Need a Lift? Mateaki, Hardluck Husky Turned Trainer, Can Take You Places

Donny Mateaki emerged from Hawaii as one of the nation's elite defensive lineman recruits. Had they numbered players back then, he certainly would have been a five-star player. He was big and fast.

His first choice for college football was to play for USC and Pete Carroll, finding himself enamored with the high energy the unfailingly upbeat Trojans coach brought to each practice.

It didn't happen.

"My parents said you can't go to L.A.," Mateaki recalled. "We had family members, cousins, who were in gangs and they didn't want me around those situations. They said I should go someplace else."

Mateaki settled for Washington and Rick Neuheisel, a school two seasons removed from a Rose Bowl victory and led by its own effusive coach.

What could go wrong in Seattle?

Well, just about everything.

He watched as the school fired Neuheisel for his involvement in an NCAA basketball tournament betting pool, sending the program into a tailspin that resulted in the darkest era of Husky football.

Mateaki grew into a 6-foot-5, 290-pound defensive lineman who was in and out of the starting lineup at defensive end and defensive tackle. With his teams often overmatched, his body took a pounding, resulting in shoulder, hamstring, calf and foot injuries.

By the time he was done in 2006, Mateaki had answered to three head coaches, with Keith Gilbertson and Tyrone Willingham following Neuheisel and everyone eventually fired by the school.

"With three head coaches, that was difficult," he said. "It was just a different tone set with each coach, a different culture. So you just try to adjust. It was hard."

Today, Mateaki runs DM Athletics in suburban Kirkland, Washington. For a dozen years, he's been a sought-out personal trainer who's worked with entire high-school football teams, such as Skyline, Bothell and Bellevue, and with individual players.

While the novel coronavirus has been tough on his business, he's kept his facilities sanitized for those who want to come in and use them, and he's made himself available online at https://www.dmathletics.org to others who want long-distance guidance.

Mateaki, slimmed down at 260 pounds, uses his personal experience to screen each athlete, find out what issues might come into play and set up a customized strength and conditioning program.

"I'm a big fan of lifting heavy and forcing the body to adapt and grow," he said. "I want to make sure the athletes are safe and don't get hurt. Thats how I got a lot of my injuries, was by lifting too early or not at the right time."

When he was healthy, Mateaki was a highly productive player, earning Sporting News All-Freshman honors in 2003. Once he injured his foot as a sophomore, similar to teammate Jordan White-Frisbee, things changed for him.

"I had two careers," he said. "Before my injury, I felt I was really coming up to make an impact. After that, I was just having a good time on the field because I was not as effective as I was before."

Mateaki saw plenty of football greatness up close, coming at him. He played against the likes of Adrian Peterson, Aaron Rodgers and Marshawn Lynch, all NFL great ones.

"Going through it, you just don't know how good those players are when you're playing them," he said.

Mateaki gave chase at Oklahoma when Petersen broke a long one and he had the running back inexplicably cut back into his arms. He remembers Rodgers, a California quarterback, not missing many passes against the Huskies. Lynch was always a sideshow, whether he was driving a golf cart on the field after an overtime win over the UW or flashing a garish mouthpiece.

"He had a grill, a gold mouthpiece, and it was his own," the ex-Husky lineman said of Lynch. "Every time I tackled him, he would say, 'Oooh-kay.' He would say it in a Bay Area way. He was laughing. He was a different guy, man."

Mateaki was so good coming in, it would take the Huskies another 16 years before they signed another defensive lineman (Jacob Bandes in 2018) rated as highly as him.

While his college football career didn't pan out the way he had hoped, and the NFL didn't materialize at all for him, Mateaki dealt with it.

"Any time you go through difficult situations, it forces you to grow," he said. "Things didn't work out the way I wanted them to, but all I could do was learn from it. It helps later in life when things aren't going your way."

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