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," Maualuga 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 history and finally on to Cincinnati and the NFL's Bengals for eight years where he was named captain before a final year in Miami.
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Twenty years of his life, from Pop Warner football to the NFL. Rey was a linebacker. Tough as they come. Biggest hitter in the college game.
And then? Well, more of that in a bit.
But now? All you have to do is look at that Instagram photo Rey posted in August with his three daughters and his son.
(Photo: Rey Maualuga (@maualuga) | Instagram)
He's a full-time dad now. And not missing a minute of it. The big smile gives it away.
No longer is Rey ruled by the out-of-control drinking that culminated in his 2021 sentencing to 120 days in the Kenton County (Ky.) jail after the last of multiple incidents of driving his car under the influence through yards and mailboxes and parked cars in a couple of late-night episodes in his suburban Villa Hills neighborhood in Northern Kentucky. TMZ then, as only it can, headlined that Rey "could go to jail for 10 years" before the felonies were pleaded down with conditions.
Nor is there anymore a thought of the arrests for bar fights -- the last in 2017 in Miami, which marked the end of Rey's NFL career.
Nor is he still doing the out-of-control eating that had Rey "door dashing" his way up to 380 pounds after playing at 260. "I carried it well," he says with a grin, "I didn't really look 380," as he shows you the photo of a super-sized Rey. He's right. He didn't, but it was his "fat face," he says correctly, that took the brunt of the weight hit, making him almost unrecognizable.
"I'd order a whole fried chicken – and a second meal for midnight," Rey says. "I was bad." But that was then.