Just about every summer time, Penei Sewell’s dad, Gabriel, assists operate the All Poly Soccer Camp at Ollin Athletics in Houston. The camp, which consists of grueling 12-hour exercise routines targeted at O-linemen and D-linemen, is primarily led by coaches (and attended by gamers) of Polynesian descent.

That’s the same facility at which Lions offensive lineman Halapoulivaati Vaitai functions during the offseason. So, final 12 months, Gabriel called up Vaitai to see if he’d be eager to pitch in with the camp. “Then he tells me that he has sons enjoying at Utah and Oregon,” Vaitai recollects. “I was like, ‘Oh, your son is Penei? Like, the greatest-rated tackle in faculty?’”

Following the camp finished, Vaitai (whose dad and mom are Tongan) and Gabriel Sewell (who’s from American Samoa) were just hanging out, chatting. And Sewell told Vaitai, “It’d be really awesome if my son arrived to Detroit.”

Skip forward to April 29, 2021. With the No. 7 decide on, the Lions did, indeed, select Penei Sewell. The very first text he received congratulating him came from Vaitai, his new teammate.

The pair — Sewell, the 21-yr-outdated rookie Vaitai, the 28-calendar year-old veteran — sat down with The Athletic before this thirty day period to talk about that second, their do the job on the proper side of the Lions’ line and the friendship that is designed amongst them.

(The dialogue has been flippantly edited for content material and length.)

Do you remember what you texted him all through the draft?

Vaitai: “I’m tremendous fired up to get the job done with you this period.” Tremendous thrilled for, specially, his family members to arrive down and see what NFL lifestyle was like.