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A football What do you get when you cross a football player with a football super fan? Answer: The Goeas family -- three generations of football players and lovers of the sport. And that's no joke.
family’s tradition
3 generations of the Goeas family
share close ties and love of pigskinBy Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com
When Larry Goeas, a McKinley High School lineman during the 1940s, married Betty Oliveira, a professional hula dancer and the ultimate football fan, it was a match made in football heaven.
The the Star-Bulletin's continuing series
profiling Hawaii's families.
Though patriarch Larry Goeas died in 1991, his spirit lives on.
"My dad was the football guru in our family," said son Larry. "It was never an option not to play. ... We thought it was just part of life."
Betty Goeas, a football zealot, knows the game as well as anyone and has a shirt for every NFL football team her son Leo has played for, including the St. Louis Rams, the team favored in today's Super Bowl. She never fails to wear team colors even for her grandkids' games.
For the Goeas family, football binds the generations together, spectators and participants alike. Whether attending games and tailgating, gathering for the Super Bowl, or just watching the kids play Pop Warner, they share the fun together.
All five of the Goeas sons followed in their father's footsteps and played football in high school. Three played in college. The youngest, Leo, turned pro, playing for the Baltimore Ravens, the Los Angeles and St. Louis Rams, and the San Diego Chargers. Of the 33 grandkids, 19 are boys and 15 are playing or have played on football teams.
Super Bowl Sunday has always been a special family affair.
This year, the entire family will be rooting for the Rams, Leo having played for them from 1993-96, two years in Los Angeles, then in St. Louis.
During his eight years with the NFL, Leo was denied a shot in the Super Bowl. "I wish I could have experienced it," he said in a phone interview. "I guess it wasn't meant to be."
Leo and his family are attending a non-alcoholic Super Bowl party with friends in Colorado. But it's not the beer he'll miss.
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In Hawaii, Larry is throwing a big potluck bash this year at his Waikele house for family and friends, preparing 100 lau laus and a big pot of beef stew.He'll pick up a few pounds of poke, tako, extra lau laus, a sashimi platter and cone sushi this morning from Tanioka's Fish Market, and barbecue some steaks.
"I wish I could be there," Leo said in a phone interview from his Colorado Springs home. "I miss the poke, all the raw fish, tako, just all the local food. You can't beat it. We'll be having the cheese and crackers here."
Larry, a teetotaler, said beer is welcome but he's just providing soda and juice.
"We're just brought up to watch the game," he said.
Dad enforced strict Super Bowl rules. "If you wanted to talk about politics or a job, you had to go in the other room," Larry said.
"Dad would go down to the market, get fish and poi. Mom made some stew. There'd be a lot of screaming and yelling, lot of pools going on. My dad had his chair. They were exciting days," said Layne Goeas, fourth in the family and number two son.
Growing up in a football-oriented family wasn't easy.
The elder Larry Goeas, a bodybuilder, expected his sons to do more than toss a pigskin around to prepare for football.
Layne, slim in high school, said his police officer father would often check on him and his brothers to see if they were lifting weights after school, while on his beat nearby.
"We'd throw water on our bodies, but he could always tell," said Layne, who played quarterback at Kalani High School until 1972.
"We just had to give 100 percent -- as long as we gave it our best," he said. "If we didn't, we don't go out, no extras."
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Dad not only attended all the games, he made every practice for his five sons.Eldest son Lee Mike, who died in 1994, was a quarterback and free safety at Kalani High School until 1969.
Larry, a walk-on at the University of Hawaii, earned a scholarship and became the first son to play college ball. He earned the Warrior of the Year title three years in a row. John, a Kaiser High School all-state wide receiver, followed suit as a UH walk-on and getting a scholarship.
But Dad had a bigger goal in mind.
"My dad groomed us all to play in the NFL," said son Larry. "That was my dad's aspiration for us. Leo fulfilled those dreams."
The highly recruited Kamehameha Schools all-star received offers from several mainland colleges, but decided to play for the University of Hawaii, Larry said.
"The only reason was to play in front of my dad," Larry said. "He made my dad's dream come true when he was drafted by the Chargers."
His father and mother were there in 1990 to watch one of Leo's first games as an NFL player.
"That's a day that I'll never forget, the day he and my mom flew up just to see me play in San Diego," said Leo. "I just wish I could have had more time with him to enjoy that."
"It was very thrilling," Betty said. "I'm so thankful he did get to see (Leo) play that first season."
The couple moved to Las Vegas so they could fly around the country to watch their son play starting left tackle.
The sisters in the family didn't mind not being the center of their father's attention.
"Good thing, I'm a girl," said eldest Laurie Goeas-Leong, grateful for not having to go through the critiquing her brothers got from their father.
"He was a good daddy to all of us," daughter Leslie Ross said.
They praised the support their father gave to their brothers and attribute their success to it.
When Lydia Barr, the youngest daughter, made the freshman Kaiser High School cheerleading squad, her father asked why she wanted to be a cheerleader.
"It's the closest I can get to the football field," she replied, causing him to grin from ear to ear. She ended up marrying a football player.
Of the granddaughters, three girls are cheerleaders, one is married to a former football player and several are dating players.
"My father was always hoping for boys, even when we were pregnant," Goeas-Leong said.
"Husky-looking boys," Ross added.
The entire Goeas family, including the women, enjoyed watching the game together and still do, especially if a family member is playing.
"Our family is very supportive, if we're not tied up," Betty said. "It's our way of life, like four generations going off to a football game."
Brandan Mano Ross, 19, Leslie's son, is planning to walk on the UH football team as a wide receiver this spring. As wide receiver for Kalani in his senior year, he had the most yardage on the team and scored eight touchdowns.
He'll need good hands, not only as receiver, but for his ultimate goal of becoming a sports medicine doctor.
He appreciates all the pointers he has gotten from his uncles.
"I'm very proud of my uncles, and what they've accomplished," he said. "It makes me want to switch places with them. All of them had success."
Layne Jr. played wide receiver for Kamehameha, but went to Hawaii Pacific University on a baseball scholarship. His 12-year-old brother Levi will play football for the UH Lab School.
Matthew, Leo's 14-year-old son, grew up around college and professional football locker rooms.
"Just watching me through the eyes of a young child, he decided early on that's what he wanted to do," Leo said. He's got the natural build for a lineman, Leo said.
Wife Kathy, a former Sacred Hearts Academy cheerleader for St. Louis School, has convinced Matthew to try out for St. Louis when the family moves back to Hawaii in the summer.For the Goeas brothers, football has taught many lessons.
"One of my dad's philosophies was you never quit," Layne said. "You gotta tough it out. It helped me a lot in my adult life. Whatever you do you never quit."
"I think what's so great about football is it relates to life in general," Leo said. "Working together with others to accomplish a common goal in the face of adversity," he said, which he said applies to business.
Though the family touts the merits of football, they don't push it on their kids. But it's there for those who are interested.
"That's our family tradition -- football," Layne said.
