The Samoan pipeline

California Sunday Magazine:

Over the years football coaches have found on the island a ready inventory of large, big-boned, and nimble Samoans, with the kind of solid base that football coaches love: massive from the waist down but still able to move their feet. Samoans’ facility with footwork is often attributed to tribal dances and the common practice of going barefoot. Their love of combat is derived from a fierce warrior culture that goes back hundreds of years.

With an upbringing that stresses hard work, discipline, and devotion to authority, both heavenly and earthbound, Polynesians have come to be considered the ultimate clay from which to mold a football player. It is as if a childhood of gentle obedience translates into a passion for ferocious violent contact, the kind of collisions that resonate through a stadium and electrify the crowd.

If you are a football fan, the men of Samoa are familiar to you. Even if you’re not a fan, it’s an interesting story and one common among Blacks in America regarding basketball and Dominicans regarding baseball. There’s often nothing else to do and it’s seen as the only way to a better life.