Maiava enjoys the hunt -- on and off the field

05.02.2009

So, you like a linebacker with a little aggression, a guy who loves the chase but really thrives on what happens when that chase is completed?

You might love Kaluka Maiava.

When Browns coach Eric Mangini visited USC in late March, he had the opportunity to talk individually with each of the school's highly-touted draft picks. They talked about schemes, about schoolwork, about the NFL.

And about hunting.

Well, not every conversation got all the way to hunting. But something Maiava said in his meeting stuck with Mangini. And now that Maiava is here in Cleveland as the Browns' fourth-round draft pick, Mangini recommended Maiava's hunting story Saturday as pretty unique.

"He doesn't believe in guns," Mangini said. "He thinks that's cheating."

Maiava said he's hunted wild boar in the mountains of his native Maui since he was a teenager. He said he's done it by chasing them down and using a knife - "about that long," he said, holding his hands six inches apart - to make the kill.

There are linebacker drills. And then there's that...linebacker drill?

"(Mangini) asked me what I did in my spare time away from football, and I told him either surfing or hunting," Maiava said. "He asked what I hunted and what kind of gun I used, and I told him that's cheating.

"Anybody can shoot something. It takes the fun out of it. It's the rush to chase something and tackle it, just like football."

He compared the chase to playing on the kickoff team - "just chase him down" - and said the boar "can really move."

"Every time I go I'm nervous," he said. "Sometimes I run into a big one; they've got tusks that can hurt you. Then you see it and chase it down."

Maiava said when a boar is killed, the youngest hunter of the group is assigned the task of carrying it home - on his back.

"When it was my turn, I got lucky," Maiava said. "It was a small one, probably only 150 pounds."

After the hunt, Maiava said, the catch becomes dinner.

"It tastes like chicken," he said. "It's good eating."