Timpview High School held a 38-31 lead over Mountain Crest in double-overtime of the 2012 Utah Class 4A State Championship game and Thunderbirds’ defensive end Pita Taumoepenu sensed victory as he stalked the line of scrimmage on a do-or-die fourth-down play. Mountain Crest quarterback Jamison Webb took the shotgun snap and stood tall in the pocket.
He had less than three seconds.
Taumoepenu dipped underneath the outside hip of the left tackle and swatted Webb’s ankles as he tried to scamper away – it was Pita’s fourth sack of the game and 25th of the season, then the third-highest single-season total in Utah. An impressive feat for a rugby kid from Tonga that had only been in the U.S. for a few months and never played football before.
The 2023 XFL Defensive Player of the Year turned Battlehawks edge rusher stood in a cold and windy tunnel below the Texas-sized bleachers at Vernon Newsome Stadium last Saturday, more than 6,000 miles from his native island. St. Louis kicks off the 2025 season in 20 days and the team just finished training camp’s first live-contact session.
Dressed in shorts and a t-shirt with Polynesian tattoos wrapped around enormous biceps, Pita could be the character played by UFL co-owner Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in Disney’s Moana.
“I’m just very grateful to be a part of this team again. Honestly, we have some unfinished business last year that we need to get done. I’m here to give everything I got to win a championship with my brothers,” he whispered in soft tones that sounded more like Bashful the Dwarf than Maui the Demigod.
Taumoepenu is content to let his play do the talking and his play is still divine – it must be for a 31-year-old veteran to stay on a roster intended for emerging players on the cusp of the NFL.
@XFLBattlehawks DE Pita Taumoepenu was a one man wrecking crew: 5 tackles, 3 tackles for loss, and 2 drive killing sacks.
The soft-spoken former Utah Utes standout spoke loudly with his pads. His post-game comments pic.twitter.com/O9OqH7eaqL
— Andy Carroll (@carroll_sgf) April 7, 2024
“When we evaluate our roster, and we look at guys that are maybe a little bit on the backend – most of our guys aren’t,” head coach Anthony Becht said. “All these defensive ends (in camp) have the opportunity to take the job from him if they want. Until somebody does, he’s going to be out there.”
If camp’s first live reps are any indication, Pita’s competitors face a tall task. Taumoepenu showcased the explosiveness that earned him a scholarship to the University of Utah after just one season of high school football. He recorded 21.5 sacks in four seasons and the Utes’ bio page sums up his college career in three words: “ferocious pass rusher”.
How 17-year-old Taumoepenu arrived in Provo, Utah tailor-made to succeed in a sport he’d never played before is not a mystery if you’re familiar with Polynesian village life.
“Very simple,” Pita said about his island upbringing. “In the island, I grew up in a village called Pea. It was pretty much the whole family, everyone took care of each other – grandma, grandpa, cousin, first-cousin, all of that. That’s why when you see Polynesian-America, we run into another Polynesian, we like ‘oh, that’s my cousin!’”
One of his Tongan family members of murky relation is Haloti Ngata, an All-Pro defensive tackle that won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens a few months after Pita’s sack sealed the Utah state championship.
Pita remembers watching Ngata on television, but it was his uncle that said that if he succeeded at the sport dubbed “rugby in America”, he’d go to college for free. Taumoepenu did that and then some; he was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the sixth round of the 2017 draft and spent parts of six seasons with six NFL organizations.
He’s been a spring football monster and earned XFL Player of the Year honors with the Vegas Vipers in 2023. He’s also come to appreciate the nuances of his two favorite sports.
“I love them both – I feel like football is so exciting on every single play, you know? Because every single person on the field has an assignment to do, and one person makes a mistake its over with. Rugby, you can freestyle and stuff, you know? You can go score yourself if you want,” he said.
Taumoepenu turned toward the locker room, where the team inside is searching for an identity. Quarterbacks Max Duggan, Chevan Cordeiro and Manny Wilkins rotated evenly in practice with no discernable front-runner, and the absence of A.J. McCarron – the face of the franchise the past two seasons – looms large, though not so large that a 6-foot-two Tongan can’t fill the void.
Then Pita looked back and thanked me for the interview. What could I say except, you’re welcome?
