Panthers rookie linebacker Eku Leota finding his footing: ‘Now, I’m just being myself’

Eku Leota experienced a sense of déjà vu during the Carolina Panthers’ preseason matchup against the New York Jets on Saturday.

The very first NFL game the rookie linebacker attended when he was a kid — he estimates he was 9 or 10 —was also a preseason showdown between the Panthers and Jets. Leota remembers sitting in the nosebleeds, staring down at the field that would someday become his future workplace.

On Saturday, he stood on the field as family and friends from Asheville, N.C., looked upon him in the same manner.

“It’s been nice to play for the home team,” Leota said. “It’s nice having faces here that helped me grow into the person that I am today watching this.”

Though it may be his home state team, Leota didn’t grow up a Panthers fan. He has aunts from Boston who gave him his first football, which he slept with, and their influence coupled by the team’s dominance in the late 2000s and 2010s made Leota fond of the Patriots.

Born in Samoa, he and his family moved to Asheville in 2007. He grew up playing football with his brothers, Pika Leota and Tamatoa McDonough. Pika, the oldest of the three, played at South Carolina and Benedictine College. McDonough, the youngest, is a junior on the Yale football team.

“We used it to our advantage to pay for school,” Eku said. “It’s just nice to have been a role model for my little brother, just trying to show him the way as well. It hits different …coming from (Samoa), just having this opportunity, you can’t take it for granted.”

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Eku was a three-star prospect coming out of Asheville High School and committed to Northwestern in March 2017, the spring before his freshman year. In his last season with the Wildcats in 2020, he had 13 total tackles and four sacks on his way to a Big Ten third team selection.

He transferred to Auburn for the remainder of his college career. There, Eku accumulated 40 total tackles — 15 for losses and nine sacks — before a season-ending pectoral injury sidelined him five games into the 2022 season. The game on Saturday was the first time Eku has seen real competition since.

“I was definitely a little nervous at first, but after you get a couple plays in, it’s just football,” Eku said. “You trust what you’ve done your whole life. At the end of the day, you can’t over complicate it. It definitely felt good to be back out there.”

One thing he said he regrets from his college days is not representing his Samoan culture as much as he could have. Since joining the Panthers as an undrafted free agent in late April, he has grown close to fellow linebacker Frankie Luvu, who openly embraces his Samoan roots. Becoming friends with Luvu has shown Eku how he can become more of a role model for kids in Samoa, an island in the South Pacific Ocean, about 2,500 miles south of Hawaii.

Growing up in North Carolina and then receiving an education in Chicago and Alabama, Eku felt like he needed to “fit the mold of what was around (him)“ rather than embrace his background. That wasn’t the case when he performed the Haka — a ceremonial Māori war dance made famous by the New Zealand rugby team — in front of the entire team during a rookie talent show at training camp in Spartanburg.

Luvu joined in at the end.

“It was just powerful, it’s nice having him as a teammate for sure,” Eku said. “Trying to channel that energy and just having him out there, it’s just awesome.”

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Eku’s goal is to be disruptive as a member of the Panthers’ secondary. He still has three more preseason games to prove his abilities are worthy of a regular season roster spot.

Since he’s been in Charlotte, he’s discovered the most productive way to play his game and best represent his culture and family:

“Now, I’m just being myself,” Eku said. “That’s what these coaches are telling me, be myself and play loose. That’s what I’m trying to do.”