CORVALLIS - A flight landed Thursday night at Portland International Airport, holding a passenger who would soon take his first steps in the continental United States.
Faleupolu Lauina took back-to-back six-hour flights, bouncing from Pago Pago, American Samoa to Honolulu, Hawaii and finally Portland, where he was picked up for a 96-mile ride to Corvallis by his son and Oregon State senior tackle Fred Lauina.
Temperatures hovered in the low 50s Friday morning, unheard of at his home on the 77 square-mile island in the South Pacific Ocean. But he braved the conditions as his son brought him to the Valley Football Center, the recently renovated hub of the OSU football program.