Mail bag call on the Wayne Latu infant daughter story

Just got back from football practice and finished my Tuesday column. Saw RB Wayne Latu as he left the Indoor Practice Facility and he says his premature daughter is still fighting hard. He then chided me for not explaining or telling the story of our two families in a Sunday column about his dire situation with his infant daughter.

Earlier on Monday, I received an e-mail from his father, also wondering why I did not mention the family tie in Tonga. Well, when writing the column Saturday, I thought it would distract from the tone and focus of the column to put in a graph about a personal tie that goes back 40 years when Limhi Latu was a classmate of mine.

I used to live in Tonga from ages 10 through 14. My father, Rondo Harmon, worked as the chief administrator for Liahona High School and managed the LDS Church school system in Tonga that included primary schools for elementary aged kids throughout Tonga’tapu and surrounding islands. My mother, June Harmon, taught various subjects at Liahona. Many of her pupils included Waye Latu’s father, mothers of Reno Mahe and Fahu Tahi, the father of Mekeli Wesley and Tom Sitake, father of Utah assistant coach and former BYU fullback Kilani Sitake.

I felt a little uneasy fitting this into a story about Wayne Latu’s little daughter who is fighting for her life in the intensive care unit of Primary General Hospital right now.

Maybe the solution to this minor, awkward personal issue is to include in this blog, the e-mail from Wayne’s father, Limhi. He puts it pretty good, takes it out of my hands, and is a great guy. Here’s the correspondence:

———

Good morning Dick…

Thank you so much for the article you wrote on my son – again. Both times you’ve written an article on my son, they give hope and faith in that which is better and even best.

Since the first article you’ve written on my son many years ago, your words seem to have the power to encourage my son to keep on going and not give up, amidst challenges and obstacles that have turned many young men into quitters. And as you know, he was not allowed to play football his senior year in high school, but today, he is playing for BYU.

The challenges and obstacles seem to come like waves, persistent and relentless over the years – but Wayne seems to believe in having a guiding star leading him along. Wayne knows he has been entrusted with many gifts from our Father in Heaven, knowing that he will one day give an accounting of what he has done with them. One of these gifts is a true athletic gift. And even though Wayne had been given very limited opportunity to get on the field during the games and even to participate in the practices, yet he has been always there, on the sideline, ever ready to make his contribution — seeing things only him — can see.

Even now with this challenge of his baby daughter’s medical complications added to this being his last year at BYU, getting ready to graduate and heading on to medical school, Wayne is still seen on the football field. The hope and faith that kept Wayne coming back each year only to stand on the sideline during practices and games, seem to have brought him to the reality his guiding star is showing him — Wayne has actually been participating in the football practices this year. The faith that even if his opportunity to play would only come in this his last year, his one year of playing would be more than the fours years he did not play.

And again, your article yesterday (Sunday), instilled such hope and faith that Wayne must move along amidst the storms in his life, as he has done throughout his young life.

Dick, to give you understanding and meaning of all this, please some time when you would write about Wayne in the future, please mention in it that Wayne’s dad was a student of your mother’s in Tonga. After all, look at how many young Tongans who are here in America but do not participate in the educational opportunities this great land has to offer. Wayne could have been one of those young Tongans blinded to see their opportunities. But because of the good seed your mother sowed into my understanding about education so long ago in Tonga, Wayne has embraced the value of education in developing his gifts.

My many thanks to you Dick and a deep love and heart-felt appreciation for your mother,

Limhi Latu