Ikaika Malloe’s coaching journey brings him back to Washington, where he learned ‘how to carry yourself’

There’s blood running down Ikaika Malloe’s face, but he doesn’t care. He continues head-butting his Washington teammates with no helmet on, fearlessly trying to fire them up.

It was 1995, Malloe’s senior season as a linebacker with the Huskies, and freshman Lester Towns stood there thinking, “I love this guy. I’ll run through a wall for this guy.”

Thirty-one years later, Towns would still do that for Malloe, even though Towns is Los Angeles Valley College’s head coach and Malloe is across the country at Penn State. It took one year playing and two coaching together at Portland State from 2012-13 to build that bond.

“He’s a dog,” Towns told The Inquirer. “He’s a fighter. … He’s had my back through and through, and as a teammate, I don’t care what team you’re on, when you got a teammate that has your back the way he does, you’ll fight for that guy, you’ll go harder. And so for me, playing with him, and then working with him, he’s always had my back.”

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Now the Nittany Lions’ defensive line coach, Malloe is set to return to his alma mater on Saturday when Penn State takes on Washington for the fifth time in program history (3:30 p.m., FS1).

Malloe played at Washington from 1992 to 1995, helping lead the program to a share of the Pac-10 title in his final year. The Huskies gave him a chance as a walk-on, and he made the most of it as a safety and linebacker. He even won Washington’s annual Bob Jarvis Most Inspirational Walk-On Award in 1993.

He also learned from legendary coaches. Don James led Washington for 18 seasons and is the program’s the all-time wins leader. Jim Lambright took over as head coach from 1993 to 1998 and led the team to some of its most iconic wins.

“[James and Lambright taught] hard work, discipline, respect, integrity,” Malloe said. “Those guys were very old school, very blue collar. You earned what you got, but at the same time, you know how to carry yourself on and off the field.”

While playing for the Huskies, Malloe was one of many Polynesian players on the team, as Washington recruited Hawaii heavily during that time. There was even a “Poly house,” according to Towns.

“I’m not used to teammates bringing that family culture,” said Towns, a Los Angeles native. “When we first met originally at UW, it was kind of like, ‘Oh wow, this is cool.’ Everybody always went to the Poly house. That’s where it was a chill vibe. Everybody went there. It was like family.”

Family is at the root of Polynesian culture, and Malloe embodies that. When he and Towns reunited at Portland State as coaches, Towns went through a divorce, and Malloe opened his home to his colleague and kids.

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Malloe invited them over for dinner, even offering for them to stay the night. “You’re a part of my family,” he told Towns.

“He’s always been there for me like a guy that I can trust, lean on,” Towns said. “His values as a person, family, his culture, he put it together, and then for me to be a part of it, it was like, ‘Oh my, this is awesome,’ when I’m going through what I’m going through during this time, and it just kind of helped me feel warm.”

Malloe left Portland State after the 2013 season, spending two years as Utah State’s defensive line coach before he got a call from Chris Petersen to return to his alma mater in the same role.

It was a no-brainer of a decision for Malloe, whose love for Washington never left.

“Regardless of what school you went to, for me, University of Washington, you remember all those times that you bled and you sweat for that program, wear [those] colors [that] mean so much to you,” Malloe said. “You still wear them on your sleeves. I still keep them. My best friends came from the University of Washington.”

Malloe excelled with the Huskies, who made the four-team College Football Playoff in 2016 — his first year there — during which he coached defensive tackle Vita Vea, who is one of the top defensive tackles in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

There was a learning curve, however, to compete at the highest level. Malloe said when Washington took the field to face Alabama in the Peach Bowl that postseason, Vea was the only player who was close to the Crimson Tide in size.

“My recruiting has changed because of that,” Malloe said. “It really shocked me, like, ‘Oh my God, there’s a bunch of them.’ We got one, the only guy. Everybody else, we look [small] compared to this team. So we went back on the chalkboard. We tried to figure out how do we recruit — how do we get to that level?”

Malloe learned another lesson a year later when Eagles running back Saquon Barkley ran for 137 yards and two touchdowns in the Nittany Lions’ 35-28 win over the Huskies in the 2017 Fiesta Bowl.

That moment has come full circle, with Malloe teaching his players at Penn State the same technique he developed after watching his players struggle to bring down Barkley.

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“My teaching in terms of tackling today is because of Saquon Barkley,” Malloe said. “I’m going to respectfully say that his thighs are probably as big as my head, and things that you taught in terms of tackling, you’re watching these are NFL players bouncing off him. I started to try to think like how, if we run into a running back like that again, what could we do? He really tweaked my mind in terms of how I teach tackling.”

Regardless of any outcome, Malloe is the same guy. He wears his Hawaiian gear every “Aloha Friday.” He and his players will also wear “Ohana” shirts.

“Always a very positive person,” said Chris Strausser, Washington’s offensive line coach from 2014 to 2016. “[He’s] one of those guys you know what you’re going to get. He doesn’t show up a different person every day, which sometimes a lot of coaches do based on how the flow of the season’s going. But he’s always got great energy and shows up and is very infectious in terms of how he affects those around him.”

Even though Malloe is on the East Coast for the second time in his long coaching career, he still holds true to his Polynesian traditions. He posts on X to wish his followers a happy “Aloha Friday” and his players have bought into him and his culture.

They grew close this offseason after he opened up and shared his “darkest secrets and desires.” Each player did the same.

It’s why 2025 first-round pick Laiatu Latu has spoken at length about Malloe being a father figure to him, and it’s why a few of his players from UCLA followed him across the country to Penn State this offseason.

“That’s the OG,” said defensive tackle Siale Taupaki, who came with Malloe from the Bruins. “He’s seen my flaws outside of football, and he understood why I had to do the certain things I had to do, and for him to rip me back in and tell me ‘There’s certain things that you got to do within your game to stay here.’ Everybody was talking to him like a coach. I was talking to him like a dad.”