Throwin’ Samoan : Tuimoloau Has Shot at Olympics

When you’re a full-blooded Samoan, the biggest kid in school and female , you expect to get that look, even if you are a potential member of the U.S. Olympic team.

Dolores Tuimoloau deals with that look nearly every day.

“People see me and I can see that they don’t want to look at me,” she says. “I say to myself, ‘I wish that person would get to know me.’ When they see my smile, they’ll say, ‘Oh, she’s OK.’ ”

At 6 feet 1, 310 pounds, the 18-year-old Tuimoloau can be an intimidating presence--until she speaks or a big smile creases her face. People who know the smile and are accustomed to her soft-spoken manner characterize her as sweet, tender and warm-hearted. Appearances, they say, are deceiving.

And so they are again with Tuimoloau.

After winning the state shotput title last year as an All-American at Channel Islands High, Tuimoloau is academically ineligible this spring and will not compete for Ventura College. Again, she is worried about impressions, but she wants all to know the full story before judgments are drawn.

“It’s embarrassing for me to think that people know I’m ineligible,” she said after a recent workout. “I’m afraid that people will think that I was a bad girl. If the whole thing with my dad hadn’t happened, I’d be kicking butt.”

Last semester might have been a washout academically--Tuimoloau earned only four credits--but her time was hardly wasted. She helped nurse her father through a near-fatal heart condition, sleeping many nights in his hospital room.

Junior Tuimoloau, a 40-year-old assistant football coach at Channel Islands, underwent triple bypass surgery in September, returning home after a 10-day hospital stay. But two days later he was back in the hospital, this time for a month because an infection forced surgeons to reopen and repair the incision.

It was a harrowing time for the Tuimoloaus, particularly Dolores, the oldest of three daughters and admittedly a “daddy’s girl.”

“I was really scared,” she said. “When I first saw my dad in the hospital with all kinds of tubes in him, my heart dropped.”

Suddenly, school seemed unimportant. She missed classes regularly even though her father urged her to attend.

“ ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘If I go to school, you’re always on my mind.”

Tuimoloau also skipped basketball practice as often as not, a pattern that bothered her despite Coach Ned Mircetic’s reassurances.

“I felt like I was a disruption,” she said.

Finally, after playing in Ventura’s first two games, Tuimoloau, an All-Ventura County player last season at Channel Islands, quit the team in mid-November, giving up the sport she calls her first love.

“I didn’t want to lose her,” said Mircetic, who led Ventura to a 28-3 record and a berth in the State quarterfinals. “We were real sad to see her go. In short spurts, she’s as good as any post player around.”

Soon, Tuimoloau would leave Ventura College as well. After realizing that the fall semester was lost, she transferred to Oxnard College, which is within walking distance of her home. She has rejoined high school friends this semester and promises to take advantage of her fresh start academically, carrying 14 1/2 units.

That promise carries weight, she said, because her father seems safely recovered from his surgeries.

“Now, that he’s better, I’m doing better,” she said.

Tuimoloau, who said she will play basketball next season at Oxnard, remains a member of the Ventura track team because Oxnard has no program. Ventura has an added draw for Tuimoloau--Dave Laut.

The Santa Clara High biology teacher and walk-on assistant at Ventura is one of the top shotputters in U.S. history. A standout at UCLA in the 1970s, Laut won a bronze medal in the 1984 Olympics and his best of 72 feet 3 inches is tied for fourth on the all-time U.S. list.

Laut takes a special interest in Tuimoloau and not just because she is a potential Olympian. He played football against Junior Tuimoloau in high school--Laut at Santa Clara, Tuimoloau at Channel Islands--and has remained in contact with the family.

“Yeah, I remember being on the bottom of Junior many times,” Laut said with a laugh.

He turns serious when he discusses Dolores’ future as an Olympic shotputter. Tuimoloau had a best mark of 49-2 last year, a Ventura County record and the second-best high school mark in the country in ’94. She also set the county record in the discus at 145 feet.

But her ticket to the Olympic Games will come in the shotput, Laut predicted.

“She has to start seriously thinking about making the Olympic team,” he said. “If she improves 10 feet, she’s Olympic quality. She’s got tremendous strength with very little experience with weight training. She just needs to be fine-tuned and that’s a coach’s dream.”

Tuimoloau claims that Laut actually overstates her weight-training experience. Before Ventura, she had none. Never touched a barbell in high school, she said. Laut has changed that, supervising a workout schedule that she manages to follow despite a variety of other interests.

Along with school, Tuimoloau is active in her church and serves three days a week as a volunteer at the Ventura School, a California Youth Authority facility in Camarillo. Tuimoloau, who seeks a career in criminal justice, performs clerical duties for the school but has so impressed her colleagues, they selected her to deliver a motivational speech later this month to the inmate population.

“She’s wonderful young lady, and we appreciate her so much,” said Debbie de los Reyes, Tuimoloau’s supervisor. “You get the feeling that she genuinely cares about others. That comes across right away. We want her to talk to the inmates about staying on the right track.”

The right track for Tuimoloau includes at least two more years of junior college before moving to a four-year school, probably USC. The Trojans recruited her in high school but her failure to score 700 on the Scholastic Assessment Test sent her to junior college.

Even though she will sit out this spring, she retains two seasons of eligibility in track. This is like a redshirt year for her. It’s just another question of perception.

“It’s always been that way with me,” she said. “Sports has always been another way for me to express myself. I love it when people see that I’m big but then I surprise them with my speed.

“I’m confident now about my classes. Everything is going to work out. Don’t worry, I’m going to kick butt in class.”