How One Honolulu High School Created the Next Brand of Steelers
Two of the Pittsburgh Steelers young players come from the same school in Honolulu, Hawaii. Here's how it shaped them and their journey.
HONOLULU — It’s May 21, 2024. Pittsburgh Steelers players Nick Herbig and Roman Wilson are taking the field for the team’s first OTA practice. Players in an NFL locker room come from different places and football upbringings that shape them, but Herbig and Wilson have been intertwined since high school. Their journeys as players and young men from Hawai’i shaped them into becoming the NFL players they are now.
Located in the Saint Louis Heights neighborhood of Honolulu, at the foothills of the Ko’olau Mountains, the Saint Louis School hosts some of Hawaii’s brightest football stars. Tua Tagovailoa and Marcus Mariota donned the Navy and Red. This is where Herbig and Wilson’s journeys became intertwined in 2016. Both players did not live on O’ahu, the island where Honolulu is located.
Herbig is a native of Kalaheo, Kaua’i, and Wilson is from Kihei, Maui. Herbig and Wilson excelled in football from a young age, but to become noticed by major mainland programs meant playing on O’ahu, where major Hawaiian high school football is played. Herbig’s older brother, Nate, had already charted that journey from Kaua’i to Honolulu before him, landing a scholarship to play at Stanford.
Herbig and Wilson did not choose to play any random school. They played for legendary Hawaiian high school coach Cal Lee. Lee coached players such as Olin Kruetz, Timmy Chang, Chris Fuamatu-Maʻafala, Dominic Raiola, and others. Over his years with the Crusaders, Lee won the inaugural state title game in 1999, and by the end of his career, it had ballooned to 14 state titles.
Sacrifice is a prerequisite for making a dream come true in Hawai’i, especially for players like Herbig and Wilson, who were not from O’ahu. And sacrifice they did. Herbig and Wilson uprooted their lives from Kaua’i and Maui to O’ahu. Herbig moved full-time from Kaua’i to Honolulu to attend the Saint Louis School.
But Wilson’s journey is not as straightforward. He would wake up at 4 a.m. each day to head to the airport to catch a flight to Honolulu. Wilson would attend classes, practice, and see a flight back to Maui in the evening. Sometimes, instead of catching a flight back to Maui, he would couch-hop for days, sleeping on couches from friends from school. For someone trying to make it to the top programs in America, Wilson endured a grueling schedule in high school.
“When you do things like that, you grow up fast,” Wilson said. “I would couch hop with friends or catch a late flight back to Maui. You have to grow up fast in situations like that. I definitely did.”
After a month, Wilson and his family knew the plan would be tenable if he wanted to reach his maximum football goals. With the help of some friends who gave him a place to stay temporarily, Wilson’s dad was able to purchase a small apartment that Wilson could stay in throughout the rest of the season. But even still, a lengthy bus ride of up to two hours accompanied Wilson’s trips to accomplish his dream.
But the Saint Louis School was a proven talent developer. Wilson decided the sacrifice was worth it if he wanted to make it to a significant program.
“I had to learn how to survive,” Wilson said. “You think about it: I had to make sure I got everywhere on time, learned how to get food, stayed on top of my schoolwork, and found extra time to get work in on the field. It taught me to be independent. It was me and my support system, but really, it was me for most of that time.”
So did Herbig, who remained away from his family on a different island. Meanwhile, Herbig and Wilson started to become close during practice. It did not take long for those two to develop a bond that would remain forged throughout their college experiences. When they met at their first summer practice in 2016, both knew the other would be something in the future.
“Roman was fast, man,” Herbig said. “That always jumped out to me, his speed. He fit right in. You know, I could tell he had something there.”
Wilson returned the favor with praise towards Herbig.
“I know Nick well from all those days together,” Wilson said. “I’m not surprised we’re both in the NFL now. He’s been different. I just remember he being the type of guy who made an immediate impact. He’s very vocal. Always around everyone, a popular dude who became the leader fo the team. I knew from a young age he was going to make it big. From freshman to senior year, he jumped out as that guy.”
Throughout the years at the Saint Louis School, all Herbig and Wilson did was win. Lee perfected a culture of winning that would lead to fostering success for players such as Wilson and Herbig at the next level. There were no shortcuts to take, and total dedication was required to reach the goal of another state championship.
Full buy-in became a necessary motto. Wilson and Herbig, amongst a crowd of others, would go out of their way to get in extra training to take their game to the next level. However, with that standard set at such a young age, Herbig and Wilson became wired differently before ever playing in the NCAA.
“Man, all we ever did was win,” Herbig said. “When that’s all you do, it wires you differently. It sets a standard you always want to reach. I say we played for the greatest high school on Earth, the Saint Louis School. We could beat anyone. Coming from that culture, stepping up to college, and now in the league, all you’re trying to do is win. That’s all on or off the field, you’re trying to win in life. I always credit our coach, Cal Lee. He won about 20 championships. He’s always that hard, tough mentality that we’re going to win. It doesn’t matter what we did. We were going to come out with a win.”
Teams from the mainland kept watchful eyes on the Saint Louis School, which had produced so much talent in the past. However, to get noticed by programs nationwide, players had to attend camps in California, Arizona, Nevada, and elsewhere. With no regional camps set up in Hawaii, that meant another obstacle for players like Herbig and Wilson to overcome. Wilson would run a 4.37 40-yard dash before his senior season in the summer of 2019. Both players were impressed, and the offers came rolling in.
“There are no camps that happen in Hawaii, really,” Wilson said. “I think just about everything I did at camps happened in California or one of those states over there. It’s just another thing you had to do if you were from Hawaii.”
The Saint Louis School established two critical mindsets in Herbig and Wilson. One is that they were willing to do whatever it took to win, and that mentality to go above and beyond each week was instilled in them from a young age. Second, they were willing to do things many others would not do. It created a storm that would lead Herbig and Wilson to become standouts in the Big 10. Herbig committed to Wisconsin, while Wilson decided to head to Michigan.
Those schools are in the heart of the Steelers’ scouting territory. So, in some respects, it’s no surprise they came on Pittsburgh’s radar during the draft process. But before Wisconsin and Michigan gave them a taste of what college football and the NFL would be like, it all circled back to one high school in Honolulu.
“You have to understand, we were around two Hall of Fame Hawaiian coaches,” Wilson said. “They taught me the ropes of football. You know, they taught me what it would take to reach here. Those guys taught me how to prepare for games, how to practice, handle business, stay out of trouble, and things like that. When you already win in high school, you know what it takes to win in college. I emulated that. Really, I just build on that. It helped me understand higher levels before I ever got there.”
Going to Wisconsin and Michigan is a step for any player, let alone players from Hawaii. But it’s the type of sacrifice and leaps that Herbig and Wilson were taught to make to maximize their career at the Saint Louis School. Going halfway across the conventional United States seems daunting, but both players were independent, mature players who knew what it took to reach the sport’s apex.
“You look at us, we took a leap going halfway across the map,” Herbig said. “Going to the Big 10, we knew we would fit in. It’s going out there against anyone, it don’t matter. We knew we were the type of guys to come out on top.”
Five Hawaiians are on the Steelers 2024 roster: the Herbig brothers, Wilson, Breiden Fehoko, and Isaac Seumalo. All five of those guys have a bond, knowing they came from the same islands in the middle of the ocean. That might be strange enough. But are they having three players from the same high school? Is that a coincidence? Mike Tomlin did not have anyone scouting the Saint Louis School, but the leap to head to the Big Ten put Wilson and Herbig on the team’s radar.
“I don’t remember that. But no, we weren’t in Hawai’i. But we were in Ann Arbor, and there were reasons to be in Ann Arbor,” Tomlin said.
The culture at the Saint Louis School fosters the exact type of players and mentality that the Steelers would want on their team. So, maybe it should not be surprising that Herbig and Wilson are playing on the same NFL team in Pittsburgh after being high school teammates. Yet, one NFL team drafting two players from the same high school in Honolulu in back-to-back years is a crazy coincidence, and even Wilson would not have believed it if you told him.
“Oh man, I never thought I would be on the same team as him in the NFL.”