"I always told Fahu if he wanted to play football, it would be more than going out and playing the game," he said. "It takes work, a lot of it."

Manu remembers pushing when Fahu was a young teen, just getting interested in football. "He would work hard and throw up and tears would come to his eyes. I told him if he wanted to quit, we'd just go home and he wouldn't have to worry about football anymore. He never quit."

Tongans from Utah to California and Hawaii to Nukualofa will tell you that Manu was once one of the best back-line rugby players to come out of the Tongan Islands. He played on three national championship teams at BYU-Hawaii while going to school.

Because of Manu's athletic career, he knows what it takes to be pushed and to push. After spring drills end next Saturday, he's asked Fahu to come up to Salt Lake City before sunrise and run the hills around Highland High.

"Fahu is the one who asked me to help him," Manu said. "He knows me and he feels I can help him, help motivate him."

Before spring drills started March 15, Manu got up at 4 a.m. daily and drove from Salt Lake City to Provo to meet his son and run with him. "I'd have him run stairs over at the Smith Fieldhouse, and he'd end up running about three miles. We did it in the offseason until spring practice started," Manu said. "Then we just left it up to BYU coaches once spring practice began."

Manu sees that his son needs to keep his knees up high and stop dragging his feet when he takes hand-offs and heads to the line of scrimmage.

"We're working on that, trying to get his form back," Manu said. "He already has his first step getting quicker than it was last year."

In months to come, Fahu will get better. It's the law of nature, a reward of work. But none of it will show without help. Fahu and his running-back friends need the Cougars to forge a tough offensive line.

"I think they're coming along," Fahu said. "They're getting better every day."

Sounds like his own story: One step at a time.

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E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com