Early Years
Ngata, of Tongan ancestry, was born in Inglewood, California. He attended Highland High School in Salt Lake City, Utah and was a three-year starter on the defensive line. As a senior, he recorded over 100 tackles and led his team to the state quarterfinals, following a 12-2 record and a berth in the State Championship as a junior. Ngata was named the 2001 Utah Gatorade Player of the Year and a first-team USA Today All-USA selection. He played in the 2002 U.S. Army All-American Bowl.
Ngata was listed as a five-star recruit and the No. 2 overall prospect in the nation by Rivals.com. He chose Oregon over BYU, Nebraska, Texas A&M, and Washington.
Ngata also played rugby in high school, and helped lead the Highland Rugby Club to the National Rugby Championship. He was red carded in the championship match.
Read more about this topic: Haloti Ngata
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