 record this year.

But wrestling isn’t Katoa’s only sport at Morningside, a school known more for basketball and football.

He is a three-year starter on the Morningside football team. Last fall, he was selected as an all-Ocean League linebacker and a second-team All-South Bay pick by The Times.

This year certainly has been in contrast to Katoa’s life as an early teen, when he ran around with gangs.

He said that in junior high school he was kicked out of school once and suspended five times. He got in fights nearly every day.

“I basically didn’t have any friends, but some of my friends were in gangs and I hung with them,” he said. “I walked away (from the gangs), because, looking back, I was wasting my time.”

Katoa said the change came when his father, a concrete contractor, gave him the choice of straightening out and staying in school or coming to work with him.

Given that, school didn’t seem so bad after all. The work, Katoa decided, was too hard.

Katoa is a native of Tonga, an island near Fiji in the South Pacific. Katoa’s family--two brothers, two sisters, their mother and grandfather--moved from Tonga seven years ago and joined his father, who had already settled in Inglewood.

The move was quite a change from the peaceful, Hawaiian-like world Katoa knew the first 10 years of his life.

“It was a big change,” he said. “The environment, the people--all this gang-banging going on here. I had to get away from that.”

Katoa has directed into athletics the energy that used to get him into trouble.

“I take everything I see and use it (in athletics),” Katoa said. “I’m a violent guy, but I’m in sports, so I use it on the field.”

Still, Katoa gets in his licks.

“He’ll go after you and bang heads with you,” Robinson said.

His football coach, Ron Tatum, describes Katoa as hard-headed, hard-hitting and rougher than most.

“He backs down to no challenge, and his attitude is a toughness that he carries with him,” Tatum said.

But he also has a softer side. And that sets Katoa apart.

“As a freshman he became one of the leaders on the football team and had to set an example for everyone else,” Robinson said. “Like Lisa Leslie (a standout girls basketball player at Morningside), the kids at school look up to them. Other kids look around and say, ‘If they can do it, so can I.’ It gives them a way out.”

Katoa said he helped get one of his football teammates out of a gang this year.

“I was down there before, and I feel I can help get them straightened out,” he said.

Tatum said Katoa often goes out of his way to get other youths to work out with him.

But Katoa is held accountable by more than just his peers.

“He knows if he messes up, his dad, his football coach (Tatum) and me will be all over him,” Robinson said.

Even his old friends, some of whom are still in gangs, motivate him.

“Now they encourage me,” Katoa said. “And when I try to hang with them, they won’t let me. They know they are wasting their time. They say, ‘Keep going on, maybe someday you’ll be on TV and be famous.’ ”

If that doesn’t happen, Katoa knows how to walk away.