Personal
Ellison is part Māori. At eight, Ellison moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with his father, Dan, who went on to become an economic advisor to the United Nations. Shortly thereafter, Riki's parents divorced and he relocated with his mother to Los Angeles, where she remarried Dennis Gray. Ellison went to high school in Tucson, AZ. The Ellison family comes from a strong sporting background, he is related to professional Rugby players Tamati Ellison and Jacob Ellison who both played in Super Rugby, Tamati now playing in Japan and Thomas Ellison who became one of the original All Blacks and the first Maori lawyer.
In 1992, Ellison relocated his family to New Zealand and attempted to bring a college bowl game called the Haka Bowl to New Zealand.
In 2001, while working for Lockheed Martin in Washington, DC, Riki was named the Head Coach of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. This is the same high school that was portrayed in Remember The Titans. He did this without pay. As he said it was all about "helping kids".
Ellison's son, Rhett, was selected by the Minnesotta Vikings with their second fourth round pick of the 2012 NFL draft.
Read more about this topic: Riki Ellison
Famous quotes containing the word personal:
“Wilson adventured for the whole of the human race. Not as a servant, but as a champion. So pure was this motive, so unflecked with anything that his worst enemies could find, except the mildest and most excusable, a personal vanity, practically the minimum to be human, that in a sense his adventure is that of humanity itself. In Wilson, the whole of mankind breaks camp, sets out from home and wrestles with the universe and its gods.”
—William Bolitho (1890–1930)
“Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)