Notre Dame Commit Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa Built His Game With Toughness And Love

RPO, outside zone, stack and shed, trigger, cover three, vertical passing game .… Bumblebee? Football jargon is considered pretty universal. The nerdy football types have often muttered these words, but clearly Bumblebee doesn’t seem to fit.

For star Notre Dame 2024 linebacker commit Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, it fits perfectly. In fact, it’s the foundation for everything he knows about the game of football. According to his mother, Taliuta Viliamu-Asa, her husband did a tremendous job helping to turn Kyngstonn into the football player he is today.

It all started with the cartoons that he grew up with.

"My husband was very instrumental with him because he did watch film with Kyngstonn, he did go over plays with Kyngstonn,” Viliamu-Asa said. "In coaching him, my husband used different techniques for Kyngstonn to be able to understand the game, with things that were relative to him as a kid.

"Cartoons and characters were a thing that was very important,” she continued. "My husband would use the cartoon characters from Transformers. He would call out a play and say things like 'Bumblebee'. Bumblebee would be a certain type of tackle based on the movie. They would do a certain type of move in the movie and that’s the same technique he would apply it to.”

It didn’t stop with Bumblebee. Being able to relate the various football terms to something very familiar paid off. It made the game that much more relatable.

"Then he would say 'laser focus',” she explained. "He would always use cartoon characters to be able to yell it out for Kyngstonn to execute it on the field.

"In his youth football, everyone was laughing at us when we would be yelling these cartoon characters out but when we would yell it, Kyngstonn could execute it,” reminisced Mrs. Viliamu-Asa. "At the beginning, they would laugh as we were yelling bumble bee. They had no idea what we were doing but that was my husband's message to Kyngstonn on how to execute the play.”

Over the years things have certainly changed a little bit. That football vocabulary has gotten more expansive, but it all started with that early adolescent understanding. It was the building blocks for things to come.

"There were a lot of different things that my husband would use to be able to make Kyngstonn understand at that young age and of course as we grew older, those names had to change because now you’re running different routes and running cover two and those sort of things,” she said. "It was very instrumental that it started from that and has led to this.”

His father is a big reason why Kyngstonn has become a consensus four-star recruit in the 2024 recruiting class, including ranking as high as the No. 30 overall player and No. 3 linebacker in the nation in the Rivals ranking. It did not, however, start and end with the football jargon. There were a lot of tireless hours that went into his development.

"When Kyngstonn was four, because he was always the tallest kid, they would always put him on the line,” his mother said. "At first we were just observers. Then my husband was like, ‘No, he’s not going to be on the line.’ Just by what he saw, he didn’t belong there. He ended up coaching Kyngstonn from four to 13 years old. It was done that way purposely because at 14, we wanted it to be with other coaches since we would be going into high school after that and his dad wouldn’t be on the sidelines.”

Some of that coaching could be considered very unconventional. For the Viliamu-Asa family, a lot of the hard work started out front of their family home.

"My husband trained Kyngstonn in our front yard from when he was little and would use what we had,” she said. "He used large trash cans. Kyngstonn tackles the way he tackles today because he taught him how to tackle those large trash cans. He used foam and a large trash can. He would have Kyngstonn jump over the foam and tackle the trash can.

"He also used a broom stick,” Viliamu-Asa continued. "In our yard, he would put it into a square shape. He would make Kyngstonn run in this square, but if the broomstick landed on his back, he was too slow. He would go around the square and chase Kyngstonn with the broomstick and that was how he was able to catch his speed before he got into training.”

You can say that in a lot of ways, Kyngstonn was raised to be a top athlete from a young age. Everyone will hyper-focus on his commitment to the University of Notre Dame, other big time programs that he said no to, and what they see every Friday night in the fall for national champion St. John Bosco of Bellflower, Calif..

What you won’t see is that there was a lot of blood, sweat and tears along the way, along with some tough love mixed in.

"Kyngstonn was a running back and linebacker growing up,” Kyngstonn's mother stated. "Then they ended up putting him at safety and cornerback. So he did all those positions on the defense so pretty much he knows what everyone is doing.

"When he was playing running back and if he would miss a pass, we would take him home and my husband would make Kyngstonn put his hands flat out and he would hit him with a stick, a paddle for how many times he missed the ball,” she added.

Then after all that field work, practice and game time, the family would head back home. Kyngstonn and his father would then take the next step, watch some film and continue to grow.

"There were several nights of film work so after every game, we would give a DVD of the game,” Viliamu-Asa explained. "We would go over it. He would go over it with him and ask, ‘Well, what could you have done differently, son? What could you have changed here to be able to make this play?’ That dedication, that commitment, the sacrifices we had to make all built this and develop this player we have.”

When the California star opted for the Irish over finalists Ohio State and USC on July 23rd, the Notre Dame program received an incredible football player and person. When you get to know his family and those around him, it becomes obvious that his outstanding talent was forged over a period of time, through toughness and love.

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