After just one year of football, Seumalo headed to Garden City JC

Senior lineman to join short list of Farmers to play FB at next level

OLINDA -- Outside of his 6-foot-4, 290-pound frame, Vaai "Uso" Seumalo is the most unlikely of college football commits.

The standout Molokai High School senior revealed at last week's Maui Interscholastic League Division II boys basketball tournament that he is set to play football for Garden City Junior College in Kansas in the fall.

After Molokai coach Mike Kahale reached out to Oahu resident Doris Sullivan, who has helped dozens of Hawaii athletes find college matches, a link from Garden City landed on Seumalo's radar.

"She got all my information and after that we just waited and Garden City ended up calling," the Farmers' two-way lineman said inside the Erdman Athletic Center on the Seabury Hall campus. "I had a couple --­ Garden City and New Mexico Military Institute. I'm actually really excited."

He has only played one season of football in his life, as a senior for the MIL eight-player champion Farmers. He is a standout basketball and volleyball player for Molokai and will now join a short list of players from the Friendly Isle to play football in college.

"Out of all my four years at high school, I believe that football was my favorite sport, so ... I do wish I had started earlier," he said. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime and I'm just thankful."

Garden City has finished No. 1 (2016), No. 13 (2017), No. 2 (2018) and No. 9 (2019) in the last four NJCAA final polls. If things go well, Seumalo could be in line to become the first NCAA Division I football player from Molokai since Kimo von Oelhoffen played at Boise State in the early 1990s when the high school did not play the sport.

"That'd be huge, that's my main goal," Seumalo said. "Get to D-I and hopefully the next level."

Via video, the Broncbusters got a glimpse of Seumalo play in the All-Hawaii Bowl all-star game on Oahu in January, a game where he was named the defensive Most Valuable Player.

"I think it's awesome, this is a great opportunity for him," Kahale said. "For us as a program to have a guy like that go out and play at the next level just inspires this next group of kids coming up, so it's just really cool."

Kahale said there was more than one suitor for Seumalo's college career. He says either side of the line of scrimmage would fit for Seumalo.

"I know that there were a couple of options out there for him and he had been exploring and looking at different things," Kahale said. "I'm just happy that he is fulfilling a dream of his. It wasn't that long ago that he didn't really know if he wanted to do that -- he played football his senior year, fell in love with the game."

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.