For 11 years, Rey Maualuga prepared for the position he’d play in life. And in football.

From his birth at Ft. Sill’s Reynolds Army Hospital — for which he was named — in Oklahoma where his dad was serving in the U.S. Army and then back to Hawai’i for his early years and then on to Oxnard and Eureka in California where his dad, Talatoni , was pursuing a career as a Pentecostal minister, Rey realized football was his ticket. And his gift.

He also realized in grade school that “Reynold (they dropped the S in naming him) wasn’t tough-sounding or masculine enough for a football guy,” he says, “so I shortened it to Rey.”

Los Angeles was the next stop where Rey was a unanimous All-American and Bednarik Award winner on a USC linebacking crew that may have been the best in college football

See Full Page