Teresa Varley
Making sacrifices.
It’s something you often have to do in order to get where you want to be in life, yet so many don’t really want to go that extra mile to get to where they want to be.
Roman Wilson is not one of those people.
Not even by a long shot.
The Steelers third round draft pick went the extra mile and then some when he was in high school to help make his dream a reality.
Wilson grew up in Hawaii, where most of the state is not a hotbed for high school football, with one exception.
St. Louis School.
It’s a school that produced current and former Steelers, including Chris Fuamatu Ma’afala, Tyson Alualu, and Nate and Nick Herbig, as well as other NFL players like Marcus Mariota and Tua Tagovailoa.
For Wilson, it was the ideal school to attend.
There was one problem though.
Wilson lived on the island of Maui, while the school was on the island of Oahu.
But he had a dream, and he was willing to go the extra mile to attend the school that could potentially change his life and he wasn’t about to let anything stand in his way.
When football practice began at St. Louis School leading into his freshman year, the journey to the NFL truly began. And oftentimes, the road was filled with turbulence.
Wilson would wake up at 4 a.m. every morning to catch a flight from Maui to Oahu at 6 a.m. to attend practice, summer classes, and then fly home for the night.
With money tight in the home, his mother, Colleen Colegrove, took multiple jobs while his father, Jeffrey Wilson, got a job with Hawaiian Airlines so his son could fly free on standby.
“I had an opportunity and I felt like that was my only opportunity,” said Wilson. “If I wanted to pursue this career, I felt like that was my best chance. It was kind of a long shot, but at the time I felt like I was my only shot, so I had to.
“I used to get up at four in the morning, get on the plane for standby, fly over to the island, get on the public bus to go to school. I did that for close to a month.
“I was burnt out. I was flying a lot. There was a lot going on. But it worked out.”
It worked out thanks to one of his high school teammates. Po’okela Louis heard what Wilson was doing to be able to attend the school, himself taking a bus for two hours to get there. He couldn’t even fathom what Wilson had to do. He talked to his parents to see if they could help.
“It was just a random day of practice near the beginning of the season, and I overheard some of our teammates saying this guy’s flying back and forth every single day,” said Louis, who made the trip with Wilson to Pittsburgh the day after he was drafted. “That stuck with me. I went to my mom and told her, and she told me to tell my dad. My dad talked to his dad and within a few weeks he was staying with us. We became like brothers. We clicked instantly. Our relationship grew a lot going to school. I think traveling to school, those long bus rides, because we would have to catch three busses to get to school and it took two hours. We just became close.”
While the friendship blossomed, the struggle and exhaustion still existed as the two-hour daily bus ride was still something difficult to deal with.
“I stayed with him at first,” said Wilson. “His family reached out to me after practice. I stayed with them for a little bit. I stayed with some other people. And then my dad got a house on Oahu, it was Section 8, nothing fancy. I started living there. It was a broken-down apartment. But it was cool. I was happy, I was grateful for it. And, you know, that whole process, that whole journey, made me humble, made me realize that I’m human. It was good for me. And I learned a lot. I learned how to be patient, and I learned how to be dedicated.”
While there were ups and downs for Wilson during the journey, it was also trying on his mother, who admitted it wasn’t easy to let her 14-year-old move in with a family they barely knew.
“It was hard because he’s only in ninth grade and he’s going to another island,” said Colleen Colegrove. “He was living with people we only met through school and football. You have to trust that it’s going to work out for your child. It was emotionally challenging because you don’t expect your child to leave in ninth grade to go to school far away. His dad ended up moving there to be with him, and I would travel to his games.
“He was so mature how he handled everything. He never complained about having to go to practice, about school, nothing. He worked so hard all the time. It’s a blessing he has that motivation and drive.”
That motivation and drive made Wilson grow in ways he never imagined. And he did it, because he didn’t have a choice.
“I definitely had to grow up at a young age and figure out how to navigate a city by myself or live with other people, or just be away from my family,” said Wilson. “You try to pick and choose things to do and try to stay on the right path. It just helped me mature early on.
“When I first started staying there, I felt like I was going home every opportunity I got. Then I started getting more comfortable. The hardest thing for me was leaving all my friends behind at home because I felt I cherish them. That was hard.
“But the experience alone and getting to grow up and see a different perspective on life than what other people get to grow up and see. That journey was special. I will always have that with me. I feel like that was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. And I feel I can do anything.”