GoVols247’s Wes Rucker went to Anderson Training Center to sit down for an exclusive one-on-one interview with Tennessee senior inside linebacker Daniel Bituli — an impressive football player with an even-more-impressive story off the field.

Bituli and his family have have a remarkable couple of decades. Just 20 years ago, the Bituli’s had to flee their native Congo as refugees from the war-torn African region, and they spent time at a refugee camp in Cameroon before successfully petitioning their way to the United States of America. They didn’t speak the native language and lived in a tent and then a small apartment before getting their first American home with help from Habitat for Humanity. To say the least, it was a humbling transition for a family led by a father who’d been a mechanical engineer and a mother who also had a stable job as a secretary. 

Just 20 years after that, the Bituli children are thriving. Their oldest son, Randy, is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University who serves as an active member of the U.S. Navy and is stationed in California. Their middle son, Roland, is a University of Tennessee graduate who works as a financial adviser for Merrill Lynch. Their youngest son, Daniel, is a soon-to-be University of Tennessee graduate who has become one of college football’s best inside linebackers and almost certainly will be an NFL player in a few months. Their two youngest children, a pair of daughters, also have bright futures ahead of them — even though Daniel says with a grin that his youngest sister, the only Bituli child born in the U.S., has always been a little “spoiled.”

Bituli’s life before he arrived at the University of Tennessee was fascinating — remember, this is a young man who admittedly looks at the ceiling every night before falling asleep and considers himself blessed to have a roof over his head — but his life at the University of Tennessee has had its own intrigue. Bituli has dealt with coaching changes, injuries and more losses than he ever imagined, but he’s emerged from all of that a better player and person, and he’s dragged plenty of his teammates along with him.

In other words, Bituli is someone worth listening to when he decides to speak. His teammates certainly listen to him, and it’s easy to understand their reasons for doing that. He’s a maniac on the field, but he’s a soft-spoken, bespectacled, introspective person when he’s not wearing shoulder pads. And he can speak to you in three languages, too. So he’s got that going for him, which is nice.

The next GoVols247 Podcast episode will be released Thursday morning, unless breaking news occurs before that point.