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For Tevita Tauteoli, the best hours of high school were those spent on the football field.
A recent graduate of Hunter High, where he excelled as an offensive lineman, Tauteoli enjoyed the academic side of his education but also counted down the hours until Friday night's game.
"After football season [ended], it was kind of a drag," he said. "That was the only thing that got me through school."
Tauteoli's grandparents emigrated from Tonga, and like many Pacific Islanders in Utah, their grandson found a bridge to higher education through athletics.
But that bridge can become a dead end for students uninterested in sports or who fall short of a scholarship.
While Utahns of Polynesian descent got here long before newer minority populations, in many ways they still struggle — particularly in school. Like other immigrant groups, Pacific Islanders lag on standardized tests. But they graduate from high school in relatively high numbers. Averaged out, their performance hovers just above that of other minority groups, leading, some say, to a sort of benign neglect.
Unless they play football.
But football only goes so far. It helps just about half of Utah's island student population — few Polynesian women benefit from the kind of financial assistance Tauteoli and other football standouts receive.
Educators and advocates argue that, to combat the academic gaps between Pacific Islanders and their white peers, students need programs that both embrace the Pacific Islander culture and promote pathways beyond the gridiron.
"The kids are led to believe that, even at a young age, their ticket is only through athletics," said Tevita Kinikini, a program coordinator with the University of Utah's Office for Equity and Diversity. "There are other avenues for school besides an athletic scholarship."
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'On our own little island' • As a group, Pacific Islanders perform better than many ethnic and racial minorities in Utah's public education system.
Their graduation rate — 82 percent in 2014 — is effectively on par with the state average. And math and English scores on the state's SAGE testing system are higher than those of Utah's Latino, African-American and American Indian students.
But fewer than one in four Pacific Islander students tested at grade level in math, English and science last year — roughly half the rate of white students in the state.
The relative successes of Polynesian students can suppress further academic improvement, according to Hema Katoa, assistant principal of the Academy for Math, Engineering and Science in Murray. Because of their middle-of-the-pack status, he said, Pacific Islanders don't get the attention, intervention and funding that go to other underperforming populations.
"They aren't the lowest of the low, so they don't have those programs," Katoa said. "We're kind of off on our own little island, kind of stuck there. We can't get off that rock."
Katoa said the Polynesian community has been dependent on athletics for too long as a path to education and career opportunities.
Instead, students need to diversify into other areas and not bet all their chips on football scholarships. Those whose athletic careers fizzle, he said, end up foundering academically.
"I see some depression going on," Katoa added. "They don't know what the next step is because they've been so focused [on athletics]."
At the same time, he acknowledges the good that football and athletic recruiting have done to place Pacific Islanders in colleges and universities. He attended the University of Utah on a football scholarship and said it makes him "shudder to think" where his life may have gone without athletics.
"I don't think I'd be dead in a gutter somewhere," he said. "But I do think it would be a totally different situation."
Tauteoli's football career will be put on hold while he serves a two-year mission in Chicago for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After the religious detour, football will again provide Tauteoli with an academic incentive in the form of a four-year, full-ride scholarship to Weber State University. "It's every kid's dream to go and have school paid for," he said, "and do something you love doing already."
Kinikini said Pacific Islander students are increasingly present in all areas of the U., with growing numbers in the school's business and health science departments and within student government.
But stereotypes remain, Kinikini said, which can be discouraging. "Everybody thinks that every Pacific Islander here is an athlete," Kinikini said. "After a while, that can get old."
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Cultural ties that bind • Per capita, Utah has more residents with ancestral links to the Pacific Islands — about 37,000 — than any other state in the continental U.S., according to census data.
Polynesian immigrants, largely of Hawaiian descent, established the West Desert community of Iosepa in 1889. The colony was abandoned in 1917. And the first Tongan immigrants arrived with the assistance of LDS missionaries a little later — a single person in 1924 and another in 1936. Religion continues to be a draw for the state's Pacific Islander population.
Until 1990, Pacific Islanders were counted as Asians in education tracking. Enrollment data from the state Office of Education shows two decades of rapid growth before a more recent leveling off at roughly 9,300 students — about 1.5 percent of the total public school population.
Bev Uipi, who previously served on a multicultural advisory council for Gov. Gary Herbert, said community advocates rely on religious networks to assist and communicate with families.
But the strong pull of a shared religious community, she said, can sometimes distract from the services and counseling available within the school system.
"They'll go to church and they do all that they do," Uipi said, "but they don't go to parent-teacher conferences."
Tricia Sugiyama, interim director of the U.'s Office for Equity and Diversity, said Pacific Islanders face many of the same obstacles as other immigrant populations.
Working parents and language barriers can lead to less involvement in a child's schooling, she said, and seemingly routine milestones such as college applications become overwhelming due to a lack of familiarity with the higher-education system.
"There's a lot of paperwork," Sugiyama said. "There's a lot of hoops that you jump through."
About 400 Pacific Islander students are enrolled at the U. — just 1.2 percent of the student body.
Mormonism might help a student feel at home after they arrive on campus, Sugiyama said. But most students abandon their degree programs because of time and financial constraints, which aren't mitigated by a shared religious culture.
"Being a part of the dominant religion probably has some benefits," she said, "but I don't know if that tracks to actually keeping you at an institution."
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Looking to elders • Uipi said Pacific Islander students benefit from seeing success stories from within their own culture, which places a high premium on family and community ties.
She helped organize a weekly mentoring program at West Valley City's Mana Academy — one of two Utah charter schools dedicated to Polynesian students — where bankers and entrepreneurs visited classrooms and discussed their careers.
"There are so many things," she said, "that we as community members can do."
Fewer than 1 percent of Utah's teachers and principals are Pacific Islanders, according to state Office of Education numbers, which Katoa said can make it difficult for children to find role models at school. In 2012, the most recent year for statewide numbers, a total of 40 Hawaiian or Polynesian students were studying to be teachers at Utah's colleges and universities.
That creates a vicious cycle, with few Polynesian students going into education because they see few Polynesian adults as educators. "We need more teachers that look like us," he said. "That would help if we had more in the ranks, but that requires more in the ranks of college graduation."
Tauteoli plans to take advantage of his scholarship to pursue a double major, likely in entrepreneurship and chemistry. He wants to set an example for his younger siblings by completing his college degree. And even in the best case scenario, a professional football career wouldn't extend beyond his early 30s.
"You've really got to rely on your brain."