How Hawaii, soccer and a long NFL life have shaped Panthers’ Kamu Grugier-Hill

It was as if Kamu Grugier-Hill had met up with an old friend.

Sometime last Friday afternoon, near the end of one of the Carolina Panthers’ sweltering training camp practices, Grugier-Hill was off on the sideline, kneeling next to newly signed veteran Deion Jones. They were talking, laughing, comparing war stories.

The two linebackers had entered the NFL at the same time and found themselves in the middle of their eighth training camp. Their paths had never crossed, but there was a familiarity there nonetheless.

“Just from playing against each other over the years, in that aspect, yes, we have a lot of mutual friends,” Grugier-Hill said, shedding a smile. “But this is the first time we’re actually getting together, getting to know each other.”

He later added: “It’s cool being around a bunch of veteran guys who have different stories.”

It’s no secret that the Panthers’ linebacking corps is among the most veteran — and, not by coincidence, most interesting — groups on the team. There’s Shaq Thompson, the 2015 draft pick who’s never left Carolina. There’s Frankie Luvu, the 27-year-old linebacker born in American Samoa. Brian Burns, the Panthers’ charismatic star defender, is listed as an outside linebacker in defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero’s new 3-4 scheme, and opposite him is newly acquired 34-year-old Justin Houston.

And amid all that personality and experience, there’s Grugier-Hill.

The 6-foot-2, 230-pound linebacker has proven he can fit in nicely in Carolina, thanks to the huge impression he made on his teammates and coaching staff during training camp this summer. That included recording a training camp-best four interceptions.

Burns called him a “ball hawk.” Head coach Frank Reich said “Kamu’s been making plays all camp — you guys have seen it.” The week before, Thompson told reporters that his 29-year-old teammate was “a silent killer” and that the Carolina defensive staff had “to put him on the field, somehow, someway.”

Grugier-Hill fits into this fun group for another reason, too.

He might have the most interesting path to Carolina of anyone.

Panthers linebacker was a soccer player in Hawaii

Grugier-Hill (pronounced GREW-jay) grew up near Papakolea Beach on O’ahu, the main island of Hawaii. When people ask him what his childhood was like growing up on the island — and it happens all the time — he talks of soccer and big family barbecues and the beach. (He’s not a surfer. Never has been. “My family is, for sure,” said Grugier-Hill, the youngest of four siblings. He then laughed: “They tease me all the time. I’m the land animal out of them.”)

For most of Grugier-Hill’s life, football wasn’t in his plans. Soccer, he said, was his “first true love.” As a freshman in high school, he was a 104-pound striker.

How did he find football?

“My junior year of high school, all of my friends were football players, and they made me want to come out for the team and play and try out my junior year,” he said. “So I did. And I didn’t play at all junior year. My only year of truly playing was senior year.”

One impressive year of high school football, though, was enough to land him a scholarship at FCS power Eastern Illinois, the alma mater of NFL household names Tony Romo, Sean Payton and Mike Shanahan. He made quite the impression there: He recorded 70 tackles and 16.5 tackles for loss his senior year before being taken in the sixth round of the 2016 NFL Draft.

Since entering the league, he’s been all over. He spent his first four years with the Philadelphia Eagles. He won a Super Bowl there and left the NFC East franchise as a starting linebacker in 2020. He’s since served stints with the Miami Dolphins, Houston Texans and Arizona Cardinals — making waves as a versatile defender and a special teams ace at every stop.

You may know him for owning the record for most tackles in a single game in Texans history with 19.

Or you may remember him for… being a fill-in kickoff specialist.

The story behind that: In Week 11 of the 2017 season, after Eagles starting kicker Jake Elliott sustained a concussion on the opening kickoff, special teams coordinator Dave Fipp called on the linebacker and former soccer player to fill in. Grugier-Hill nailed his first kick to the goal line — after reportedly missing the kicking net entirely on his first practice attempt — and caused a touchback on his second try.

“Ended up alright,” Grugier-Hill recalled of that game with a wink. (Justin Reid, who Grugier-Hill played with in Houston, got the chance to kick a field goal in Kansas City last season. Grugier-Hill shot his old teammate a text as soon as he found out: “I was jealous of him,” Grugier-Hill said with a smile. “He made it too.”)

Becoming a veteran leader in Carolina

Now Grugier-Hill finds himself in Carolina — with a versatile veteran’s stat-line of 282 tackles and two interceptions to his name.

He also has a veteran’s perspective.

“Guys like Shaq and Deion, they’ve been starters and big-name guys in this league for a long time now, right?” Grugier-Hill said. “They’ve got big contracts, and they’ve been great players and great linebackers in this league.

“And I’ve had the more typical journey — of being a special teams/role player and all this stuff. Going team to team, going into Year 8 and stuff. So I’m just kind of teaching them how they can be successful in that right.”

Grugier-Hill admitted that if he could go back and give his younger self some advice, it would be to not resist “what I was naturally good at” in an effort of “trying to chase” something — uprooting his life every so often in pursuit of a starting linebacker role.

“Not everyone can be starters,” he continued. “There are only 32 teams. Obviously that’s the goal, but you can still handle your business, and that’s something I wish I did earlier in my career.

“I was really just letting go of what I was naturally good at and trying to chase something that was out of your hands, right? So I’m trying to tell these guys that you can make a lot of money in this league and be very successful in being a role player and just impacting the team.”

He’s certainly making an impact.

On the last live play of practice on Wednesday, Grugier-Hill punctuated his great camp by picking off Jets backup quarterback Zach Wilson.

His young and old teammates then mobbed him in the middle of the field, smiling and dancing and jumping around him — embracing the veteran who can fit in anywhere.