Tui Neau Muti, a 6-foot-2, 290-pound offensive lineman for the Punahou School football team, understands teamwork.

“My mom has eight siblings,” Muti said. “Throughout the course of my life, I’ve lived with every single sibling. It really did take a whole village to get where I am today.”

Muti is entering his senior year at Punahou. After that, he will attend the University of Hawaii on a football scholarship. He accepted the Rainbow Warriors’ 2024 offer on Tuesday.

“That was the goal,” Muti said of a college scholarship, “to make sure my mom didn’t have to worry about me in the future. I wanted to make sure there was no more stress on her. She works really hard. In my opinion, she works too hard as a single mom.”

Muti, who is a blend of Tongan and Fijian ancestry, was born in Berkeley, and spent most of his early life in Central and Northern California. When he was 9, he moved to Laie, where his mother joined the family business of making and selling Polynesian jewelry. His uncles taught him how to carve cow bones into necklaces and bracelets.

Soon after moving to Laie, an uncle enrolled Muti in the Junior Prep Sports’ football program. Muti was bigger than the other fifth graders.

“The first season, I wasn’t into it,” Muti said. “Since I was a kid growing up, I was the biggest in the family. I was always told to be the kind kid. ‘Don’t hit anybody. You’re always going to have a target on your back because you’re bigger than everybody else.’”

The second season, he moved from linebacker to defensive end and then to nose tackle. “I hit somebody hard,” Muti recalled. “All my coaches around me were like, ‘good job.’ In my head, I was like, ‘dang, that feels good.’ After that I was addicted to football. I wanted to hit everybody.”

He used his mother’s cell phone to watch football videos.

“The coaches noticed after the big hit, I just wanted to hit offensive linemen, and I wasn’t really good at going after the ball,” he recalled. “I just wanted to hit people. They were like, ‘you know what, we’ve got the perfect position for you. Right after that, I was the starting right tackle. It was a match made in heaven.”

While he enjoyed growing up in Laie, where his best friends live, Muti, who now lives in Nuuanu, wanted to attend Punahou. He was accepted as a freshman. He has a cumulative 3.2 grade-point average.

He also excelled on the football field. He was the starting left tackle as a freshman and was a left guard and center as a sophomore. Last year, a former UH star was hired as Punahou’s O-line coach. “The Samson Satele,” Muti said of Satele, who played eight NFL seasons. Satele told Muti to focus on playing guard. Muti was named to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s 2022 All-State third team.

Muti was accompanied by his mother, aunt, uncle and cousin on last weekend’s UH-sponsored recruiting visit. Offensive linemen Luke Felix-Fualalo and Solo Vaipulu were his hosts. Muti said he was impressed with the coaches, players and the program’s unity. Muti, who is a member of the Mormon church, said his decision was an answer to a prayer. He also received his mother’s approval.

“I’ve been blessed with a mother who will do anything to help me, especially with education,” Muti said. “Even though we’ve hit some bumps in life, she always made sure I was OK.”