Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa Finds Fit With Notre Dame’s 40-Year Plan
Anybody who’s dealt with Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa knows he’s an extraordinary kid.
Yet so many expected him to make what would have amounted to a rather ordinary decision when it came to picking a college.
They paid attention to what gloves he wore instead of direct quotes about making “the necessary sacrifice” to set himself up for the rest of his life.
“I laugh at the people on Twitter when they talk about these gloves that he wore,” his mother, Taliuta Viliamu-Asa says. “I asked him, ‘Why do you keep entertaining folks with putting those gloves on?’
“He goes, ‘Mom, well, I don’t have any USC gloves. I don’t have any Notre Dame gloves and I wanted to wear gloves, so those are the gloves I have and those are the ones I wore.’”
They assigned more weight to his Instagram feed than his comments about wanting to pick a school where he wouldn’t have to compromise.
“Ultimately, the academia was always the center of everything that came with it,” Mrs. Viliamu-Asa says.
Strangers who’ve never met him were so sure he’d jump at the largest NIL deal he could find that they never bothered to learn anything about the family he comes from.
“You’re talking to a mother who worked all her life for kids who never had to struggle or want for anything,” Mrs. Viliamu-Asa says. “An NIL deal isn’t going to buy me nothing…That wasn’t even anything we were entertaining. So, to me, it didn’t matter.”
They completely discounted – or simply didn’t understand – the values he was raised to cherish; discipline, respect, hard work, being kind no matter what and - perhaps most importantly – the importance of education and faith.
And so, when Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa announced his commitment to Notre Dame on Sunday over Ohio State and USC, the 2024 California linebacker sent a jolt through the college football recruiting world.
It may have been a surprise to the outsiders, but not to those closest to Kyngstonn.
“It checks all the boxes, it really does,” his mother says of Notre Dame. “There's value in each of them. There are boxes that can be checked.
“But the spiritual aspect of it that, as his mother, I know would keep him focused even more was that Grotto, that Basilica, the places right there on campus and accessible to a kid whose faith really is strong. It’s all there when you step on Notre Dame’s campus. There's just something you feel about it…It's a special place. It's a special place to me.”
Still, that realization didn’t come quite as quickly to a 17-year-old as it did his parents.
Kyngstonn was truly torn between all three schools all the way until the end. And while his parents held no such reservations, it wasn’t their decision to make.
They orchestrated the process to a point.
They made sure he was able to visit any college he wanted. He made a few trips with coaches and other recruits instead of family, usually back to a school he’d already visited and/or to schools that weren’t among the top contenders.
But his mom and younger brother, Kdynn, accompanied him on most of the trips.
When he wanted to release a Top 10 list, he was told that while he may like 10 schools, there was no need to seriously consider that many. Instead, he released a list of three.
They planned everything in advance, all the way down to the announcement date of July 23rd, sandwiched perfectly between a weeklong church camp and the start of his own preseason camp, allowing just enough distance from the official visits to make an unemotional decision.
Still, they weren’t going to make that decision for him.
“We navigated his way and made every decision for him before this,” Mrs. Viliamu-Asa says. “He's never had to make a decision. We've made it for him. We told him what we were going to do. We told him how it was going to go. We told him what he was going to do and Kyngstonn never contested anything we said.
“But my husband and I agreed that his choice for college was going to be his decision 100 percent.”
And even in the face of the distinct possibility that his choice would be different from theirs, they never stressed.
“Because I know my son and because I was the one on all these visits with him,” his mother says. “I knew what I could entertain with him, and I knew what he liked, and I knew what he didn’t like.
“Kyngstonn’s one of those kids who thinks very deeply of things. A kid could be hyped about a school because of their record of getting guys to the NFL. But at the same token, what is the Business School like? What is your Finance Department like? What is the Real Estate like?
“In life, we’ve told him to look at the bigger picture. Always look at the bigger picture of things, not just a piece of the picture, look at the whole picture.”
That is exactly what he did.
“Our goal was the result we are getting,” Mrs. Viliamu-Asa says. “We navigated his journey through this process and we advocated for our son.”
It’s the exact advice she’d give any parent going through the recruiting process.
“It’s very important to be a strong part of the process because it’s your child,” she says. “Never allow someone else to navigate it for your kid but most of all, it’s important to operate for the best interest of your child. The goal is the bigger picture to capture.
“We didn’t know how it was going to happen, but we were determined to succeed our way! If we failed, it was our son we failed. God’s mix throughout this journey has been amazing and we owe Him all the glory, honor and praise for allowing us the opportunity.”
It was also another opportunity for Kyngstonn to serve as a role model for Kdynn. Kyngstonn included his 10-year-old brother in the process whenever possible, even sharing the table with him for Sunday’s announcement.
“I'm telling you, this kid is special and I'm just not saying it because he's my son. He's an old soul inside of a teenage body.”
A special kid from a special family.
Extraordinary, really.
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