2011 Football Coaching Staff Portland State

Legi Suiaunoa
Defensive Line Coach

Phone: (503) 725-5622
Email: lsuiaunoa@pdx.edu
Year: 2nd
Alma Mater: Nevada, 2002

Legi Suiaunoa starts his second year as defensive line coach at Portland State.
   
With an outstanding defensive line recruiting class in 2010 and some veterans up front, Suiaunoa should see a vastly improved unit in 2011. Seniors Carl Sommer, Alika Vaiese and Jack Forbes, and junior Dereck Jester will blend with sophomores Julious Moore and Bryant Long and a handful of redshirt freshmen to form a strong wall. Sommer and Moore were honorable mention All-Big Sky while Moore was selected as the team’s top defensive lineman in 2010.
   
Suiaunoa came to the Vikings after spending the 2009 season as the defensive coordinator at Eastern Oregon. He ran the same 4-3 defense that Portland State will employ this coming season, and has also worked with it in past stops at Western Washington and Nevada.
   
While at Portland State, Suiaunoa’s recruiting areas are Oregon’s Pacific, Mid-Willamette, Val-Co, PacWest and Three-River Leagues, as well as south Los Angeles, Hawai’i and Samoa.
   
“Legi brings experience as a defensive line coach in this system previously, but also as a coordinator in this system. He’ll be able to offer a unique perspective since he has already coached it and coordinated it,” said Burton.
   
“He has coached defensive line, linebackers and secondary. He has recruited up and down the west coast from San Diego to Los Angeles to Hawai’i to the state of Washington. Legi is a very valuable addition to this staff.”
   
Suiaunoa has eight years of coaching experience following a playing career as a linebacker at the University of Nevada. Prior to working at EOU, he was a defensive line coach at Western Washington for four seasons. Suiaunoa was a graduate assistant at Nevada in 2004 after spending his first two years coaching linebackers at Palomar Junior College.
   
A native of Oceanside, CA, Suiaunoa won a junior college national championship in 1997 while playing at Palomar. He went on to compete at Nevada from 1998-2001. Suiaunoa earned a degree in General Studies Administration in 2002.

THE LEGI SUIAUNOA FILE
2nd year at Portland State

Hometown: Oceanside, CA
Alma Mater: Nevada, 2002, General Studies Administration
Playing Career: Palomar JC, 1997, Nevada, 1998-2001, linebacker
Date of Birth: November 21, 1978
Family: Wife, Rose; son, Lawrence (1)
Name Pronunciation: LENG-ee SOW-uh-NO-uh

COACHING EXPERIENCE
2010-11    Portland State, Defensive Line
2009         Eastern Oregon, Defensive Coordinator
2005-08    Western Washington, Defensive Line
2004         Nevada, Graduate Assistant
2002-03    Palomar JC, Linebackers