Puka Nacua: Rams Minicamp In Maui ‘Feels Like Home’

The Los Angeles Rams did minicamp right this year as they traveled to Maui in Hawaii for a week’s worth of practices.

The trip was extra special to Puka Nacua, who is of Samoan, Hawaiian and Portuguese descent. He clearly enjoyed his time in Maui and discussed what it meant to him, via Stu Jackson of TheRams.com:

“It feels like home,” Nacua said after Tuesday’s practice. “As soon as we got off the plane, the first person, he gave me a big hug and he had a big smile and he’s like, ‘Thank you so much for everyone you do for the Polynesian community.’ That’s how I expected it to be, to have a warm welcome, somebody to hug. I thought he was going to have spam musubi. He didn’t, but it was alright, we got it after.”

Being Samaon, Nacua understandably has a massive fanbase in Hawaii, and he talked about what it meant to him to see all of the fans wearing his jersey:

“I guess it doesn’t feel real,” Nacua said. “I feel like I’m the same age as these little kids. I’m having a blast. It doesn’t feel real sometimes, (that) people are wearing my jersey. But I hope they carry the things that our part of culture, respect, to have the honor and the discipline to represent your family, but also those things that carry and translate directly to football.”

Maui had a devastating wildfire in 2023 that affected the island greatly, similar to what the Rams went through in Los Angeles this past season. Because of that bond, Nacua is hoping the Rams will be back in Maui in the future:

“I think it’s something that we all can relate to,” Nacua said. “It’s something like, being able to understand and have that empathy of like this is a similar situation to what we were in, and I wasn’t directly impacted by the (Los Angeles) fires, but to know the support that you want to give to those people who are going through that issue, and to see how it can change and bring a community closer together in that time, I think our team has felt that.

“And to be able to come back and give back to these kids and see a smile on their face, and to help make sure they have a good time, is something that I always want to be a part of. I know our team and the Rams organization, being able to come back here, they were saying last night at the luau that they’ve been doing camps and tours here since 1973 and I’m like, ‘I’m glad I was able to be a part of that first time we’ve come back in a little while.’ So hopefully minicamp’s here every year. It’ll be a good vacation for us all.”

Considering the NFL offseason can be long and strenuous, going out to Maui for a week was a great idea by the Rams. As Nacua discussed, it’s reasonable to expect they will be back soon given how successful of a trip this was.

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