Brothers Again : Samoan Players Cement Family Bonds on CSUN Football Team

There is no kitchen table. It was thrown out when the group of athletes grew to six, two too many for the table but not for the two-bedroom apartment. There is even room for a dog.

The living room is bare except for two mattresses and the piles of sweats and T-shirts at the foot of each mattress.

In each bedroom are two tiny beds, too small for the hefty Cal State Northridge football players who sleep on them.

One room is occupied by Alo Sila and Frank Sila, brothers who were separated as children by an old Samoan custom and again as teen-agers by peer pressure.

Football has brought them together again.

Frank is just getting started athletically and academically. Alo, who is also a late bloomer, took an unusual path to collegiate football.

That path paid off this fall in preseason All-American honors based on a 1990 season in which Alo made 48 tackles, 28 of them unassisted and 13 for losses of 73 yards. From his nose guard position last year as a junior, Alo also blocked an extra point and made six quarterback sacks in leading the Matadors to their first Division II playoff berth.

Alo dreams of a return to the playoffs and ignores his simple surroundings.

He has known much worse. He has lived with more people, less food and constant temptation. Although he often fell in with a high school crowd that skipped class, he managed to avoid the Sons of Samoa gang who introduced Frank to jail time.

Alo’alii’malia’toa Sila was born in 1968 in American Samoa, a group of small islands in the South Pacific. Alo was named after a ta’ma ta’ua (warrior) and was blessed with unusual malosi (strength). He wore a la’lava (skirt) and ate raw fish and whole roasted pigs.

When Alo was 7, his world abruptly changed. He left Samoa with his youngest sister, Nai, and his mother Timuia and settled in the United States with Alo’s oldest brother, Panapa. They were the first of four Sila children sent to the United States to live with relatives and gain a better education.

But at school in San Clemente, Alo was a misfit.

“I was used to running around with the wildlife and now I had teachers watching me,” he said. “They thought I was hyperactive.”

It took Alo two years to finish first grade because of his unfamiliarity with the English language.

By then, Alo’s father Sae had saved enough money to join the family in the United States.

Shortly after Sae’s arrival, the Silas moved to San Jose and shared an apartment with Alo’s oldest sister, Pafuti. At various times, aunts, uncles and cousins moved in until they could find places of their own. With Sae disabled by a welding accident, money was always tight.

“Whatever I got, I got,” Alo said. “If I had clothes I was happy to have clothes. Our family had it bad then, that’s why we didn’t ask for much.”

After school and during the summer, Alo and his siblings helped make ends meet by picking prunes and apricots and bunching onions in the fields.

“Sometimes I wished I had what other people had,” Alo said. “But usually I was just grateful for what I had. I always tell myself in the long run it is going to be better for me.”

He used the same foresight to ward off the Sons of Samoa.

“I didn’t want to go to jail,” Alo said. “I just didn’t want my future to go like that.”

At 16, Alo, a 220-pound wrestler, tried football for the first time. He took an instant liking to the sport and the weight training that goes with it, eventually setting the Overfelt High bench-press record of 365 pounds.

As a senior, Alo was the Mount Hamilton League’s outstanding defensive lineman.

“Sports was the main thing that kept me in school,” Alo said.

After high school, Alo planned to work as a furniture mover, but high school teammates talked him into playing at San Jose City College.

An all-conference performer in junior college, Alo wanted to transfer to San Jose State, but without his Associate in Arts degree he was ineligible to accept a Division I scholarship. He had to settle for Division II. Northridge fit the bill.

When Falani (Frank) Sila was 3 years old, his mother, in keeping with Samoan custom, gave him to a daughter of the King of Samoa who had no children of her own. The princess was moving to Hawaii and had the resources to provide a better life for Frank.

In time, Frank remembered little of his six brothers and sisters. He understood the princess to be his mother.

But when Frank was 10 the princess died suddenly and the youngster was sent to San Clemente, back with his natural family.

“I was really spoiled (in Hawaii) and I went right to the projects,” Frank said. “Plus, it was weird for me to see my natural mom as my mom. When I was first there I cried every day and asked them, ‘When am I going to go back?’ ”

He could not understand why Timuia was hugging him so tightly and bursting into tears every time he mentioned Hawaii.

“I didn’t know how much I was hurting her feelings,” Frank said. “Now that I know my mom, I wouldn’t trade her. I love her. I’m more grateful for the way things worked out than I am bitter that I was separated from her.”

Initially, Frank was not greeted warmly by Alo.

“We fought a lot,” Alo said. “It was like, ‘Who is this new person in our family?’ ”

Shortly after Frank’s arrival, the family moved to San Jose and three years later, Frank began to run with the Sons of Samoa. At 16, he stopped going to school and had to repeat his junior year. Eventually, he dropped out altogether.

“It was always easy to fool my parents,” Frank said. “They didn’t know about gangs and they were heavy into the church.”

When Frank was arrested for stealing and sentenced to 13 months at a boys’ ranch, his parents were shocked, but the loss of their respect and his freedom did not deter Frank.

He continued to steal and eventually he paid a higher price--six months in county jail.

“Jail doesn’t rehabilitate you,” Frank said. “If anything, it makes you worse because guys tell you new ways to break the law. They just sit in there and scheme.”

Frank had plenty of company behind bars. The Sons of Samoa were regulars.

“There were like 17 of us kids in jail,” Frank said. “If we sat down and talked, we realized we were losers and that (Alo) was a winner. He always did his own thing and we respected that.”

The gang SOS ran on misguided machismo, Frank said.

“Some of the things that sent me to jail were dares,” Frank said. “People would dare me to do risky things, like walk into someone’s house and rob it in broad daylight. It was a reputation thing. When you first came in, you had to earn your stripes. You had to be the baddest guy on the block. Looking back now, it was all stupid.”

Frank’s eventual salvation was sports. After nearly six years in and out of juvenile hall and county jail he earned a graduate equivalency diploma, followed Alo to San Jose City College and, at 21, played football for the first time in his life. It didn’t hurt that he stood 6-feet-3 and weighed 275 pounds.

“Once I was playing ball, there was no time to mess with the gang,” Frank said. “I’m not the least bit attracted to that (gang) life. I really want to get my degree more than anything. The football scholarship gives me the money to get through school.”

Frank, a senior defensive tackle attending Northridge on a partial scholarship, is academically ineligible this season but retains one season of athletic eligibility.

“It is not a big shock to be broke,” Frank said. “We are conditioned for it. I think what binds us together is being broke. When someone has something, we stretch it out for everyone else.”

Real men wear la’lavas at Cal State Northridge. Even Coach Bob Burt has, at times, donned the Silas’ native garb.

Alo eats green bananas and dates Siaga Eliapo, a Samoan woman, but the most important Samoan tradition he maintains is reverence for family.

“No matter how well I’m doing in school, I will go home if my mom and dad need me,” Alo said softly.

A few days later, Alo’s words rang true. He and Frank left school to visit Sae, who had undergone surgery Sept. 11 for complications of diabetes and high blood pressure.

Now, more than ever, Alo must rely on his Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde personality, which allows him to put aside--if only temporarily--his concern for his father and concentrate on football.

“Off the field I’m nice, but on the field I go crazy,” Alo said. “The only thing on my mind is to go. Samoans think winning is everything and they’ll do anything to win. If a Samoan plays football he throws his body around. If it takes breaking a leg or a shoulder, he’ll do it.”

That tenacity is one of three attributes that make Alo special, according to Burt.

The others are his strength--including a 500-pound bench press--and the way he combines his size, 6-1 and 275 pounds, with speed.

“As big and as strong as he is, he has tremendous athletic ability,” Burt said. “He can move and run.”

In the Southern Utah game last season, for instance, Alo intercepted a pass and returned it 33 yards for a touchdown.

Despite a sore shoulder and a position move to tackle this season, Alo has caused one fumble, deflected two passes, recorded three quarterback hurries and made 15 tackles, including two for losses totaling eight yards.

Alo moved to tackle to allow newcomer Carlos Adley to play nose guard. Mark Banker, CSUN’s defensive coordinator, appreciates Sila’s sacrifice for the team.

“As a person, on and off the field, as a leader, we could not do it without Alo,” Banker said.

Alo hopes a National Football League team feels the same way, some day.

For now he is counting his blessings. After all, Frank is back in the fold, and his father is recovering and his roommates at the affectionately known “Chateau Ghetto” are like family.