Big Cinco, Big Dave and Big Faith: A deeper look at Clemson quarterback DJ Uiagalelei
D.J. Uiagalelei struts across Death Valley with West Coast swagger. Through silver headphones, he honors the late California rapper Nipsey Hussle. Two thick gold chains dangle over his No. 5 Clemson jersey. One of them is a cross.
The other reads: “BIG 5INCO.”
Big Cinco is a star. At least he carries himself like one. People talk about him as though he is one. In the same breath, offensive coordinator Tony Elliott said Oct. 31 that Uiagalelei possessed the poise of Deshaun Watson, the back-foot throwing ability of Patrick Mahomes and the arm strength of Trevor Lawrence.
Uiagalelei is only 19 years old. A true freshman. Before last Saturday, he had only attempted 19 passes at the collegiate level. He didn’t even know he’d be starting against Boston College until sometime around 12:45 p.m. the Thursday prior.
Uiagalelei was sitting in the quarterbacks room that Thursday, watching film. When head coach Dabo Swinney stepped in the room and closed the door, the young quarterback initially thought he was in trouble. “I was like, ‘Damn, what did I do?’” he said, laughing. “Did I like a picture on Twitter that I wasn’t supposed to like? Did I tweet something wrong?”
Instead, Swinney told Uiagalelei that Lawrence had tested positive for COVID-19 and wouldn’t be able to play. The freshman was stunned.
A mere 48 hours later, Uiagalelei threw for 342 yards and two touchdowns, ran for a 30-yard touchdown and spearheaded the largest comeback victory in Memorial Stadium history. Teammates and coaches marveled at the freshman’s level-headed demeanor as he filled in for the college game’s most decorated quarterback, on short notice, with the team’s perfect record on the line. The Tigers overcame an 18-point deficit to defeat the Eagles, 34-28, and Uiagalelei was announced as the starter for at least one more week.
“He’s just like this all the time,” said Swinney, tracing a flat, steady line through the air with his hands. “Maybe he’s like a duck on a pond. Maybe his feet are running a hundred miles per hour under water. I don’t know. But he’s just like that (straight line) all the time. He’s very, very calm.”
The expectations couldn’t have been higher. Uiagalelei isn’t an unknown commodity. He has been on the football radar for quite some time, drawing five Division I offers as an eighth-grader growing up in Inland Empire, California.
He came to Clemson as one of the most highly sought-after quarterback recruits in the country after starring at St. John Bosco and appearing in Netflix’s “QB1: Beyond the Lights” documentary series. Clemson fans and football pundits alike have already envisioned a future in which he follows in the footsteps of Watson and Lawrence to elite status.
But that future arrived early — and unexpectedly — at a crucial point in Clemson’s season with pivotal games against a tough Boston College club and a Notre Dame powerhouse. The Tigers’ star-in-waiting has suddenly had to become Clemson’s star of the present. He had intended to spend this season in the background, as Lawrence’s understudy. Now, he’s been thrust on the main stage.
What separates Uiagalelei, beyond the 6-foot-4, 250-pound quarterback’s physical talents, is his mature mindset and his unflappable composure. Wide receiver Amari Rodgers jokes “he’s literally like a California guy” with his laid-back vibe and persistent positivity. He has an uncanny ability to remain focused on the present moment.
There’s a certain joy that comes across in Uiagalelei’s game, in the way he finds his parents in the crowd for pre-game hugs, in his personalized gold chains. There’s a pride, too, in the massive “Uiagalelei” tattoo on his right forearm, adorned with Samoan symbols, that can be seen by opponents every time he throws a ball.
When he woke up on game day against Boston College, he said he didn’t think about the fact that he had to fill Lawrence’s shoes. He just thought, “Damn, I’m about to start my first game in college.” And after the game was over, after he led the Tigers to a historic comeback win as a true freshman, he wasn’t harping on the text he got from his childhood hero Reggie Bush, or the message he got from the rapper Quavo, from Migos.
The most special moment from his first start as a Tiger?
“Just to see my parents here and see my mom jumping up and down and during the game,” Uiagalelei said. “To see my dad, he probably didn’t sit down the whole game. Just probably seeing the happiness for my parents. I think that was probably the biggest thing.”
That’s what separates Uiagalelei, what allows him to withstand the pressure. He plays for deeper reasons — for faith, for love and for the Uiagalelei name.
BIG DAVE
Uiagalelei was right. His dad did stand for the entire Boston College game. Everyone saw him. ABC cameras frequently zoomed in on the 6-foot-4, 380-pound man in the stands, blocking the views of the few fans behind him.
Google searches skyrocketed as the broadcast noted that Dave Uiagalelei, nicknamed “Big Dave,” had worked as a bodyguard for stars like Rihanna, Chris Brown, D.J. Khaled and Meek Mill. At one point, Dave received a phone call from his sister: “Big Dave, why are you all over the TV?” she said. “They’re showing you more than your son. What the heck?”
Par for the course.
Big Dave is an unapologetic extrovert who believes in expressing love and calling complete strangers “brother.” Like many football dads — and fathers in general — he’s a staunch advocate for his son. He’s raved about D.J. so much on Twitter that his son had to block his dad’s account.
Throughout his career as a bodyguard, Dave would always tell the celebrities he worked with about his son and his journey through football — hence the texts from Bush and Quavo. Entertainer Nick Cannon visited the Uiagalelei household one time and invited D.J. on his show as he was coming up through high school.
However, Dave left his bodyguard career in 2009 when the travel and distance from D.J., wife Tausha and younger son Matayo became too much for him to bear. He worked multiple jobs — security at a high school, selling mattresses, bodyguard work on the side — just to pay the rent and said there were many times when he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pay it. The family didn’t go on a vacation or even board an airplane until D.J.’s recruiting visits to Oregon and Clemson.
Dave’s hope, for both of his sons, is that they’d lead more prosperous lives than he did, that they’d use their talents to earn a free education. Dave saw something special in D.J. when he was 7 years old, and then D.J. hit a growth spurt, and others started taking notice, too. He wasn’t surprised to see his son develop into a physical specimen. He had the genes. When Dave was younger, he played football and was able to dunk a basketball at 360 pounds. He never took full advantage of his athletic ability. He didn’t want the same to happen to D.J.
Standing in the stands for the Boston College game, watching D.J. thrive on a national stage, Dave and Tausha couldn’t help but be moved to emotion.
“I mean, 400 texts right after the game,” Dave Uiagalelei told The State. “I’m still going through it. A lot of people we’ve talked to have cried. We cried. Because it’s just — it’s just so amazing what’s happening to him. Because this is his dream. This is all for him. Not for me. Not for anyone else. So we’re all just crying with joy and just so happy for him. He’s just a good kid.”
Compared to his hyper-social father, D.J. takes much more after his mother, Tausha, and her low-key personality. He’s just as content spending a night inside playing video games as he is going out. He says he doesn’t enjoy the media attention as much as his father does, which is why he muted his father’s social media account and all of the stories he retweets. He finds those links distracting.
But make no mistake, D.J. does have some of his father in him. While not quite as extroverted, D.J. certainly isn’t shy. He exudes a quiet confidence and a genuine, sincere charisma that makes teammates love to joke around with him. They’ve also given him a multitude of nicknames beyond “Big Cinco.” Wide receiver Cornell Powell says he calls him “Money Man.”
While not obsessed with it, D.J. does care about his image. He absorbed something from the thousands of hours his father spent around celebrities. D.J. used the stipend money he received from Clemson to buy his “BIG 5INCO” chain.
He grew up loving West Coast rap, artists like Mozzy and Hussle. He was especially drawn to Hussle, whose murder in 2019 stunned Los Angeles. Many in the community saw Hussle as a hero, someone who gave back to his neighborhood through activism and business ventures.
The West Coast aesthetic is prominent in Uiagalelei’s look. He said it’s important to him to represent his culture, and there’s also some Hussle swagger in his mindset. He’s self aware enough to know that he has a powerful platform, and his father said he knows D.J. has at least thought about branding and domain names and future plans for his career.
Dave said he first noticed an entrepreneurial spirit in D.J. when he started selling chips to his classmates and making a daily profit as an eighth-grader.
“That entrepreneurship started within him at eighth grade. That’s what kicked it off. That’s the whole reason why he likes Nipsey,” Dave said. “Hussle was a businessman first, and I don’t know if you ever heard his lyrics, but he’s always trying to build in his neighborhood. And it attracted D.J.
“Like, D.J.’s from Inland Empire. He loves Inland Empire. And I know D.J. probably one day wants to come back and build an empire.”
BIG FAITH FOR UIAGALELEI
In the same way that D.J. Uiagalelei wears his West Coast culture and Samoan heritage in his gold chains and tattoos, he wears his faith in his wristbands.
His younger cousin Leah gave him the bands for his most recent birthday, and he hasn’t taken them off. Each represents a different Bible verse. There’s Jeremiah 33:3, Philippians 4:14, Ephesians 6:10, and the last is Romans 12:2, which reads: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
That last verse is especially apt for Uiagalelei’s journey. He did not conform. When he could’ve had the choice to start at nearly any Division I school, he chose to be Lawrence’s backup at Clemson.
“Whatever the depth chart looked like, I was looking at a college that was gonna help me grow as a person,” Uiagalelei said.
Faith is the force that binds the Uiagalelei family — a key component of their Polynesian heritage. Dave said D.J. was drawn to Christianity at a young age, and at times he’s even given his father spiritual advice, telling him the only opinion that matters is God’s.
Uiagalelei insisted throughout his recruitment that he wanted to find a program that strengthened his faith, and he found it in Swinney and the Tigers. As soon as he visited Clemson, he told his parents that he felt the Holy Spirit come over him. He had a gut feeling that Clemson was where he needed to go to school, and even more, that it was the place where he was supposed to be.
Dave had that same feeling, months later, when he took D.J. on a recruiting trip to attend Clemson’s rivalry game with South Carolina. As Dave and D.J. approached the facility, hundreds of fans lined up for Uiagalelei’s autograph.
Soon the crowd grew bigger, then bigger, then Big Dave’s bodyguard instincts triggered. He swooped in and grabbed D.J. by the arm, pulling him away from the mob of excited Tigers fans collapsing in on him.
“It kind of tripped me out,” Dave Uiagalelei said. “Because here I am working for a lot of these celebrities, protecting them, watching them and working them through the crowd and stuff like that.
“And then, now, here I am working for my son.”
That’s what happens when your son is Big Cinco.
This story was originally published November 7, 2020 at 1:02 PM with the headline "Big Cinco, Big Dave and Big Faith: A deeper look at Clemson quarterback DJ Uiagalelei."
