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Former BYU star Vai Sikahema urges education, honors family and heritage at Polynesian Football Hall of Fame ceremony

“The real key is not football. Football is the vehicle. I’ve always told kids, make football work for you, don’t work for it.”

LAIE, Hawaii — The first Tongan to play in the National Football League — who was enshrined in the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame at the Polynesian Cultural Center on Jan. 30 — told fans that education is the goal young athletes should chase.

“If you didn’t figure out how important education is to them,” said Vai Sikahema, referring to the acceptance remarks of several other PFHOF Class of 2016 inductees before a sold-out crowd in the PCC’s Hawaiian Journey Theater, “then you missed the entire purpose for this event.