Polite comes back home to guide others in ‘ Life’
Lousaka Polite stroked his beard and shook his head as his best friend, former Pitt teammate Penny Semaia, pulled a customized Chicago Bears jersey out from behind a Petersen Events Center office door.
The number? Thirty- nine. The name on the back? Polite.
“Out of all the teams, he pulls out the one where I had the shortest stint and the least impact,” Polite, a former Pitt fullback said, unable to contain a smile. “He wore it to a staff meeting, too. Like, bro, what are you doing?”
Semaia was messing with his old college roommate. But even an attempt to ( slightly) embarrass Polite, head of Pitt athletics’ Life Skills Program, reminded everyone else in the office where Polite, his pal and co- worker, came from.
Polite, a Pitt player from 19992003, played for five NFL teams in a nine- year career. Now, he’s back in Oakland, connecting with Panthers of the past and shaping the futures of current Pitt athletes.
Polite works with Semaia and a team of 10 in the Cathy and John Pelusi Family Life Skills Program, helping run Pitt athletics’ alumni group, the Varsity Letter Club, and guiding current athletes through the department’s Panthers to Pros mentorship program. Polite, a North Braddock native, said his role “aligned perfectly” with what he cared about. He realized that when his phone rang in November 2017.
“Penny gives me a call and says, ‘ Hey man, I think it’s time to come home,’ ” Polite recalled last week. “And he was 100 percent correct. ... I came back home to follow my passion. This is the best situation for me, the best fit. It didn’t even feel weird coming back. This is home.”
When Polite got the call from Semaia, he was in his other home: Miami. After spending three seasons with the Dolphins in the mid- 2000s, the organization brought him in to guide the franchise’s youth programs after his retirement from football. It was in Miami that Polite met his wife, Jasmine, and where the two had their daughter, Luna.
Polite’s wife actually was pregnant when Semaia reached out, which made the decision difficult on the former fullback. But after interviewing for the position in Pittsburgh, Polite decided to join the Panthers Life Skills Program — living in the area during the week and flying to Miami on the weekends.
To Semaia’s excitement, Polite pulled it off.
“When we were expanding
our Life Skills Program to touch our alumni, there was no one else I thought of who could do the job of that magnitude,” said Semaia, Pitt’s senior associate athletic director for student life. “He embodies the best part of the city of Pittsburgh, and that’s the people. He embodies the genuine nature of helping people.”
Added former Pitt football coach Walt Harris: “It was a coup for Pitt to get Lousaka to come back to Pittsburgh. To get a man of his caliber as a student- athlete, as a professional football player and as a professional to work with your new football players, it’s just a tremendous accomplishment.”
Of course, Harris was around for Polite’s playing days. At 72 years old, the eight- year leader of the Panthers can’t recall every game. But he could never forget what happened on Nov. 8, 2003 — one of Polite’s finest moments on the field.
Pitt played host to No. 5ranked Virginia Tech, a team eyeing at least a Bowl Championship Series berth, perhaps more. But the Panthers upset the Hokies thanks to a 70- yard, game- winning touchdown drive in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter. Larry Fitzgerald snagged three passes on that late- game march, but it was Polite who punched in the goahead, 2- yard score.
“I’m not sure we blocked anyone,” Harris said laughing. “But I was extremely excited that he scored because I didn’t want to make the fourth- down call. Somehow, he got in.”
Harris — while nervous about a possible final play — trusted Polite in that moment. He had every reason to, too.
Polite, a Woodland Hills High School standout before donning the blue and gold, was named a captain as a redshirt sophomore, as voted on by his teammates. He reprised that role as a junior and senior, becoming the program’s first three- year captain.
Polite wasn’t expecting that distinction when he arrived on campus. He was just trying to be himself. But when he was thrust into captaincy, he made sure the team felt like “a real family and a brotherhood.”
Polite did that, at least partially, by welcoming teammates over to his house. As an upperclassman, he lived with Semaia and tight end Kris Wilson in a four- bedroom place in North Oakland, just off Melwood Avenue. Polite, Semaia and Wilson had guys over for cookouts and put a mattress in their spare bedroom in case someone needed to crash.
“Our house was always the house, not so much about partying, but about fellowship,” Polite said. “We took that seriously. It was a place to feel like home away from home. ... We took pride in making sure that house represented what we represented, and that’s family.
“Every once in a while I drive past that house just to look at it and reminisce. It’s still there. Full circle, man. Full circle.”
Polite now preaches fellowship and family a mile away, at the Petersen Events Center.
On a daily basis, in- season and in the summer, Polite, Semaia and the Life Skills team field questions and conversations from any number of Pitt’s 475 student- athletes.
Polite said the Life Skills Program is in the “everything else category.” Athletes have academic support for studies and coaches for their respective sports. But Polite handles off- the- field concerns and inquiries about what lies ahead.
“Guys come in here daily, even if it’s just to sit on that couch and talk about life,” Polite said. “What’s going to happen when I’m done? What’s my career look like? How am I preparing for these things? How does my resume look? It’s important that we’re able to meet our studentathletes where they are. That’s our motto. We meet you where you are, find out where you want to go, and we build a plan to get there.”
Polite tells that to recruits and their families, too.
“By the time you leave here, you’re going to know what’s next,” Polite added, eyes wide, leaning forward in his chair. “A lot of schools talk about graduation rate; we don’t talk about that because it’s an expectation. It’s the standard. It’s nothing to brag about. We’re going to talk about placement rate. Do you have a job when you walk out of here? What’s next? We’re pushing the envelope here.”
The Life Skills’ various programs and events back up Polite’s words.
The program can promote its professional etiquette training, a three- part series open to all athletes which, if completed, results in a gift card to purchase formal interview attire. It can advertise its career networking night, in which representatives from 150 local companies meet with Panther athletes in a speed dating setting. And it can boast its Panthers to Pros mentorship program, which pairs current athletes with alumni from the same sport and same field of study, to offer advice and guidance through their college experience.
But an integral part to those programs and events are the people behind them. And those in the Life Skills Program believe Polite’s experience and personality to be invaluable.
Sam Clancy, a Pitt Hall of Fame football and basketball player from 1977- 81 and now the Varsity Letter Club coordinator, said Polite brings “organization, smarts, and he’s someone who cares about us.”
Lisa Auld, a nine- year assistant AD for student life, identified Polite as someone who “measures twice and cuts once.”
“He’s the sit- back, analytical guy who’s steady, calm and wants to get it right,” Auld said. “He has walked the walk and talked the talk. ... It’s motivating to hear him tell the story about getting cut, getting added back to the roster, not leaving a locker room for 24 hours until he learned a playbook. His tenacity, his grit, I hear it when he talks.”
So do Pitt’s athletes, especially Pat Narduzzi’s Panthers.
When football players come and chat with Polite about the future — about Plan A being the NFL — the fullback offers them a dose of reality. Sure, he played nine seasons in the league. He was also cut, waived or released eight times. On any given week, there’s only ever 1,696 active- roster players in the NFL, 53 for 32 teams.
Polite, rattling off those numbers, stopped and chuckled. “What do they say? NFL stands for Not For Long?” The former pro exhaled and gazed out the window.
Polite knew life in the NFL wasn’t going to be forever. He knew he needed a plan in place when teams stopped signing the bruising blocker. That post- football plan — working for the Dolphins, attaining his MBA from Miami, keeping in close contact with those at Pitt — paid off in the form of his current gig.
Now, current Panthers can benefit from the former three- time captain and Woodland Hills star who came back home.
“What I take pride in is using this platform to engage them and help them along the way,” Polite said. “It would be all for naught if I didn’t use what I learned by passing it down to the next crop, the next generation. That’s what we have to do to keep this thing going in the right way.”