Family Business

Tiloi Tuitama learned the leg ride at an early age, a move that suits the long-legged Hueneme High wrestler to a T.

Soon, Tuitama might have a leg up on his father, Tiloi Tuitama Sr., who taught his son the moves that made him Channel League champion for Hueneme in 1967 and ‘68--and his son the same last season.

Now, Tiloi Jr., who advanced to the state finals in Stockton last March, has his sights set higher.

“I see his name on the wall of fame at Hueneme,” said Tuitama, a senior competing at 171 pounds. “And that’s what motivates me. You know, I really look up to my dad.”

Rarely does he wrestle far from the watchful eye of his father, an assistant football and wrestling coach at Hueneme and a familiar face at wrestling events throughout the region.

The elder Tuitama, 48, a firefighter who moonlights as a wrestling official, rarely misses a Hueneme meet, sometimes heading straight to the gym after clocking out on a 24-hour shift.

“I feel good about it,” Tiloi Sr. said. “It’s one of those extensions that fathers have. I didn’t force him to go out [for wrestling]. He chose to go out.”

Before taking the mat, Tuitama, one of eight children, takes a comforting glance toward his father and mentor.

“Tiloi likes to have his father there, watching,” Coach Juan Flores of Hueneme said. “I see him much more confident when his father is there.

“It’s on an emotional level. I see a lot of pats on the back, consistently: ‘I’m proud of you, son. I’m proud of you.’ ”

Tuitama, 48-9 last season, is the best of a Viking team favored to win the inaugural Pacific View League title. Tuitama, a defensive end in football, is one of two returning Southern Section wrestlers from the region who advanced to the state meet.

Tuitama won three of five matches at Stockton. But his intensity waned after losing his first bout. The same was true at the Southern Section Masters Meet, where he placed sixth after losing in the first round.

This season he’ll try to ignore setbacks.

“Last season, it seems to me, his whole countenance changed and his wrestling style changed, once he was the only one on the team still wrestling,” Tiloi Sr. said. “We talked about it. My son asks a lot of questions, so I coach him a lot.”

The state wrestling finals didn’t exist until 1974--hence the elder Tuitama ascended no further than the Southern Section semifinals before accepting a wrestling scholarship to Arizona State.

Kilepoa Tuitama, Tiloi’s brother, won a Channel League title for Hueneme in 1996 but not a state title.

Tuitama’s goal this season is clear.

“Last year, it was kind of all or nothing for me,” he said. “I lost my first match at state, so I got kind of down. I really didn’t feel motivated after I lost. But this is my senior year and I’m going all out.”

The relationship between Tiloi Sr. and his five sons--four of them wrestlers--is close. As toddlers, the Tuitama children often accompanied their father to events he officiated. Understandably, they took a quick liking to the sport.

Tiloi Sr., one of eight children, soon passed to his sons techniques he and his brothers popularized.

“People in the county knew the Tuitamas, we were leg-riders,” Tiloi Sr. said. “So, when Tiloi grew up, I taught him ‘The Guillotine,’ how to squeeze someone with your legs.”

Like father, like son.

“I like leg-riding,” Tuitama said. “When I use my legs, it gives me a chance to rest while I’m on top of the guy and all the pressure’s on him. I try to wear him down.”

Tuitama describes his father as loving and strict. Father describes son as quietly motivated.

“I never really had to push him,” Tiloi Sr. said. “He does it on his own. “I don’t even know if he looks at me as Coach. I think he just looks at me as Dad.”

Perhaps a bit of both.

“He treats me like any of the other wrestlers,” Tuitama said. “He’s very strict because he’s a conditioning coach. He expects a lot out of me.”